Aapje58
1yr ago
then a religion which lays the groundwork for its own collapse is probably not close to an optimal religion.
This would be a far stronger argument if a different religion would take its place, rather than atheism.
My theory for the demise of religion in the west is that we've succeeded too well at reigning in chaos and spreading knowledge for religion to be seen as valuable by most people. For a substantial part, that is because we have become so good at producing a good society to live in. If this is the goal of Christianity, then it made itself obsolete.
Aapje58
1yr ago
The point is that they are a threat to French-language education while they are there.
Aapje58
1yr ago
You're missing the point. We are told to "trust the experts" when they make their predictions. However, when the predictions are at best guesses that need to be validated in practice, then we objectively cannot "trust the experts."
If the media and politicians would honestly tell us that these opinions are imperfect and cannot just be assumed to work, I would have no problem with that. But of course they don't say that, because they use the 'expert opinion' as a way to win debates and project power.
Arguing that some experts can be trusted more than others just proves my point that the generic implicit or explicit demand to "trust the experts" is wrong*. In fact, it allowed the fraudsters to hide behind those that do better. In debates, if you question how experts are presented to us, the defenders will invariably point to the better experts, rather than adopt a nuanced position where some experts are better than others.
After all, the nuanced position is not compatible with the power games being played.
* For example, I almost never see a justification being given for why a certain expert is any good.
Aapje58
1yr ago
The rule that 80% of federal funds must go to direct workforce is also an attempt to ensure that wages are prioritized, if not having raises literally mandated.
But the side effect is that technology that reduces the workload of nurses is discouraged, since you run into problems if you spend money on technology, rather than nurses. Thus making the nurse shortage worse.
Aapje58
1yr ago
It's far from obvious that it's globally beneficial to create a situation where two groups are both underserved and where they each form negative opinions about members of the other group.
Aapje58
1yr ago
When feminists say "porn is exploitative" and "all sex is rape", this dynamic is what they're getting at- the former because it means that women for whom having sex is a job [that pays a wage] now have to compete with free.
This doesn't ring true at all. Many of those feminists are against sex work too.
It seems more based on on the very conservative idea that women need friendship, support and other things from their partner, which require a lot of effort from the man, but that porn teaches men that they can get sex from women without providing these things. Not: "she had sex with me because I put a lot of effort into the relationship", but: "here's your pizza, sex?"
Aapje58
2yr ago
Your definition just rationalizes away success, where if someone gets objectively better outcomes, but their expectations are higher, they somehow aren't doing better because the gap between expectations and outcomes is similar.
Aapje58
2yr ago
Second, I am not a fan of calling people "obsessed" because they argue a position for more than one post.
I wasn't responding to the frequency, but to the way you approach the issue.
For me, mate selection is a rather complex challenge where people with different demands, different (sub)cultures, different skills, etc have to match up. This provides all kinds of challenges and any solution is going to have downsides and upsides. Simply pointing to a thing that is not optimal in some ways, without even recognizing that the very same behavior that produces a disadvantage also brings advantages, is in my view merely a demand for Utopia, which I see as very harmful, as well as not being helpful at all.
It is very far from a holistic view where you actually try to build a workable system and weigh advantages and disadvantages, compared to the alternatives.
For example, when you said that: "I don't think [women] should just be expected to put up with creepy come-ons without protest," I see no recognition at all that a protest may in fact be the wrong solution (at least for certain types of alleged creepiness). Why?
-
The perception of what is creepy may be unreasonable. For example, some people seem to believe that this perception is heavily correlated with attractiveness, rather than just behavior, which if true, can be argued to be extremely discriminatory.
-
The perception of creepiness may vary so much between people (and possible even for the same person, depending on their mood or such) that saying it to a man may not be a helpful lesson to that person. And if a generic complaint is made, like in the elevator story, yielding to it may just mean that other women don't get come-ons that they desire. Either form of complaint may simply divide men into those who respond in a Pavlovian way (ignore the complaints, because doing so work often enough) and those who simply stop approaching women altogether (as there is no way not to offend some women, unless one stops approaching women altogether). The net effect may be negative for women, especially if the more neurotic men are less likely to be harmful, which is likely. It may even empower bad actors when women have less choice due to men checking out and have to lower their standards.
-
Accepting this may reinforce the current narcissistic and individualist culture where people demand that their own desires are met, which can be argued to have many downsides, including a lack of clarity of what both men and women should do and accept to make mate selection work out reasonably well.
Those are just a few examples of challenges that you could have addressed, but instead you merely state your opinion that you believe that a downside is unreasonable, without even arguing why you consider it unreasonable. As such, it is about as informative as 'I like fish.'
This is an obvious straw man, and equally obviously, not what I want either.
It is not at all obvious what you want, because your statements are so shallow. You argue that "it is pretty creepy to ask a woman you're alone in an elevator with late at night to "come back to your room for coffee" unless you have been given prior signals that she might be receptive to such a proposition." However, this is just your personal opinion on the matter. Do you believe that this should be the societal norm? Is it the societal norm? How do you even know to what extent the guy perceived prior signals?
There are scientific studies that argue that people are often very bad at both sending and perceiving subtle signals. Something you never address. You just assume. Perhaps she smiled at him and then put her hand through her hair, in the same way that some women do to signal. However, this time it was not intentional, but how could he know?
Do you want to standardize the signals or make them very explicit? If we do not, then shouldn't women accept that men will quite often misjudge?
What I see you do is merely empathizing with an individual woman, without seeing the larger picture, in so many different ways.
Aapje58
2mo ago
Unless youre counting land collectivisation per se, most peasants didn't have to actively participate.
All organizations had to be explicitly communist, even for doing hobbies, which is definitely totalitarian.
Aapje58
2mo ago
But what if an upstanding and polite civil society is the very thing I want to preserve?
Then the left needs to learn that their ratfucking has eroded civil society and they will suffer for it as well. Perhaps then they will want to rebuilt it.
If I want to preserve traditional Western morality and institutions
How can you preserve something that no longer exists? Morality and institutions have to be rebuilt.
I find it hard to believe surrendering a political movement to a figurehead who is hostile to its very principles is the winning play to bring about those principles.
The problem is that the left has gotten addicted to hatred and oppression, and even if the right would put forth a Gandhi, he would be treated like a Hitler.
Trump's willingness to burn down institutions is a necessary harsh lesson to the left that the right won't let themselves be put into the reservation. Either the left makes institutions that the right is a part of and that they can support, or the right will keep attempting to burn them down.
Aapje58
3mo ago
The courts alternatively pretend to be pure objectivity or to have a heavenly mandate in their subjectivity, but the mundane reality is that just like with kings, the pretense requires sufficient popular support, or the (figurative) guillotine comes into play.
Aapje58
4mo ago
It's more similar to the native American situation. Yield land to appease the colonists and they will just come back to claim more once their needs grow, until only a fraction of land is left that is not worth the effort to take.
Aapje58
5mo ago
Tyrannies are problematic because there's rarely a good plan for what comes next. Once a tyranny ends (i.e. tyrant dies) there is chaos or more tyranny.
No, this is why hereditary monarchy was invented.
Aapje58
5mo ago
He doesn't wear blue contacts. You can see that he has blue eyes in images of him as a pubescent youngster.
Aapje58
7mo ago
At least with a sidewalk or a separate path, you’re not blocking cars.
Why would a cyclist care about that? This is like trying to convince a Democrat to emigrate, so Republicans can govern the US as they want.
And cars block other cars quite a lot, so by your reasoning, people should stop driving and walk instead (which has the minimum amount of blockage).
Aapje58
7mo ago
If some space must be carved out of somewhere for the sake of cyclists, I think sidewalk space should be carved out before street space.
In the Netherlands, there are a lot of non-urban bicycle paths which are also used by pedestrians, runners, etc. This is generally fine (although pedestrians behave more poorly than cyclists), since the paths are suitable for cycling speeds and nicely flat.
And that cyclists should be held to sidewalk rules rather than street rules, since they can more easily follow sidewalk rules.
I think that sidewalk rules are worse to cyclists than a 10-20 mph zone is to drivers. At least the drivers get decent roads in that case.
Aapje58
7mo ago
The danger is stupid drivers who think that there is room when there isn't, and when they have a choice between hitting a car (low chance of injury) or the cyclist, they plow into the cyclist.
Aapje58
7mo ago
You're entirely correct but ... aren't large expenditures of your personal physical energy half the point of biking?
The other half is going places, the joy of the ride, etc.
Also, a cyclist tends to plan to use a certain amount of energy by picking a certain route. Going over budget is not necessarily preferred.
Aapje58
7mo ago
(1) A speed limit is not a minimum. (2) You are supposed to be able to stop even for stopped traffic, not depend on magic escape routes to get you out of trouble. (3) You are supposed to drive in a way that is suitable for the circumstances.
And bike trails can be quite short, unsuitable for a racing bike, not linked to other nice roads that one might use, etc.
Aapje58
9mo ago
Cults should not be spied on either, unless they are a criminal organization.
Aapje58
1yr ago
The president declares "No-knock warrants are now classified as potentially lethal force," what changes?
Federal courts have decreed that police violence should be justified by the circumstances, primarily the risk to officers and others, so they would presumably need to be able to argue some proven risk.
Which in this case seems to be absent.
The chance that he's seen Hamas propaganda seems negligible. There are many far more likely explanations, such that he's ignorant of news in general and is concerned with charming the ladies, or is part of a bubble that doesn't signal boost these things (which doesn't mean that it signal boosts Hamas' propaganda).
I consider it rather extremist and leaning towards false or at least unproven conspiracy beliefs to simply assume that beliefs like this are caused by Hamas' propaganda. It also completely denies people any agency. Using the same logic you can explain all kinds of things as being caused directly by propaganda, like your beliefs about Israel being caused by propaganda from Israel, people who have doubt about the elections because controlled by Putin, conservative Catholics being controlled by the Pope, etc.
More options
Context Copy link