Melania Trump plagiarism/rickroll megathread

[Alcon]

Actually, given the rickroll, I almost wonder if this wasn't some sort of weird performance art masquerading as a political speech.

Melania Trump: the Slovenian-American Shia LaBeouf?

[Alcon]

Seriously?, I understand that the themes are similar, but what do you think the chances are that such similar phrasing and construction would be used in both in multiple instances?  That's like 1-in-1 million territory, and that's being generous.

[Alcon]

This is your standard political speech when it comes to "we worked hard," blah, blah, blah.

How many possible ways can you say: My parents raised me to work hard. Instilled values in me. You are only as good as your word. Treat people nicely. We want our kids to have the same values, yada yada, yada?

I guarantee you many a politician has pretty much used the same concepts over and over and over again. The horse can only be beaten so many ways.

I agree that the themes are similar, but even simple statements can be said in numerous different forms.  For instance, there are 0 Google hits for  "has pretty much used the same concepts," and only 2 for "pretty much used the same concepts."  There are 0 hits for "we want our kids to have the same values" -- your post will be the first time that simple phrase appears on Google.  Now, what do you really think are the chances those phrases would match nearly word-for-word to Michelle Obama's speech?

I am the first person to shout down dumb, cherry-picking conspiracy theories on the left (and there are MILLIONS), but there is almost zero statistical chance that this is a coincidence.  You've got to drop your defensiveness on this and be objective.

[Alcon]

This is your standard political speech when it comes to "we worked hard," blah, blah, blah.

How many possible ways can you say: My parents raised me to work hard. Instilled values in me. You are only as good as your word. Treat people nicely. We want our kids to have the same values, yada yada, yada?

I guarantee you many a politician has pretty much used the same concepts over and over and over again. The horse can only be beaten so many ways.

I agree that the themes are similar, but even simple statements can be said in numerous different forms.  For instance, there are 0 Google hits for  "has pretty much used the same concepts," and only 2 for "pretty much used the same concepts."  There are 0 hits for "we want our kids to have the same values" -- your post will be the first time that simple phrase appears on Google.  Now, what do you really think are the chances those phrases would match nearly word-for-word to Michelle Obama's speech?

I am the first person to shout down dumb, cherry-picking conspiracy theories on the left (and there are MILLIONS), but there is almost zero statistical chance that this is a coincidence.  You've got to drop your defensiveness on this and be objective.

I'll continue to beat this horse over and over again. The concepts are similar. They are stated similarly. Why?  Because these concepts are your typical political stock. I guarantee you that the construct and phrases of Michelle Obama's speech and Melania Trump's speech have been used before nearly word-for-word in other stock paragraphs espousing the same thoughts around the country.

Nothing that neither Melania Trump nor Michelle Obama have said in either speech is not something that politicians or their wives have said over and over and over again in elections throughout this country over time.

I just pointed out that it's not the themes, but the phrasing that are the issue.  Some of it is word-for-word, with maybe one word shifted.  I just demonstrated to you how rare it is for even a somewhat complex sentence to be used in two different places on the entire Internet, let alone between two medium-length political speeches.  Come on, dude.

It's like if your post contained the phrase "I just demonstrated to you how rare it is," and I pointed out that that phrase has never been used before on the recorded Internet (Google it!), and you defended it by saying, "but people demonstrate how rare things are all the time -- it's the theme that matters."  No it isn't.  It's the phrasing, and I've demonstrated that to you several times, and you've totally failed to rebut my point.  You're totally embarrassing yourself.

Just to reiterate: the issue is the SUPER LOW statistical probability of such nearly-identical phrasing being used between two speeches randomly, not about themes

[Alcon]

There's only so many speeches people can give.  If you look at every presidential winner you'll see similarities between their speeches.  As for tonight, I'm sure it won't be something Hillary Clinton brings up because there's bigger issues.  If it meant putting food on your table would you care that the president's wife plagiarized a speech while the other side's nominee is under federal investigation and getting away with unprotecting classified information?  This is a discussion for the partisans but does anyone honestly believe that a voter's choice will be influenced by this?

Again, the probability of the themes is not the issue.  It's the probability of such nearly-identical phrasing cropping up between two medium-length political speeches.  The chances of this are absurdly low.

[Alcon]

Seriously?, you are completely ignoring my statistical argument about the word choice and phrasing similarities.  Do you not understand it, or is there some other reason you're avoiding it?

[Alcon]

Seriously?, you are completely ignoring my statistical argument about the word choice and phrasing similarities.  Do you not understand it, or is there some other reason you're avoiding it?

I fully understand your statistical argument. I disagree with your underlying assumption that Michelle Obama was the first one to utter those concepts

Yeah, that's absolutely not an underlying assumption of my argument, and I have no idea how you'd think it is, considering how many times I've explicitly said it isn't.

or even string those concepts together in roughly the same fashion that Melania Trump did.

Roughly?  Dude, the phrasing was extremely similar, in some cases identical, and I have pointed out how unlikely that is.  You haven't rebutted that argument at all; you keep doing this...

Those two paragraphs are stock political paragraphs. Political cliches. The equivalent in baseball as: "we played a good game, but the other team was better tonight."

It's hardly earth shattering that there are similarities here as there really are only so many ways you can say the same thing.

...which is, when I ask you to rebut the argument about phrasing/word choice, you default to talking about the possibility of similar themes instead.  

Also, your own examples keep shooting you in the foot.

Google results for "we played a good game, but the other team was better tonight" = 0

Honestly, do you not realize how terribly your argument is failing here?  I feel like on some level, you must.  And I'm going to keep pointing out the inadequacies of your argument until you concede them or provide a competent rebuttal.

[Alcon]

Vox isnt alone in noticing this...

NYT: Melania Trump’s Speech Bears Striking Similarities to Michelle Obama’s 2008 Address

LATimes: Melania Trump's RNC speech is strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech


MSNBC: Melania Trump speech strikingly similar to Michelle Obama 2008

Politico: Melania Trump's prime-time speech was strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's

There is more and it is growing. This is going to be a thing for sure.
 

"Melania Trump... Speech... Strikingly similar to Michelle Obama"

All these article titles are strikingly similar to each other.

I don't think that's a coincidence -- that's the title for the initial breaking Reuters article, and I assume a lot of media outlets do flash re-packages.  "Strikingly similar" is obviously a common phrase (523,000 Google results) and probably the most popular short-hand to imply something is suspiciously similar, but I agree it would be unlikely to be coincidental that the articles share that phrase.  In fact, it's very probably not coincidence, even though it's vastly more likely to be coincidence than the Trump/Obama speech similarities.

[Alcon]

Seriously?, you are completely ignoring my statistical argument about the word choice and phrasing similarities.  Do you not understand it, or is there some other reason you're avoiding it?

I fully understand your statistical argument. I disagree with your underlying assumption that Michelle Obama was the first one to utter those concepts

Yeah, that's absolutely not an underlying assumption of my argument, and I have no idea how you'd think it is, considering how many times I've explicitly said it isn't.

or even string those concepts together in roughly the same fashion that Melania Trump did.

Roughly?  Dude, the phrasing was extremely similar, in some cases identical, and I have pointed out how unlikely that is.  You haven't rebutted that argument at all; you keep doing this...

Those two paragraphs are stock political paragraphs. Political cliches. The equivalent in baseball as: "we played a good game, but the other team was better tonight."

It's hardly earth shattering that there are similarities here as there really are only so many ways you can say the same thing.

...which is, when I ask you to rebut the argument about phrasing/word choice, you default to talking about the possibility of similar themes instead.  

Also, your own examples keep shooting you in the foot.

Google results for "we played a good game, but the other team was better tonight" = 0

Honestly, do you not realize how terribly your argument is failing here?  I feel like on some level, you must.  And I'm going to keep pointing out the inadequacies of your argument until you concede them or provide a competent rebuttal.

You keep on doing that. But when my premise and your premise are not based on the same assumption (e.g. that it was political stock or boilerplate). Therefore, we're clearly not going to agree.

My argument is not based on the assumption that it wasn't political stock or boilerplate.  It absolutely was stock and boilerplate.  But boilerplate concepts are infrequently explained in such nearly identical phrasing.  Dude, you even proved that yourself when you quoted a "boilerplate" sentence that appears nowhere on the entire internet (and I bet you'd be challenged to find nearly-identical permutations that appear with more than a handful of results).    You're demonstrating my point for me.  

Try again.  Or, you know, be intellectually honest for ten seconds.  That's also an option.

[Alcon]

1) Boilerplate language is by definition similar language. Neither Michelle Obama nor Melania Trump's comments are hardly new, novel or earth shattering. It's stock.

My argument is not dependent on disagreeing with this.  Try again.

2) The reason my stock boilerplate sentence does not allegedly appear anywhere in the internet is because boilerplate sentences in sports generally do not get reduced to print. It does not make for good copy. You'll only catch those type of comments generally on video -- and only when an entire interview is aired. It's the same reason why you'll generally have an edit where the athlete "thanks God" for the victory. (Trust me, from my experience it happens all the time. God is unfortunately always and only on the side of the winners.)

You're arguing that the phrase you used would show up readily on Google, to the point where seeing it in two instances would be unremarkable, it's just that people don't transcribe sports statements often?

and, yes, I believe you that thanking God for victory is common, considering that Googling "thank God for the victory" +football gets 165,000 results.  hey look it's my exact point again

lol dude you have a solid trash fire going here and you keep layering increasingly flammable trash on top of it

3) This is much ado about nothing. Even assuming that it's plagiarism, which it's not, President Obama lifted stuff directly from Deval Patrick. Joe Biden took stuff from Neil Kinnock. This happens all the time in politics.

OK, I agree with that sentiment, but that's not an excuse to be this brazenly intellectually dishonest.  I'm not trying to prove anything about Melania Trump or any political point.  Your argument is just ridiculously irrational and I want you to concede that.  If you think that's morally or politically irrelevant, cool, totally fine -- just be intellectually honest here.

[Alcon]

Again, if something is repeated over and over again and is in the public domain, it is not plagiarism. Both Melania Trump and Michelle Obama likely said the similar things with similar construct to what many, many other politicians have said in the past.

You are talking about a few sentences from two paragraphs in a lengthy speech, which basically state one of the few concepts that politicians on either side of the aisle agree upon. I consider what both parties said to be political truisms for any candidate seeking election.

Since it is political stock, speechwriters have a tendency to formulate that particular thought in a similar manner -- almost formalistically.

I do not think that the words that were written for Michelle Obama were hardly new. What both Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Trump said is practically political dogma.

...

It's political rhetoric.

Are you arguing that many politicians have said things with construction and phrasing that similar?  If so, how do you reconcile that claim with the easily Google-able reality that I've demonstrated over and over that the similarity of the construction/phrasing here is almost certainly not because of statistical chance?

It's likely that that portion of Mrs. Obama's speech was also appropriated from some other speech. This happens all the time in politics.

Wait, are you now arguing that this was intentional, but not a big deal?  Earlier you seemed to be arguing it was clearly unintentional.

The fact that the press is making such a big deal over a matter that is trivial is an absolute and complete joke. You probably could go through just about every speech made on that floor on Monday and find one or two paragraphs of those speeches that came from somewhere else.

If you mean sharing similar ideas with past speeches, sure.  This was a totally unremarkable, boilerplate speech.  Absolutely agreed, and have agreed to that since post one.

If by "come from somewhere else," you mean virtually verbatim sentences with only a few words moved...probably not.

As is typical on this forum, there's a knee-jerk overreaction to both the gravity of the alleged infraction and the political impact of said infraction. This is much ado about nothing at the end of the day.

I actually agree!  And I'm still going to keep pointing out your argument fails until you defend it adequately or concede it was unreasonable.

[Alcon]

A statistical analysis by college plagiarism checker TurnItIn estimates a "less than 1 in 1 trillion" chance of coincidence.

This is exactly what I was saying, Seriously?.

This is basically a non-issue to me, but that's not an excuse to be intellectually dishonest about it.

[Alcon]

A statistical analysis by college plagiarism checker TurnItIn estimates a "less than 1 in 1 trillion" chance of coincidence.

This is exactly what I was saying, Seriously?.

This is basically a non-issue to me, but that's not an excuse to be intellectually dishonest about it.

Yawns. A few tripe political cliches, which have origins in places OTHER than Michelle Obama's speech is reused in another speech and hugh and series. What's the red avatar response when actual crimes are overlooked?

"Move on."

Here's the deal, Seriously?.

You know that my argument is not based only on the reuse of themes or simple cliches.  You know that because I've explained it to you six times.  You know, on some level, that you are knowingly ignoring, or blocking out my explanations.

You know, or should know, that your argument isn't responsive to the TurnItIn article.  You know this because any half-intelligent person who reads the article understands that TurnItIn detects the likelihood of linguistic similarities using a vast database of written works, that takes into account that it's not uncommon for similarly-phrased wording to be in similar works.  If the recurrence of themes were enough to flag a paper as a one-in-one-trillion chance to not be plagiarized, obviously TurnItIn would not work as academic plagiarism detection software.  Duh.  If you don't know that, you didn't read the article.  Either that or you're so willingly deluded that you literally shut down these thought processes before they can instill doubt in the things you want to believe.

You know that I'm a reasonably intelligent person who knows you're being obviously dishonest with my argument.

You know that I am not going to stop hounding you on this until you're honest.  If you doubt me, read my post history.

You know I've explained to you, in simple terms, why what you're saying is non-responsive to my argument.  You know how totally disrespectful it is that you're wasting my time with this wall of complete and total bullsh**t.

You know that "this isn't a big deal" is not somehow an excuse for any of this.  I agree with you, actually, and don't view Melania Trump negatively for this at all.

So, if you know this, why are you doing this?  Maybe you're so emotionally dedicated to reaching a certain conclusion that you literally can't think through dissonant information.  Or maybe you think that, by conceding this issue -- one I totally agree is insignificant and doesn't reflect negatively on the people you like -- you somehow do damage to those people.  That certainly would explain how you keep responding to strawman versions of arguments, even when it's explicitly pointed out you're doing that, and keep mixing in crap about what "the opposition does."  Because, perhaps, in your mind, this is a zero-sum war to hold faith in your talking points, and the first person who blinks, instead of defending "their side," loses.

Here's the thing, Seriously?.

It doesn't matter what the opposition does.

It doesn't matter whether this reflects poorly on candidates or causes you like, or doesn't.

It doesn't matter whether this is a big deal.

It doesn't matter whether you are so insecure that you're intellectually or emotionally unprepared to deal with dissonant information.

Nothing matters except what is a reasonable, intellectually honest read of the facts.

In failing to engage that, you're being a credulous hack, completely disrespecting my time, and repeatedly embarrassing yourself by pretending that everyone, including people who agree with your politics, including probably you, doesn't know exactly what you're doing with this repetitive and hypocritical regurgitation of vacuous talking point crap.

Listen to your own advice.  Either respond to my argument (which I've presented in patient detail) in a way that actually engages the substance, or put your tail between your legs, admit you're incapable of engaging this issue like a grown-up, and MOVE ON.

And don't worry: I'm not mad.  I just enjoy this.  And I will continue to enjoy letting you embarrass yourself until you engage the substance here or admit you're unwilling to.

[Alcon]

Also, Seriously?, before you play the "that was too long, it would take too much time to respond!!!" card:  bullsh**t.  Most of that was just calling you ridiculous.  You don't need to respond to that.  You just need to stop being ridiculous.

The only part you need to respond to is the substance of my argument.  You're the one who has wasted your own time by avoiding that until now.

[Alcon]

I am not conceding a thing. This is politics, not some meeting of academics. Politicians rip off other people's sh**t all the time. This is trivial at the end of the day and your typical left-wing media gotcha game. I'd be more than happy to supply examples of Democrats that did the same thing, if you'd like.

The only thing I care about is you either substantively rebutting my argument (which you absolutely haven't) or conceding you're can't/unwilling.  Whether Democrats did "the same thing" (what "same" thing was that?) isn't material to whether your dismissal of the statistical evidence of plagiarism was reasonable.

lol at "this is not a meeting of academics."  Are you dismissing the statistical evidence because somehow statistics don't apply outside of academics?  You're ridiculous.

[Alcon]

http://time.com/4415378/meredith-mciver-donald-trump-speech/

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If she's a fictitious person, that's some weird deep background.