FtttG
User ID: 1175
I don't want to put words in @WhiningCoil's mouth. I, for one, would be more than happy to house, feed, clothe etc. poor people in the post-Singularity, post-scarcity gay luxury space communism future that surely awaits us. That society being, of course, the only society in which your policy proposal would actually work, and which wouldn't impose horrific externalities and create perverse incentives for every inhabitant therein.
If I had to parse @WhiningCoil's comment, he was scoffing at the idea that feeding, housing, clothing etc. poor people is the moral thing to do in our universe, with all of its attendant restrictions, limitations and trade-offs. I know that you think the correct approach is to imagine what the right thing to do would be if there were no constraints, and then try to get as close to that target as possible, given the constraints placed upon us. I know because you explicitly told me:
First figure out what we ought, ideally, to have; then carve out what's practical right now, keeping the rest on the back burner until the time is right. That's what it means for me to be a Progressive.
Fair enough. But the thing is: imagining what the right thing to do would be in a universe with no constraints really isn't that hard. Utopias are a dime a dozen, specifically because they skip over all those difficult problems that real life imposes upon us. In light of this, most people (myself included) prefer to just skip the imagining-what-to-do-in-a-universe-without-constraints step, and instead focus on trying to decide the best course of action in our universe, with the constraints we are operating under. But you seem convinced that unless we go through the motions of announcing "this is what the right thing to do would be [in the counterfactual universe with no constraints, limitations or trade-offs]... however, given that we live in a universe with constraints, limitations or trade-offs-"
Dude. We KNOW we live in a universe with constraints, limitations and trade-offs. That's why we're discussing optimal solutions in light of those constraints, rather than wasting our time with navel-gazing on what the right thing to do would be without them. I'm sure I can't be alone in thinking this insistence that we go through the motions of determining what the right thing to do would be in a counterfactual universe with no constraints seems sort of... performative? Do we have to say grace before eating our dinner? Must we do the land acknowledgement before we discuss optimal property tax rates? Do we have to listen to the elevator pitch for your fantasy novel before we can talk about whether or not performing a double mastectomy on a teenage girl is a good idea?*
I know, I know, I know: if we don't reflexively go through the motions of imagining a utopia, we won't notice when we've accidentally created a dystopia. Or as you put it:
it's the difference between "we recognize that it's a moral tragedy that thousands upon thousands of Africans starve to death, but America physically wouldn't have the resources to feed everyone while still caring for itself in the long term, so we should stop ruining ourselves by trying; we can only hope that someday we are secure enough to start the work anew", which is very sensible; and "thousands and thousands of black people dying is fine and none of our business, we should actively beat the urge to help them out of our children if possible, it's a disease holding them back from being Übermensch", which is fucking evil.
But frankly, I don't think anyone here is at risk for advocating the latter position; some of the most moral and decent people I've ever met have been those most acutely aware of the very real trade-offs and constraints life places upon us (while some of the most selfish and inconsiderate were those who spent much of their waking life in hypothetical utopias); and I think your belief that imagining hypothetical utopias is the thing that prevents you from endorsing the democide of starving Ethiopians is both untrue from a psychological perspective and tremendously self-serving.
*My God, imagine if every profession was like this:
Oncologist: In an ideal world, your husband would never have developed prostate cancer. But in our world, he has, and here are your treatment options.
Police officer: In an ideal world, your wife would never have been murdered. But in our world, she has been, and we have a good idea of who did it.
Engineer: In an ideal world, this bridge would never have collapsed. But in our world, it has, and forty-six people are believed to have been killed.
FtttG
2hr ago
Does heroin qualify as a nice thing? Most of the people addicted to it would probably say so.
One reason most people don't think the state should subsidise people's heroin addictions is because consistent heroin use will inevitably kill the user, or at the minimum destroy their life in every meaningful sense.
Once you accept that it's wrong to subsidise someone else's independent decision to destroy their own life with drugs (perhaps because they're too stupid, through no fault of their own, to know better), it follows that the specific drug they use to do so is almost beside the point. Why would paying someone to kill themselves with heroin not be acceptable, but paying them to kill themselves with alcohol would be A-OK? Why not alcohol, but fast food? Why not fast food, but gambling? Why not gambling, but prostitutes?
That giving poor people money so that they can feed, house and clothe themselves and be fruitful and multiply is the kind, decent thing to do sounds sensible enough on paper. The trouble is that it's remarkably difficult to ensure they will use the money to ensure those needs are met, rather than using it to satisfy base urges which will kill them or destroy their lives.
FtttG
4hr ago
nor be barred from the joy of raising a family
Having children and raising a family are two distinct actions: the underclass tends to excel at the former while stumbling over the latter.
FtttG
4hr ago
and uncomfortable with the implications of the results of those IQ tests when looking at populations rather than individuals.
FtttG
6hr ago
- Went to the gym three times last week and on Monday, going again this evening: can deadlift 1.7x my bodyweight, squat .82x and bench press .67x.
- Have not consumed any alcohol, fast food, fizzy drinks or pornography since waking up on January 1st, although I have snacked between meals quite a bit.
- Have completed three of 11 modules in the SQL course.
- Have practised guitar for roughly one hour every day since January 1st.
FtttG
12hr ago
I think you're absolutely right. It's closely related to Scott's example of a law banning childcare employers from asking prospective employees about their criminal record (or lack thereof), under the assumption that this would improve diversity metrics in the industry. Instead, the opposite happened, for perfectly understandable reasons: employers don't want ex-cons working in their daycares, they're forbidden from asking interviewees if they have a criminal record, but they know that a given black interviewee is 7 times more likely to have a criminal record than a given white interviewee, so they make an educated guess.
I'm wondering if these are both examples of some kind of general trend:
- activists notice that a favoured group is placed at a disadvantage because of some extremely legible metric
- they try to prevent people from using that legible metric to make decisions, reasoning that this will improve the outcomes for the favoured group
- because people can no longer use the legible metric to make decisions, they instead rely on vastly noisier and less legible metrics
- this puts the favoured group at an even greater disadvantage
A related example I thought of was various kinds of rent controls, rent freezes and protections for tenants (such as those which make it extremely difficult to evict a tenant). In principle these are designed to protect tenants, especially people who might be especially vulnerable to eviction (say, because they're recent immigrants to the country, with no family or friends to fall back on in the event that they get evicted). In practice, they make renting to a complete stranger such a risky proposition that landlords would much rather rent properties to people they know via the "old boys' network", which makes it even more difficult for newly arrived immigrants to secure accommodation than it would have been otherwise.
I believe that, in the US, employers are discouraged from using IQ tests to make hiring decisions, owing to the "disparate impact" doctrine (i.e. a tacit admission of HBD, even if no one will come out and say so). They must instead rely on proxies for IQ, some of which are reliable (the SAT is an IQ test in all but name) and some of which are not (such as being "well-spoken").
FtttG
23hr ago
Primarily as an exercise to familiarise myself with my new guitar, I'm recording a guitar arrangement of a well-known piece of contemporary classical music which has been used in several films. I'm enjoying it, but my God, I'm so used to playing along with a click track, I'd forgotten that that isn't the norm in classical music. Ugh.
FtttG
1d ago
How is releasing footage of the incident that the assailant filmed on his phone "covering it up"?
FtttG
1d ago
They even shot an innocent lady in Minnesota and decided to cover it up.
Are we talking about the same woman? Because her "innocence" is exactly what's under discussion, and I can't say it's been effectively "covered up" if literally everyone is talking about it.
FtttG
1d ago
So you really think that cowering in your home, as the cited person on twitter was saying, is a valid thing we should accept as a society?
What was your opinion of lockdowns?
This is important, because it's a hint to state of mind. It also wasn't just swearing. He (and I think after reflection it's almost certainly him) called her a "fucking bitch" immediately after. The vibe is "you deserved it", not "oh shit I almost died".
The vibe is "oh shit I almost died because someone hit the accelerator while I was standing directly in front of their car". I have to say, I think you're demanding an impossibly high standard of behaviour from police officers. It's one thing to say that police officers should endeavour to remain courteous and professional to the best of their ability. It's quite another to say that an officer cursing in the middle of a stressful situation, literally seconds after he was very nearly seriously struck by a car, is dispositive proof that he's a vicious murderer. And as I pointed out elsewhere, it's entirely possible that Ross didn't even know that Good was dead at the time he spoke.
FtttG
2d ago
A Xitter user with 43k followers explicitly describing Ross's wife as a mail-order bride. Heart-reacted 92k times, retweeted 15k times.
Richard Hanania mocking him for having an immigrant wife while thinking immigrants are a threat to America (refusing to parse the legal/illegal immigrant distinction, of course).
Richard Hanania asserting that Ross married a brown woman and then decided to devote his life to terrorising brown people (my God, do I loathe the term "people of colour", as if a Filipina has anything in common with a Somalian other than not being white).
Someone on Instagram comparing Ross's wife to the sexually exploited women she met while working as a missionary.
A Xitter user claiming that Ross married his Filipina wife specifically because the Philippines is the only country in the world which doesn't recognise divorce, thereby enslaving her.
FtttG
2d ago
I saw a clip of a standup comedian saying that seeing a relationship counselor when you aren't married and don't have children just means you should break up, and I'm inclined to agree. If you have children and a mortgage, you should be doing everything in your power to try and make the relationship work: if not, you're probably better off just cutting your losses.
FtttG
2d ago
I think it's mainly a style thing. The narration is so dense with jargon that there are often times when I literally cannot follow what's happening. Maybe this wouldn't be such an issue if I was a bigger sci-fi head.
I'm likewise having trouble keeping track of which character is which, an especially galling failing given that the narration makes such a big point of how different the characters are (both from each other and the human norm). One of the main characters has multiple personalities, but might as well not for all the difference it makes to her voice.
FtttG
2d ago
And he loses still further sympathy points if it was him who said "fucking bitch", to say the last.
It's been a few days since I watched any of the numerous angles of the altercation, but my recollection is that whichever person said "fucking bitch" said it mere seconds after shots were fired. If indeed it was Ross who said it, I think it's entirely possible he didn't know Good was dead at the time of speaking.
FtttG
2d ago
A bit over halfway through Blindsight. Honestly, I can't say I'm loving it. It may be destined for the charity shop.
FtttG
3d ago
I think it'd be no harm creating that now that we've established that the shooting in Minneapolis will be dominating discussions at least for the rest of the current news cycle, but this
I'd like to suggest that in the future mods should exercise some judgement and make a megathread on events like this that are likely to generate a ton of back and forth discussion
seems like an awful lot to ask. It's not like the mods have a crystal ball and can see into the future about which culture war topics will generate the most discussion. Some police shootings/killings become front-page news and stay there for months; most do not. A week ago, if you had asked me to predict which of this shooting or Trump's invasion of Venezuela would generate the most column inches, I would have predicted the latter.
FtttG
3d ago
FtttG
4d ago
I don't know about law enforcement in general, but the FBI uses the Bittaker and Norris audio tapes (of the two men raping, torturing and murdering their female victims, many of whom were teenagers) to desensitize agents-in-training to extreme violence. To help Scott Glenn prepare for his role as Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs, an FBI consultant played him the tapes. Glenn left the room in floods of tears and was so upset by the experience that he refused to reprise his role in any of the sequels.
It seems like you're already bidding a tactical retreat from wanting to subsidise them creating more humans in addition to providing them with food, clothes and shelter.
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