07mk
4hr ago
Or just make them into more disciplined, less addictive, and more smelly versions of themselves.
07mk
6hr ago
That isn't particularly difficult for progressives to square. It's simple to say that marriage itself isn't good, but that our oppressive capitalist heteronormative patriarchy deems it as good* and, as such, confers many advantages to married couples. And, for as long as these advantages exist, gay couples should have just as much access to them as straight couples.
* This is merely one specific form of the fully general argument that anything that is considered "good" by conservatives/traditionalists/people I don't like is actually something that has been arbitrarily declared "good" by the fully uncoordinated emergent conspiracy-like behavior by people in power, and we could just as easily declare it "bad" and the reverse "good" and run society just as well, as long as everyone agreed to play along. Other examples include fat acceptance/health-at-any-size and also the denigration of logic and rationality in themselves (distinct from and antithetical to the common criticisms against rationalists and their ilk for failing to live up to their title of rationality).
My main objection to the people in your example is the obesity and the festering sores. But, that's what poverty looks like in the US today. If you want to avoid it, shop at better grocery stores than the bargain market.
I recall a few weeks ago, the Trump administration announced some sort of drug price discount website, which included some GLP-1 drugs, and people were joking that Trump just solved the American obesity epidemic. Likely untrue, since, AFAIK, the prescription gate for these drugs still exist. But if he were to run roughshod over the Constitution and just declare such drugs as over-the-counter and fully subsidized (and/or nullifying all associated patents) and enforced it with the US military, over the objections of the other branches of government, then I'd seriously have to consider if the fascism and authoritarianism (the actual ones that exist in this hypothetical) was a worthy price to pay.
Of course, these aren't magic drugs, and I know that plenty of people have negative side-effects, including one of my friends who became super-gassy. So the improvement in attractiveness in senses of sight and touch (perhaps even sound - fat rolls rubbing or slapping against each other isn't that attractive) could be offset by the worsening in attractiveness in smell.
07mk
8hr ago
Gym bros wear completely different clothing that doesn’t show off so I don’t think tight lulus etc are for comfort. It’s what they are socially allowed to wear to be hot and get attention and I think they like it.
I haven't been to the gym in a while, but I don't think gym bros tend to wear completely different clothing than women; they do tend to wear tights like women do. Because tights allow for less friction and more mobility while doing exercises, especially if sweat is involved. It's just that, due in part to anatomical differences, wearing only tights for the bottom is considered inappropriate for men while it isn't for women, and so the gym bros also usually wear a regular pair of athletic shorts over them. Even then, this isn't universal, and outside the gym, cyclists get an exception, probably because their junk is flush against a bike seat most of the time and so not noticeable regardless.
I certainly do think that the reason many young women are drawn to go to the gym is because of the costume rather than the health and more than the long-term attractiveness benefits. And I think that's a reflection of the reality of how sexy and practical converge in female clothing for gym purposes (and, in general, many/most athletic purposes).
07mk
8hr ago
I think all of the comments get at the one correct answer: it's not wrong to look at anyone anywhere, because pointing your eyeballs in a specific direction and adjusting the shape of your lens to focus on a specific thing doesn't actually impact anyone else, but it is wrong to be noticed looking at girls in the gym*. So do it without being noticed. If you do, you might begin to notice that this principle applies to many avenues in life.
* Unless you're attractive, in which case, neither of those things is wrong. But if you're posting on TheMotte, you almost definitely don't have to worry about this case.
07mk
8hr ago
Huh, I had always been taught about government cheese primarily as a dairy price control program, and I was only vaguely aware that it was given out to people sometimes, though I never thought about it enough to figure out the details. I always assumed the government just threw them away when they went bad.
07mk
1d ago
As I understand it, AI security has a lot of "kick the black box until it looks secure" kind of thing going on, and I am almost sure that's a weaker security model than what we previously had, and thus will have more exploits.
This seems like a sort of "security through empiricism" versus "security through principles" dichotomy, (or perhaps "science" versus "engineering") and it'll be interesting to see empirically which one will be better in the next few years. Intuitively, I agree with you, but also, there's no way to tell until it actually plays out in the real world with real AI-aided/AI-agent-based crackers trying to break into systems. And there will likely never be any truly good apples-to-apples points of comparison between these methods.
In the far future (in AI timescales, that's least 2 years away), I expect just telling the AI "make this system secure from X, Y, Z, and also anything else you think I might want based on the list I already gave you" will be far more secure than engineering a system where you know each and every if-then clause and for loop and etc. and how they work together. At the very least, an AI managing the system seems more likely to be able to adapt to new and newly invented exploits as they come up, since it'd be available 24/7 and not be limited by physical limitations of the bandwidth that a human has to instruct a computer. Though once Neuralink and similar devices become as cheap, common, and non-invasive as a laptop, that advantage could go away.
07mk
1d ago
Funnily enough, Giancarlo Esposito himself apparently doesn't speak Spanish, and his Spanish lines in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul had to be memorized phonetically. I've heard that Spanish speakers found his pronunciation comically bad for the most part.
07mk
2d ago
Claims that skepticism isn't hard to learn seem pretty common, but I'm skeptical of this. My own anecdotal observations have convinced me that it's a slightly harder thing to learn than rocket science and quantum physics combined.
By? Correct, one can't. While? Why not?
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