User talk:Jimbo Wales

2nd RfC: The Daily Mail

The latest Daily Mail RfC is about to close. If anyone reading this has input on this, now is the time to participate in the RfC.

See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#2nd RfC: The Daily Mail. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:47, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Its a waste of time, imo. this and this show that, at least, DM has not perpetuated as much war mongering propaganda as some of our most "reliable" sources.

But, DM gets the boot, imo, because its branding and P.R. is not so good. Branding is 95% of opinion setting for people in general, maybe only 65% for Editors, "perception is reality" and all that. and 65% is more than enough to "No" that Rfc. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:47, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Just now reading the Times "apology"? I see this: "It is still possible that chemical or biological weapons will be unearthed in Iraq, but in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in. And until now we have not reported that to our readers."

The arrogance of assuming the administration was well-intentioned and just "taken in" like a hapless victim shows the utter "mouthpiece" nature of the Times, at least at that time. Especially now that General Wesley Clark has blown the whistle showing that same administration within 2 weeks of 9/11 was already pre-determinedto invade Iraq (and multiple other countries). We need a panel, maybe even an existing panel like ArbCom, to do annual assessments of all the major/most used reliable sources to see if they can qualify as reliable or not. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:04, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure how showing NYT has engaged in warmongering shows that DM doesn't. Daß Wölf 18:23, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

All completely valid points (and I might add I am personally disgusted by anyone -- politician or newspaperman -- putting out false evidence of WMDs in order to justify an invasion that has already been decided on), but they do not change the fact that The Daily Mail fabricates direct quotes and entire interviews that never happened and cuts and pastes articles from lesser known publications, adding a few false facts to make the story better clickbait, and publishes the resulting copyright violation under their own byline as if they wrote it instead of plagiarizing it.[1][2] --Guy Macon (talk) 22:06, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

There are numerous examples of mainstream publications putting out stories that turned out to be fabricated and were either retracted or resulted in a finding by a journalism standards board. The first thing your first source mentions is a retraction of the "MailOnline" (not the Daily Mail btw) retracting a false story about George Clooney soon after it was published. Why do you think it is less serious than consistently publishing articles designed to help the U.S. government get approval for invading Iraq? Or should we forget the NY Times on that because the opportunity of the Iraq war justified any means of supporting it? TFD (talk) 22:50, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

If you believe that The New York Times fabricates direct quotes and entire interviews that never happened, or that it cuts and pastes articles from lesser known publications, adds a few false facts to make the story better clickbait, and publishes the resulting copyright violation under their own byline as if they wrote it instead of plagiarizing it, please put together a list of citations so that the rest of us can evaluate the evidence and post your evidence on the reliable sources noticeboard. If you can prove your case, the NYT will no longer be able to be used as a source on Wikipedia.

But please, don't act as if two wrongs make a right, and please don't stuff words in my mouth. If you want my opinion about what is "less serious", post your evidence so that I can compare it with the overwhelming evidence that The Daily Mail is not a reliable source, and then please ask me what my opinion is rather than telling me what my opinion is. As it turns out, you are really bad at mind reading. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:17, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

There was the Jayson Blair#Plagiarism and fabrication scandal case at the New York Times and similar cases at other publications outlined in the Journalism scandals article. It's a strawman argument that anyone would remove the NYT from the list of reliable sources, since it is one of the world's most reliable newspapers. And they are reliable, like the Daily Mail, because their reporting is overwhelmingly accurate, they employ professional journalists, have editorial oversight, correct mistakes, are subject to an independent complaint process and their investigative reporting is routinely reported in other mainstream publications.

You have not explained why you believe publishing false information in order to promote a war is less reprehensible than publishing information about a celebrity. (One example of this is outlined at Judith Miller#The Iraq War. I had assumed you were aware of it.)

TFD (talk) 07:22, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

And you have not explained why you believe that eating babies is less reprehensible than eating apples. I don't have to subject myself to you stuffing words in my mouth, and such behavior is unacceptable, so this is my final response to you. You can reply if you wish, but I won't read it. Wikipedia really needs a killfile, but until we get one, I find it to be rather easy to simply check the signature and skip to the next comment without reading whatever the disruptive editor posts.

"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from -- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time." --Neil Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

--Guy Macon (talk) 08:03, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps The Guardian belongs on the blacklist? What do you think? Wnt (talk) 20:18, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

At least we don't get a side bar with: Sexy blond hideaway Jules gives his exclusive Ecuadorian weight loss diet for 2019! Martinevans123 (talk) 20:33, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

"Femail" is a whole other reason to read DM ... but their greatest talent is in writing great headlines. Lesser lights of journalism will put their article under some bland blurb - DM isn't afraid to go to five lines of headline in order to get the reader hooked before he starts reading. Wnt (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

What, a "great headline" pretty much copied from Tom Watson's tweets which are in fact the entire "story" that it's printed? Yes, I have to say that's some serious talent at work. Black Kite (talk) 17:21, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

A few points. Whether or not a newspaper has engaged in 'warmongering' strikes me as completely irrelevant to their validity as a source. We don't vet sources to make sure that they come to political conclusions that we agree with! The only thing that matters is truth - reliability. A paper that gets it wrong often enough (all papers make errors of course) is the issue. Low quality is different from political outlook.

I don't know if, with the change of the Editor in Chief, the Mail has significantly improved in quality.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:13, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

It's too soon to tell. Two of the things I regard as litmus tests: the "sidebar of shame" on Mail online, and the prevalence of churnalism, where the Mail is far and away the worst offender in national newspapers. I see no impact on either yet. Guy (Help!) 14:07, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

What on Earth do these "litmus tests" have to do with the claim of unreliability you're making? The sidebar in particular is mostly stories based on pictures of some sort... I wonder if what really bothers you is that this makes it too reliable. Wnt (talk) 15:06, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Jimbo, the warmongering description is not nearly as interesting or revealing, imo, as the statement by their editorial board that: 'but in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in (re: Iraq having WMDs etc)'. Granted they use the weasel words "looks as if", but still, that statement is either a Freudian slip, betraying an underlying assumption that the USA administration was operating in good faith with the American people, which General Wesley Clark's whistle blowing interview shows clearly not to have been true, or much, much worse, an intentional, albeit couched, and blatant effort to provide a powerful, bordering upon subliminal assumption, support for the Administration's framing of the invasion as just some kind of innocent mistake.

Jimbo, I have a question, "why would those words; ''along with the administration" be included in this apology? What could possibly be an explanation for including those words other than to "sell" the "innocent mistake" framing of an invasion which cost 4,000 American and 100s of thousands of civilian lives? It is difficult, I know, to accept the reality that General Clark exposes....because to do so gets one angry and frustrated, and its equally difficult to accept the possibility of a paper like the N.Y. Times' editorial board having an underlying pro-administration bias, at the least, and/or an underlying administration enabling mission, about the most important news which effects the world's peoples...news leading up to invasions. And I'm sure you know this is not the first war/invasion when such possible enablement has occurred. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:38, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

In light of this impending reaffirmation of the banning of a national newspaper, I've suggested renaming DYK as The Daily Churn to show some in-house humility. Yes, we can, right, Jimbo? Now all we need is a consensual swarm of yellowjacket-pedians to demand reform. ~ 🐝 ~ SashiRolls ^{t · c} 00:32, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

• The National Enquirer is also a national newspaper. As was the News of the World. Guy (Help!) 00:38, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Yep, & now we have new and improved off-shore GAFAWMF games on our cellphones as we wait at the checkout. So movement! Such forward! — 🦄 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 00:46, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I googled GAFAWMF and am none the wiser. Guy (Help!) 10:25, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Consequences of bipartisanship

Jimbo, I saw this video of Barack Obama today, and wanted to know what you think of it. If you have seven minutes, please let us all know? 73.222.1.26 (talk) 02:21, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

I watched 3 minutes - it's interesting. I wonder if the original video is somewhere, without the editorializing voiceover? I don't think my views on this are particularly unique or interesting though. Basically I would say that it is fairly obvious that the right of far/alt-right and far/alt-left movements, as well as the associated rise of nationalism has absolutely been fueled by various people feeling "left out" of what has clearly been a broad economic boom. I don't at all agree that it is a "consequence of bipartisanship" by the way.

For me, one of the interesting things about this phenomenon is that a lot of people who believe quite firmly that they are less well off than their parents and grandparents were at the same age are simply factually wrong. That doesn't make their grievances automatically invalid, of course. Nor does it mean that the effects (the rise of extremism) are any less important.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:04, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't think there has been a broad economic boom at all. In the US and most of Europe, economies were tanked by the crash of 2008 and the incomes of most people have remained static or declined since then, only those at the upper end of the income scale - and most especially those who benefited most from the speculative bubble that caused the crash - have seen substantial gains in income. All the figures I have seen show substantial rises in income inequality and a growth of income uncertainty among the lower socioeconomic classes - precisely the conditions which historically fuel anti-immigrant rhetoric. The seminal study of this is Parker, T: Goobacks, J. S. Park 2004 (7):8. Terk er jerbs!. But seriously, it actually is. Guy (Help!) 12:12, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I was speaking of a much longer time period (as was Obama in the video) going back to George HW Bush. I'd have to take a closer look at most recent numbers to form a view of the implications of the 2008 crash.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:17, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Income inequality fell for most of the period from the great recession in the late 1920s until Reagan, and has risen pretty sharply since, albiet with some sharp swings, but never dropping down to its 1980 level. The top 1% have around a quarter of US income, and real median income, which tracked productivity pretty much form the end of the War, flattened in the Bush era and has never regained parity. See Wealth inequality in the United States. Guy (Help!) 14:05, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

So would it be a bad thing if the poor all became twice as rich while the rich became 4 times as rich? Would it be a good thing if the poor lost 50% of what little they have as long as while the rich lost 75%? See Envy. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:10, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, that's a super interesting debate but I might ask if we could leave it at that as it may not be productive for Wikipedia. I think we can all agree that it is likely that extreme inequality is likely to give rise to negative things such as extreme movements as those who aren't doing as well (or actually doing worse) are led by bad political actors to blame immigrants, etc. That remains true whatever one's position on inequality might be.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:45, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Sure. This is not a current affairs question, really - for a thousand years or so inequality has risen and fallen, in a cycle. Normally the catalyst for substantial falls is war or revolution. Guy (Help!) 16:01, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

If the wealthy become 4 times as rich, it seems likely that the poor will have to pay more than twice the rent that they did before. The comforting reassurance of a "positive-sum" economy implies that Mother Earth can yield an unlimited amount of resources, when in fact many quantities like the amount of land, codfish or petroleum are not going to increase at all. Moreover, even in social settings the amount of hypothetical wealth is still limiting: if the wealthy increase their campaign donations four-fold, do you think a two-fold increase in political contributions is going to increase your say over what is banned? And just about anything done by the poor is treated as inherently evil and in need of severe prosecution - sleeping on the sidewalk, walking along railroad tracks, God help them if they are out on the street and have to pee. America isn't a country, it's a competition, and the poor are losing. The question now is by which means they are to be removed from the field of play. Wnt (talk) 19:50, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

In today's digital world, the public at large has a lot more political power. In the pre-Internet era, when the traditional media was the dominant source of information, public opinion was shaped a lot more by the real facts as analyzed by experts. Politicians who like today obviously did depend on public opinion, would in the old days be steered a lot more by expert opinion, as public opinion was ultimately still influenced a lot more by expert opinion. For certain topics, the public opinion did diverge a lot from the expert opinion and usually that had disastrous consequences. Take e.g. the way the US prison population had increased due to tough sentencing laws. This was the result of propaganda from US talk radio from the 1980s onward. This used to be confined to just a few topics, but gradually after the Internet arrived the number of such topics where the public overruled expert opinion gradually increased. Take e.g. global warming in the early 2000s. If you think of experts as the referees in a game between politicians who need to get as much public support as possible, then the situation today is like there not being any referees anymore, so anything goes. Count Iblis (talk) 20:16, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

• This is the most profound subject I have seen on Jimbo's talk page. Both Obama and Jimbo, as well as just about everybody else, sees and addresses this subject in the context of the discontent among the "left out" cohort; but there is another side to this coin. A more interesting and important side yet entirely overlooked by thought leaders and other leaders of 2019 civilization.

That other side of the coin is the obvious (yet, by intent or by its nature, unnoticed) dramatic rise of a global plutocracy all around the world.

This is not the first time such a switch from democracy to plutocracy has happened, in fact, it happened in Greece some 2,340 years ago.

The switch back then is mentioned in Encyclopedia Britannica re: a taboo ("conspiracy theory") subject matter, and I quote: "The number is generally taken to refer to the year (322 bce) of the death of the Greek orator Demosthenes, a turning point in the transformation of ancient Athens from democracy to plutocracy." The rise of the global plutocracy is not even debatable, imo, and the pay of CEOs is just one of the more obvious indicators. Another, much more tragic indicator, is the targeting of the non wealthy classes (with things like free tuition or "sign up bonus" pay) to engage in all the fighting, dying, and mentally/physically crippling effects of today's wars.

A macaron for Jimbo ^{or hungry tps}

Oh, but aren't these more fun?

Now, what I have discovered is that most of the time and efforts of the engineers of the plutocracy are spent on identifying and grooming less intelligent, maleable and usually humanitarian or idealistic type puppets to use in the development of the plutocracy (the engineers can not do it all themselves). A prime example is John Kerry (engineer) selecting Obama (puppet) to give the keynote address at the 2004 convention (you can see in our article about the speech that Kerry selected Obama and Kerry's staff wrote ("helped write") the speech.

Here we find another project by one of the plutocracy engineers underway, in Beijing of course, and here we see some of the higher level puppets..lets say "Commanders".. recruited to help educate the troops (students) in how best they can become part of the controlling class. The semi-taboo subject ("conspiracy theory") Bilderberg Meeting is another recruiting tool used by engineers to find capable and willing associates for bringing the global plutocracy to fruition. The most startling success story for that faction is how almost immediately after his first attendance, Jeff Bezos dramatically expanded his target market to include all of Europe and beyond, as if someone had sat down with him, explained the global plutocracy mission, and wrote him a huge blank cheque. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were both invited and attended before their elections to the highest office in their lands, but, the "coincidence theorists" see nothing thought provoking about that.

Jimbo,(or anyone), if you apply some "outside the box" (critical) thinking about the facts contained above, I promise you it will not add any degree of comfort to your intellectual observations of current or recent events. It will be, as it is for me, a feeling of having discovered that the cure for cancer is something obvious, simple and common place, yet nobody you know will believe you. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:21, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

In general, if you believe that you have discovered that the cure for cancer is something obvious, simple and common place, yet nobody you know will believe you, there is a 99,9%+ chance that you are full of crap. I'm just saying. In this case yoiur language ("global plutocracy", "troops (students)", "controlling class") makes me think that you believe the conspiracy theory that there is a Cabal that controls everything, yet are strangely powerless to silence you and the other who promote the conspiracy theory. There Is No Cabal (TINC). We discussed this at the last Cabal meeting, and everyone agreed that There Is No Cabal. An announcement was made in Cabalist: The Official Newsletter of The Cabal making it clear that There Is No Cabal. The words "There Is No Cabal" are in ten-foot letters on the side of the 42-story International Cabal Headquarters, and an announcement that There Is No Cabal is shown at the start of every program on The Cabal Network. If that doesn't convince people that There Is No Cabal, I don't know what will. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:26, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

The number of people who believe something has no relationship to the reality of it. People used to believe the world was flat. This is not a cabal. It is similar in some ways to a multi-generational collection of aligned churches; the Christian churches for example, except some of these organizations are much more secretive with their beliefs and objectives. Its adherents believe that a plutocracy is the best form of global government, just as the 205 people heading China believe their system is best.

What makes the group with 3 Bushes, Kerry, Mnuchin, Schwarzman, 2 Harrimans, 2 Bundys, Russell etc. an existential threat to democracy is the incredible success some have in creating and exacerbating violent conflict between countries and cultures, while others provide leadership toward a more centralized and integrated global government. Communist China and some of the Middle East monarchies are already plutocracies and will fit seamlessly into a global plutocracy. The E.U. and U.S. are well on their way as well.

The core question is whether you think its ok for a candidate for President of the USA to belong to a super secret society and the voters don't know anything about the cult (imo), or even that they belong to it. If you think that's ok, that would surprise me. Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:22, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I believe in Freedom of association for everybody, even politicians who I dislike (which is pretty much everybody on team red and team blue). It saddens me that you don't. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:46, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't see anything that Nocturnalnow posted about a cure for cancer. Please, if you're going to insult somebody, do it in a way that doesn't make me look all over the forum trying to find something that isn't there. I remember back in the 80s when people thought I was a conspiracy theorist because I said the NSA was listening on to their phone calls when they went over microwave links! First they say something is intolerable so it would never happen, then they say it was always obvious and you're crazy to complain about it. The rich have a right to hang out together and plot to take over whatever is left of the world that's not theirs yet (and what else would they plot???), but they don't have a right to claim that the entire contents and produce of the Earth, which has been here since the beginning of Time, not to mention the Moon and the asteroids, is inherently their "property", while the proletarians who have all the knowledge and do all the work sit around and do nothing to organize a resistance and meekly prepare to sacrifice their children on Tlaloc's holy altar to make way for AI replacements. That last bit is the right they don't have, unless people give it to them. Wnt (talk) 15:18, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

"It will be, as it is for me, a feeling of having discovered that the cure for cancer is something obvious, simple and common place, yet nobody you know will believe you." --Nocturnalnow.

I timed it, and it took me 12 seconds to "look all over the forum" and find it. And please don't insult my intelligence by suggesting that anyone here doesn't understand that he was making an analogy, not claiming to have a cure for cancer, or that I wasn't using the same analogy in my reply.

And by the way, back in the 80s you were a conspiracy theorist if you said that NSA was listening on to phone calls when they went over microwave links. Assuming that you were right ([3] and [4] seem to imply a later date, and Snowden's revelations detail hardwired taps under FISA court orders, not interception of microwave links) you had no way of knowing that your claim was true. A conspiracy theory is still a conspiracy theory even if it later turns out that there was a real conspiracy that nobody knew about. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:34, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Phrack Magazine knew about it. Here's one from 1989 that came up on a search ([5]) but that's not the one about the microwave links specifically. I know I first heard about the NSA spying in 1985 from a certain extraordinarily intelligent Chinese student who knew how to circumvent a password or two; I think he was a year or two ahead of Phrack. Still, if you read the 1989 issue I linked, you can see they had a fairly good grasp of the situation at that point. Wnt (talk) 00:26, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Some people still do believe the world is flat. Others believe that They™ are suppressing a cure for cancer, still others that shovelling wealth to the already wealthy will result in that money trickling down and benefiting everybody. We have a word for these beliefs: wrong. There have been concerns about transnational companies and the rise of the unaccountable super-rich for pretty much my entire life. In practice the main reason they get away with it is that they have all the money so they fund political races. It's interesting to me that one of the first acts of the new House is to propose a constitutional amendment to roll back Citizens United. It won't fly, for the same reason a Federal voting rights initiative won't fly: it requires the support of the people it is designed to hold back. Welcome to capitalism. Guy (Help!) 10:18, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry, but I prefer the US Bill of Rights to what you are pushing. Citizens United was a case where a bunch of people -- each of whom had a first amendment right to criticize Hillary Clinton -- got together and formed a non-profit organization called "Citizens United" to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton. Obama's FCC tried to stop them, but the United States Supreme Court correctly ruled that if individuals have a right to free speech then they also have a right to band together as a group without losing their right to free speech. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:34, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I have no problem with people criticizing politicians. The issue is when they can pay millions (or indeed billions) to fund criticism without ever identifying themselves as the source of funding. Civilised countries generally have limits on electoral spending and requirements to reveal sources of funding, so that, for example, the Russian government can't shovel money anonymously through a weapons industry front group to skew the outcome of an election. It's a basic principle of fairness and democracy that one should not be able to drown out every other voice by the application of sufficient money.

Regardless of the spin on Citizens United, the effect, entirely by design, was to allow unlimited dark money to be spent on election propaganda. By either side, of course, but most of the billionaires for some reason seem to support the Republican Party. It's almost as if they think Republicans will give them huge tax cuts regardless of the effect on the deficit or something. I know, that could never happen. Guy (Help!) 00:00, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

That's true, but it is also true that it was the proper decision. I've been hearing about campaign finance reform since the 1970s, and ay caramba, there is always a loophole! It is as if a bunch of field mice can't actually figure out how to bell a cat who owns half the world. Even if you get Citizens United reversed, what happens if Donald Trump's friends see a right-wing news channel circling the drain and decide to buy them so they can keep operating - are you going to call that a campaign contribution? Will you stop Trump from having friends with similar ideas over for a gala dinner, impressing him with the resort, maybe they can stop in at the Miss Teen USA contest and see how it's turning out? Or ask them why they decided to switch their contract from a union to a non-union firm after the union endorsed the other guy the year afterward, anything to do with friends and alliances and deals made over a handshake? I mean, these people have a million moves and you have a rulebook with a couple of words. The only people who are going to get snagged up in a Citizens United reversal if half of Congress and half the state houses are hit by an asteroid, will be some nobodies with blogs who don't declare the $120 they spent on bandwidth. If you want the result of campaign finance reform, you can look into public funding of electoral campaigning, or better yet, simply demand that radio spectrum "owners" be required to offer free airtime, and ditto with cable franchise monopolists. Or more practically, and inadvertently returning to the original topic of bipartisanship, we could have an accurate and uncensored Wikipedia that gives in depth information about each candidate so that voters can inform themselves from an unfunded source rather than taking their marching orders from the bozo with the biggest tin horn. If we could do that, who knows what could happen? Wnt (talk) 04:46, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Secrecy and evil are compatible. Guy's comments caused me to think about this nexus. I know "evil" is seen as a subjective and religious term these days, but is it really? In any event, I think evil obviously exists just as "good", "helpful", and "nice" exist. And, I have yet to think of a situation where secrecy and evil are not compatible? They do not always co-exist in a situation...something or event can be evil and not secret or secret and not evil...but they are often found together and often facilitate each other and rarely if ever interfere with each other's results, so are, "compatible", imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:15, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Guy's comment about "civilized countries..." is true and not rocket science. The USA has the system it has because some people like the system it has, just like health care. Here in Canada our law can fit on a few lines:

Party and Election Finance Laws Private Funding:

"Canada’s federal election finance laws put limits on contributions to political parties and candidates. Only individuals — not corporations or trade unions — may donate. Contributions are limited to up to $1,500 a year to each political party and up to $1,500 to all of the registered electoral district associations, contestants seeking the party’s nomination and candidates for each party. In addition, donors may give up to $1,500 to leadership contestants for a party as well as up to $1,500 to independent candidates. These limits were set in 2015, and the amounts increase by $25 each year. Political actors must disclose the names of anyone who donates more than $200." Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:35, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

In 2009 Microsoft made a video about what 2019 would be like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWxqSEMXWuw

I want one of those coffee cups. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

It always amazes me how quickly science fiction becomes dated. Either the authors can't imagine a change from the present (Captain Kirk doing textbook sexual harassment in space), or (in this case) they can't imagine that what is currently changing will stop. When the video was made, improvements in display and input technology seemed like a high priority - who knew they would just stop? Similarly the sci-fi writers of the late 20th century never imagined humans would simply stop going to the Moon and leave it for maybe China to try to repeat in a century or two. Wnt (talk) 03:20, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

At least it doesn't predict that we will all be wearing silver space suits and going to work in flying cars like The Jetsons. This has been a popular "what the future will be like" prediction since at least the 1930s. The video mainly seems to predict the rise of touchscreen technology, which is correct and was already under way in 2009.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:05, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Throughout history and right up to the present, different people have worn different clothes (with the obvious exception of uniforms). If my glowing rectangle is to be believed, in the future everyone will all dress the same.

Where is my flying car? They promised me a flying car by now. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:40, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Ironically, Windows 7 launched in 2009 (the year the video was made), but showed little interest in catering for the needs of touchscreen input. By the time that Windows 8 was launched in 2012, it was so touchscreen based that it performed poorly on non-touchscreen devices, leading to widespread criticism. Windows 10 was an attempt to strike a balance between touchscreen and non-touchscreen input.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:21, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

We come to it at last... the great battle of our time.

Some German researchers tried putting the entire pathway to do photorespiration into the chloroplast itself, feeding CO2 from the screwups of RuBisCO straight back into photosynthesis. [6][7][8][9] The result they say is an improvement of crop yield -- at least in tobacco -- of over 40%.

Think about what this means. The cost of biodiesel is apparently less than a dollar more than conventional fuel oil. [10] If you improve crop yields so dramatically, it is possible that mining and pumping petroleum will no longer be cost-effective. Greenhouse emissions will plummet.

Problem: any sufficiently large advance in evolution is indistinguishable from a doomsday weapon. What if GMO crops get off the plantation, take over all the wild lands around it because they can yield so much more energy from photosynthesis? There's Scylla for you. On the other side we have the appalling habit of decent researchers selling technology into the "intellectual property" system and having one company "own" it, whose reach in this case, fueled by fears of escaped crops, could end up being manifested as terminator technology. Imagine every farmer proud of his dramatically increased yield -- and every one utterly dependent on a Master who alone can dispense the secret key that lets those crops grow. There's Carybdis.

Universal feast, universal famine, destruction of greedy corporations or their final formal ascent to deity status. The board is set, the pieces are moving... Wnt (talk) 04:05, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Yup, lots of potential here and some scary parts. Perhaps the scariest part is that we need to do this to support the population that will be here by the time the new crops are ready. A correction to WNT's comments. Paul F. South, Amanda P. Cavanagh, Helen W. Liu, and Donald R. Ort are from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, except for Liu who is now at Berkeley. (Oskee Wow-Wow and Oskee wee wee) The Germans appear to be reviewers or similar.

And the Gates Foundation, the major funder, seems to require broad distribution of the "final" crops.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:55, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Sorry about the mix-up with the authors. Where did you find a requirement for broad distribution? (Though I was more suspicious of a post facto regulatory capture, for only the noblest of reasons) Wnt (talk) 15:37, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

from the LA Times "Both efforts are the fruit of the RIPE project, which stands for Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency. Its motivation is simple: to increase crop yields and combat food insecurity. (The $70-million initiative has gotten much of its funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which requires that any crops developed through the program be made accessible to farmers around the world)."

That's vague enough that you are still right to have some concerns about somebody capturing the commons. Also there is a commons license for publishing and something similar for plant materials here

"This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. This license does not apply to figures/photos/artwork or other content included in the article that is credited to a third party; ... Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests Data materials availability: The data reported in this paper have been tabulated in the supplementary materials. Plants and constructs reported are available from the University of Illinois for research purposes, subject to the conditions of the Uniform Biological Material Transfer Agreement." Bolding mine - looks like they are trying very hard to keep this open. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:42, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, I think that agreement is the same thing here which is all about protecting "ownership" over the material which can be used only for noncommercial research purposes, i.e. not farming. Wnt (talk) 00:33, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

If things go wrong then the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will come to the rescue. Count Iblis (talk) 08:14, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Question about your permissions

Do you have all of the Wikimedia permissions such as CheckUser and Steward? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MinecraftPlayer2 (talk • contribs) 01:00, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

MinecraftPlayer2 is there any reason that you ask this question? You can find your answer here.-- 5 albert square (talk) 01:11, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Will there be an emergency?

Maybe I'm just feeling very gloomy today, but it strikes me that President Trump will likely declare a national emergency tonight at 9pm New York Time. Such a declaration itself could become a different kind of national emergency. The stuff will really hit the fan in the press, in social media, and probably even on Wikipedia, and it will come from all sides. See e.g. ABC - Pence calls border 'bona fide emergency,' dodges questions about Trump falsehoods Pence is making the case ahead of Trump's address to the nation Tuesday night. and pre-refutations such as LA Times - There is no security crisis at the border

I'll just ask admins to consider ahead of time what they will do if it really does hit the fan on Wikipedia. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:06, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Smallbones I really hope he doesn't. However, the fact he's making federal workers work without pay is not a good indication **sigh**-- 5 albert square (talk) 17:17, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

• Fact is, there has been one since Jan 20 2017. Hashtag ITMF. Guy (Help!) 18:24, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

I think it is pretty clear that what Trump will announce will be that he intends to exercise the powers of 10 U.S. Code § 2808 to begin construction of the wall that Congress is denying him funding for. This is probably not particularly alarming in the short run although, as Smallbones predicts, there will be a lot of noise about it. My concern personally is that this is a trial balloon for the exercise of much more alarming powers that the President may (or may not) theoretically have.

My view is that Congress has been lazy for a very long time in terms of giving increasing arbitrary authority to the Executive branch for all kinds of things. This has largely been kind of ok, mostly because whatever your views of various Presidents, none of them were actual lunatics. Depending on your view of our current President, you may find it alarming that he has these powers.

I'd like to add that I don't mind a little bit of personal chit-chat here about politics, I'd like to always seek to tie it back to Wikipedia. We have chosen a very tough job: NPOV. Dislike for the President, fear about things that are happening in the world, may make it emotionally harder to remain neutral, but remain neutral we must. I happen to personally think that given the decline in quality of the media across the board (there are still fantastic journalists out there, but overall the landscape isn't great) the best way for us to help the world heal is neutrality.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:12, 8 January 2019 (UTC)