Miles

What will printing 5.7 trillion dollars do to our economy, inflation?

Is the US reserve currency a thing of the past, or should we be concerned about the BRICS.

If the IMF supports the US dollar by holding well over %50 US bonds, what are the effects on countries like the Ukraine's economy when it borrows from the IMF.

As the Fed has printed trillions is not inflation a reality.

Seems to be less and less investigative reporting, either the latest sound bite or conspiracy theories.

As global warming causes drought in California should agriculture get the first option? Where will the next fruit basket be if we just let it return to desert?

I tried a question similar but felt I was misunderstood, thanks Noah, Thor and Hey Dook, at least I think you guys understood what I was asking but CR and linlyons, whats wrong with you. It should be common knowledge by now we are going to pass 400ppm and we as humans are going to have to deal with some new and extreme climate. We haven't taken the warnings and at best we are going to now have to deal with the changes. Or what curl up and die. Come on guys lets hear some positive feed back.(I mean as it deals with this question)

As we push on past 400 ppm CO2 with no sign of slowing down, should we be considering the best ways of adapting to the change?

Examples. Should people living in areas that have had 100yr events be better prepared? Will demographic preparedness become an essential? How about the migration of diseases like dengue and malaria? Can California maintain its title as fruit basket of America?

At least one of the people I follow on this site is from California and was wondering how they feel about desalination as solution to the problems of a warming planet.

It is also interesting just how important water is and the part it will play in global warming

Access to the Arctic from the receding ice means that Greenland has become a new frontier for resource development and the secession from Denmark.

As the ice melts in Greenland it may not be so good for the Bahamas or a big part of Bangladesh or the Maldives, Marshall Islands, Rio or Miami. after all there is enough ice on Greenland to raise ocean levels 20 ft. but someone seems positioning themselves for profits to come. Big Oil knows the climate is changing because of global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels and preparing to make money on it.

Forgive my apparent ignorance, but I read a article of his yesterday for the first time, certainly different than what others are saying. I did the wiki thing he seems authentic.

Is the future of deniers to make money on climate change?

I heard just in passing in a lecture that as rock ages it takes in CO2. This was mentioned as one of the off sets of volcanos. Would appreciate any info.

Former Foreign Minister Valdimir Ogryzko is suggesting that the Ukraine withdraw from the Non Proliferation treaty and restore its nuclear potential. What was the Ukraine promised for signing on in 1995?

I've got the jist of it but would be interested in what you've discovered.

Blue Marble

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New Study: Internet Trolls Are Often Machiavellian Sadists

—By Chris Mooney

| Fri Feb. 14, 2014 3:00 AM GMT

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In the past few years, the science of Internet trollology has made some strides. Last year, for instance, we learned that by hurling insults and inciting discord in online comment sections, so-called Internet "trolls" (who are frequently anonymous) have a polarizing effect on audiences, leading to politicization, rather than deeper understanding of scientific topics.

That's bad, but it's nothing compared with what a new psychology paper has to say about the personalities of so-called trolls themselves. The research, conducted by Erin Buckels of the University of Manitoba and two colleagues, sought to directly investigate whether people who engage in trolling are characterized by personality traits that fall in the so-called "Dark Tetrad": Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), and sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others).

It is hard to underplay the results: The study found correlations, sometimes quite significant, between these traits and trolling behavior. What's more, it also found a relationship between all Dark Tetrad traits (except for narcissism) and the overall time that an individual spent, per day, commenting on the Internet.

In the study, trolls were identified in a variety of ways. One was by simply asking survey participants what they "enjoyed doing most" when on online comment sites, offering five options: "debating issues that are important to you," "chatting with others," "making new friends," "trolling others," and "other." Here's how different responses about these Internet commenting preferences matched up with responses to questions designed to identify "Dark Tetrad" traits:

E.E. Buckels et al, "Trolls just want to have fun," Personality and Individual Differences, 2014.

To be sure, only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoy "trolling." By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were "non-commenters," meaning they didn't like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters, and an even smaller minority of overall Internet users.

The researchers conducted multiple studies, using samples from Amazon's Mechanical Turk but also of college students, to try to understand why the act of trolling seems to attract this type of personality. They even constructed their own survey instrument, which they dubbed the "Global Assessment of Internet Trolling" or GAIT, comprised of the following items:

I have sent people to shock websites for the lulz.

I like to troll people in forums or the comments section of websites.

I enjoy griefing other players in multiplayer games.

The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt.

Yes, some people actually say they agree with such statements. And again, doing so was correlated with sadism in its various forms, with psychopathy, and with Machiavellianism. Overall, the authors found that the relationship between sadism and trolling was the strongest, and that indeed, sadists appear to troll because they find it pleasurable. "Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others," they wrote. "Sadists just want to have fun...and the Internet is their playground!"

The study comes as websites, particularly at major media outlets, are increasingly weighing steps to rein in trollish behavior. Last year Popular Science did away with its comments sections completely, citing research on the deleterious effects of trolling, and YouTube also took measures to rein in trolling.

But Erin Buckles of the University of Manitoba, the study's first author, actually isn't sure that fix is a realistic one. "Because the behaviors are intrinsically motivating for sadists, comment moderators will likely have a difficult time curbing trolling with punishments (e.g., banning users)," she commented by email. "Ultimately, the allure of trolling may be too strong for sadists, who presumably have limited opportunities to express their sadistic interests in a socially-desirable manner."