Trump wants more nukes: HELL YEAH!!!

Originally posted by blaze8492
It's not. When you state "x country has an abortion rate lower than the US," the number of data points you have invoked is 1. N = 1. You have literally 1 observation. That, no matter how you try and wiggle it, is an anecdote for all intents and purposes.

N=1 is nowhere close to rigorous enough to draw ANY conclusions on the significance of an aborti ...[text shortened]... another observation, you'd have to invoke the abortion rate in another country, say, country y)

How is "the Netherlands has X abortion rate" and the "US has an abortion rate much higher" 1 data point?

Your claim doesn't make any sense; even your edit implicitly concedes this.

Originally posted by no1marauder
How is "the Netherlands has X abortion rate" and the "US has an abortion rate much higher" 1 data point?

Your claim doesn't make any sense; even your edit implicitly concedes this.

Because you can only have 1 abortion rate. You can have multiple individual abortions, but only 1 abortion rate.

And even if you include the US, that still gives you 2. Still 28 below the required minimum N for invoking the CLT. My statement still stands.

Originally posted by shavixmir
Okay, seriously, is there any scenario you can imagine when it's actually justified to murder 25.000 children in a nuclear blast?

That depends. Are these children "Whitey" bigots?

Originally posted by blaze8492
Because you can only have 1 abortion rate. You can have multiple individual abortions, but only 1 abortion rate.

Oh, you're the "science has proven that the mother's body has ZERO impact on development of the zygote " guy. I shouldn't expect you to make any sense and you don't.

The abortion rate in the US is a data point; the abortion rate in the Netherlands is another one. Trying to determine why they vary is a perfectly legitimate intellectual exercise which you don't want to engage in probably because of your pre-existing ideology.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Oh, you're the "mother's body has ZERO effect on the zygote" guy. I shouldn't expect you to make any sense and you don't.

The abortion rate in the US is a data point; the abortion rate in the Netherlands is another one. Trying to determine why they vary is a perfectly legitimate intellectual exercise which you don't want to engage in probably because of your pre-existing ideology.

Ah, the "I can't differentiate between independent events and therefore I'll make the unintelligent decision and automatically discount/hurl ad hominems at whomever I disagree with" route. How unseemly.

Did you even read my edit? You're still 28 below the traditionally required N for invoking the CLT, and no rigorous analysis would EVER limit itself to just 2 data points.

Originally posted by blaze8492
Ah, the "I can't differentiate between independent events and therefore I'll make the unintelligent decision and automatically discount/hurl ad hominems at whomever I disagree with" route. How unseemly.

Did you even read my edit? You're still 28 below the traditionally required N for invoking the CLT, and no rigorous analysis would EVER limit itself to just 2 data points.

LMAO! We're not flipping coins or rolling dice, Mr. I Once Took A College Course.

Originally posted by no1marauder
LMAO! We're not flipping coins or rolling dice, Mr. I Once Took A College Course.

No, you're only trying to draw sweeping generalized conclusions off of 2 data points, Mr. I didn't pass high school stats. In what universe is that considered appropriate? Not any academic or logical one, that's for sure, perhaps in your warped universe that exists only in your mind?

Originally posted by blaze8492
No, you're only trying to draw sweeping generalized conclusions off of 2 data points, Mr. I didn't pass high school stats. In what universe is that considered appropriate? Not any academic or logical one, that's for sure, perhaps in your warped universe that exists only in your mind?

The fact is that the two countries have a rather specific difference in access to abortion, one that people with your ideological belief system would have us believe would cause the Netherlands to have a higher rate of abortion than the US. That the opposite is true renders that argument untenable.

If you feel more data points are necessary, provide them rather than playing the ostrich because the data doesn't support the claim you like.

Of course, the reverse isn't being claimed; it is hardly the claim of those who support reproductive freedom for women that increased access would necessarily lead to lower abortion rates. There are certainly other variables present but the common anti-choice claim that increased access leads to higher rates simply isn't true according to the data presented.

Originally posted by no1marauder
The fact is that the two countries have a rather specific difference in access to abortion, one that people with your ideological belief system would have us believe would cause the Netherlands to have a higher rate of abortion than the US. That the opposite is true renders that argument untenable.

If you feel more data points are necessary, provide them rather than playing the ostrich because the data doesn't support the claim you like.

No no no, the burden of proof is on the one making the positive statement here. You're arguing that the difference between the policies is the cause of the discrepancy. You're also asserting that 2 data points is enough to draw a conclusion on the effectiveness of one policy over the other. The burden to prove that is on YOU, not me.

Originally posted by blaze8492
No no no, the burden of proof is on the one making the positive statement here. You're arguing that the difference between the policies is the cause of the discrepancy. You're also asserting that 2 data points is enough to draw a conclusion on the effectiveness of one policy over the other. The burden to prove that is on YOU, not me.

Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. The Right can't make an assertion without any evidence to support it and then when what evidence there is refutes the claim try to shift the burden of proof onto others. All claims must be tested against what evidence there is and when the preponderance of the evidence points in one direction it is up to those who's claim is counter to that evidence to present their evidence.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. The Right can't make an assertion without any evidence to support it and then when what evidence there is refutes the claim try to shift the burden of proof onto others. All claims must be tested against what evidence there is and when the preponderance of the evidence points in one direction it is up to those who's claim is counter to that evidence to present their evidence.

It absolutely does. I haven't made any claims about the nature of the relationship between abortion rate and abortion policy. I have simply questioned yours, and asked you to provide more than just blind assertion based on 2 data points.

Leave my personal opinions to the side here, because they haven't entered this conversation. I have asked that you give more support than 2 data points for your claim. I could go farther, and ask you to establish the causal relationship via any method you so chose, but that'd be asking for too much from you (I doubt you're capable of using techniques like IV Analysis or Regression discontinuity, and even if you were, I wouldn't ask you to run such an analysis simply for an internet forum discussion). You speak of the preponderance of evidence, and yet, you haven't provided that. I am asking you, here and now, to provide it. Do not simply make claims without support please. That is all I asked in my original comment, and that is all I am asking of you now.

Originally posted by blaze8492
It absolutely does. I haven't made any claims about the nature of the relationship between abortion rate and abortion policy. I have simply questioned yours, and asked you to provide more than just blind assertion based on 2 data points.

Leave my personal opinions to the side here, because they haven't entered this conversation. I have asked that you ...[text shortened]... ort please. That is all I asked in my original comment, and that is all I am asking of you now.

Given the number of variables that influence abortion rates, what you are asking for is an impossibility as you well know. But the point is that abortion rates are dependent on a number of variables. A further point is that determining social policy doesn't rely on obtaining mathematical certainty but on a reasoned assessment of available evidence. You seem incapable or unwilling to do such an assessment in this case because the available evidence points in a direction you don't like but that is irrational and childish.

You trying to be coy and pretending you don't have an ideological stake in the game isn't going to work given your comments in the other thread.

EDIT: Actually your original post tried to imply that anything that doesn't have enough data to meaningfully invoke the Central Limit Theorem was an "anecdote". The English language doesn't agree with you and the CLT isn't terribly relevant to these type of social policy discussions.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Given the number of variables that influence abortion rates, what you are asking for is an impossibility as you well know. But the point is that abortion rates are dependent on a number of variables. A further point is that determining social policy doesn't rely on obtaining mathematical certainty but on a reasoned assessment of available evidence. You s ...[text shortened]... t agree with you and the CLT isn't terribly relevant to these type of social policy discussions.

What I am asking for is actually quite reasonable, precisely because I am not asking for the most rigorous analysis. Instead, I am asking that you provide evidence of a correlative relationship. Furthermore, I am not asking you to run the analysis yourself. An academic, peer reviewed article would suffice, and Google Scholar makes those readily available nowadays. You wouldn't even have to go that far, providing more examples of countries with a more lax abortion policy and lower abortion rate would go far to alleviate my concerns. It wouldn't completely alleviate them, because the answer I would like to see is beyond unreasonable to ask for here. But to refuse to even provide more than 2 data points, under the guise of it being an unreasonable request and an "impossibility" is just untrue.

And considering you can capture several of the determinant factors in an analysis (though not all), it's also not unreasonable for someone to attempt the analysis and to produce reasonably accurate results.

Social scientists make their living providing more than just qualitative evaluations, and quantitative, rigorous analyses of social and economic policy are almost universally regarded as of higher quality than the simple assessment of "evidence" as you call it. Often, they even go so far as to conduct that analysis to produce the evidence. I am not willing to do it simply because 1) it's not on me to prove YOUR thesis, that's on you, and 2) I'm not so invested in this as to actually run the analysis myself. not yet at least. I have other, more interesting analyses that I focus my attention on.

I absolutely do have an ideological stake, but there was no ideology behind my request for further evidence. It's simply the more rigorous and honest approach to evaluating any policy. It's not an unreasonable request, and would probably take you less than 20 minutes.

As to my original post, providing a single example of a country which has a different policy and yields different results at this point in time, and then going so far as to say that must be the universal truth about the issue in general, is akin to saying "I didn't get caught speeding here yesterday, therefore I will never get caught speeding here." The saying itself is quite well-known, and it was only your desire to nit-pick that led to any further discussion. You knew full well what I meant, and what I was requesting. Don't pretend otherwise please. The definition of the term "anecdote" is hardly relevant to this, especially in regards to a well-known, widely used colloquialism.

EDIT: To provide even more context for this, even in the previous thread, where my claims were ridiculed, I provided academic articles and articles supporting my view, I didn't just blindly assert it. There's a difference between disagreeing with a position that someone had evidence to support, and requesting further support of a position taken with 2 data points to support it.

Originally posted by blaze8492
No idea why he felt the need to qualify it.

To quote Eowyn: "It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two...and those who have not swords can still die upon them."

Pursuit of nuclear weapons is considered a hall-mark of wannabe world powers, and achievement of the technology is considered to place one in a stronger position on the world stage. Try a ...[text shortened]... to something as versatile and influential as nuclear power and weapons, you're fooling yourself.

The Second World was a phrase first coined during the Cold War, the First World was the West, approximately speaking NATO, the Second World was the Communist Bloc, and the Third World everyone else. The countries of the Second World are all either now in NATO, or NPT nuclear weapons states, except for Ukraine and Georgia who both had the option of being nuclear weapons states after the USSR fell, but chose to be NPT non-nuclear weapons states and are unlikely to try to assemble their own weapons, and North Korea who already have.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty has been signed by most of the world. The exceptions are South Sudan, being the newest country in the world and have more pressing concerns such as a civil war, Pakistan and India both of whom refused to sign the treaty and are now non-NPT nuclear weapons states, Israel who maintain a policy of ambiguity regarding their possible possession of the Bomb, although a whistle blower claimed that they did, and of course North Korea who withdrew from the treaty in 2001. Taiwan (ROC) is not a member of the UN since they were displaced from the security council by the PRC, they abide by the treaty. South Africa had six warheads but abandoned them with the fall of Apartheid.

Gaddafi was trying to obtain a bomb for Libya but SIS had cracked his supply chain so during talks when he attempted to deny it the diplomats were able to tell him exactly how they knew he had a nuclear weapons program and he abandoned it. Most countries in the world have no intention of developing atomic weapons, there really isn't any point. It is also tremendously difficult to do in complete secrecy, one has to obtain weapons grade fuel and that means buying it with the risk of one of any number of intelligence agencies noticing (it is not in either NATO, Russia, China, or anyone else's interests that other states develop nuclear weapons) or building a facility capable of producing weapons grade uranium or plutonium. A facility for making weapons grade fuel is easily detected using satellites. The Iranians didn't even try to hide their facility, the only question is whether they used it to attempt to produce weapons grade uranium. The highest grade of HEU they produced was about 28% uranium 235, which was probably a local concentration rather than evidence of an attempt to produce weapons grade uranium which is around 95% - although smaller enrichment levels will work the critical radius becomes impractical as the enrichment level gets lower. As an historical note Little Boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima has an enrichment level of 80%. I think that diplomatic pressure and the promise of lifted sanctions is sufficient to dissuade the Iranians from pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Under the NPT all countries are free to pursue civilian uses of nuclear technology.

According to that article the US has 7,100 warheads. I don't think that the US needs any more, Russia has a similar number, France about 500, China and the UK both have around 180 (I think China has more but can't be bothered to look up the figures).

There really aren't any types of nuclear weapons the US could acquire that they haven't had at one time or another and as I pointed out above the arsenal is big enough anyway. So I really don't think that this is a sane policy. The most likely effect is to encourage non-nuclear weapons states to pursue nuclear weapons. If you want to stop proliferation then first verification that civilian programmes are civilian is essential, second reliable tracking and accounting for nuclear materials to prevent either states or non-state actors getting their hands on them, third the nuclear weapons states abiding by their commitment to making moves towards disarmament. I saw some talk of a START treaty where Russia and the US would reduce their arsenals to 800 each, at which point the other NPT nuclear weapons states could meaningfully enter the discussion. So the nuclear capabilities Trump needs to develop are intelligence (i.e. nuclear policing) and diplomatic, not more bombs.

Originally posted by DeepThought
The Second World was a phrase first coined during the Cold War, the First World was the West, approximately speaking NATO, the Second World was the Communist Bloc, and the Third World everyone else. The countries of the Second World are all either now in NATO, or NPT nuclear weapons states, except for Ukraine and Georgia who both had the option of being ...[text shortened]... Trump needs to develop are intelligence (i.e. nuclear policing) and diplomatic, not more bombs.

Point taken about the identification of the 2nd world. I was careless, although I didn't quite feel it was appropriate to label them all 3rd world, since Pakistan is technically 2nd world and India received it's independence after the formation of NATO, and has a nuclear arsenal. Knowing that Pakistan pursued it's weapons well into the 1980s, without actually checking the list, I felt it was reasonable to assert that the 2nd world would pursue them, a mistake I readily admit.

To make things clear on how I feel personally about the issue, I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments behind START II and NPT, and would like to see the world without a nuclear arsenal. However, I don't think it's realistic to expect that, and I believe that because of the raw destructive power and the prestige and respect that comes with obtaining it, members of the 2nd and 3rd world will not necessarily be completely deterred from pursuing the technology. Obviously, on a case by case basis and with differences between the regions of the world the countries are located in, that will change in both directions.

The Iranians did try to hide at least Fordow, and having read the IAEA reports on the Iranian activities, their behavior was questionable, at best, only 5 years ago, with the IAEA's final 2011 report listing the following:

43.
The information indicates that Iran has carried out
the following activities that are relevant to the
development of a nuclear explosive device:
•
Efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear related and dual use equipment and materials by
military related individuals and entiti
es (Annex, Sections C.1 and C.2);
•
Efforts to develop undeclared pathways for
the production of nuclear material (Annex,
Section C.3);
•
The acquisition of nuclear weapons devel
opment information and documentation from a
clandestine nuclear supply networ
k (Annex, Section C.4); and
•
Work on the development of an indigenous desi
gn of a nuclear weapon including the testing of
components (Annex, Sections C.5–C.12).


link: https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/gov2011-65.pdf

To be fair, IAEA reports since have indicated cooperation on the part of Iran. But the fact that these activities took place recently casts valid reason for doubt upon their behavior. As to whether or not diplomatic pressure and lifted sanctions are having the desired effects, so far the IAEA reports indicate they are.

It's my personal opinion that the growth of the US nuclear arsenal is neither imprudent, nor particularly desirable. We know that pursuit of nuclear weapons probably won't ever stop, and completely disarming ourselves is unwise, in my opinion.

EDIT:: My bad on Indian independence. 2 years before formation of NATO. achievement of the bomb was long after the formation of NATO though.