ApplesauceIrishCream
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User ID: 882
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
Some of her defenders, who call her “Queen Caroline,” are followers of Curtis Yarvin, a neoreactionary political theorist and far right darling. Many of the people who have flocked to Ellison’s defense gather on Urbit, a peer-to-peer platform created by Yarvin, one of her online supporters told Forbes.
Reportedly, this bit from the Forbes article came from someone who went full "Rahul Ligma" on them.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
The situation keeps getting sillier
Oh, indeed it does.
Eh, I'd give him a 3/10. Her? Maaaybe a 4/10. She's pretty damn homely, but that "sultry wood nymph" picture indicated an okay figure? Plus, she's 21. 4/10 might be a little generous.
( @FarNearEverywhere was certainly correct in that "sultry" is atrociously optimistic phrasing. The girl is modestly dressed, and comes off as the kind of babysitter you know won't be abandoning your kids to make out with a boyfriend.)
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
I am happy that you've found success. May you be your best self in enjoying the good that you've earned.
I would not describe myself as a rationalist, but I recognize what you've discovered--there's value to be found here, and it's worth the time to seek out. I suspect that SBF found some valuable facts about the world, but not the much more valuable attending wisdom, and proceeded to apply his lessons much less well than you've done. Perhaps he'll learn something from the ruin his mistakes have caused, but even if so, it will have been purchased at great cost to many others.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
Matthew 18:6 or Mark 9:42 or Luke 17:2, which each say about the same thing. Paraphrasing, "better to tie a millstone around your neck, and be cast into the deepest sea, than to lead a child into sin." In context, it's not specific to pedophilia, more of a general injunction against corrupting innocence in children, but pedophilia is generally considered the extreme case of a violation against this stricture.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
I particularly like 2, 4, 3, and 7.
This sentence made my head hurt, and yet, it feels oddly appropriate for Malazan.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
Well, I meant it more in terms of recreational reading, not a fully-general "other people's opinions don't matter." They do. And not all low-status things are created equal--some things are low status for justifiable reasons. Even in terms of recreational reading, I'm not going so far as to say anything goes. But "the important books" is not a good limiter.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
For the most part, screw status. Unless it's something that feeds negative habits, enjoy the stuff you enjoy. There's plenty of high status stuff that is either trash or not useful to you.
One series that I love is trashy paranormal romance, and it's hard to get lower status than that for a guy. There are legit reasons that I love the series, but "no, seriously, this is quality trashy paranormal romance!" is not a status-enhancing line when said sincerely.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
I think the "grimdark" label is often misapplied; remember, the setting that gave the trope its name is Warhammer 40K. It's not just a general "do bad things happen onscreen" measure; it's an evaluation of specific story elements.
"Grim" is a measure of the characters, in terms of moral motivations. The protagonist is an anti-hero, and the conflicts are gray vs. grey or gray vs. black. There are no classic altruistic heroes here; a grim story is cynical about people and how they work.
"Dark" is a measure of the moral center of the setting itself. No good deed goes unpunished; virtue is for fools. If there's a higher power, he's at best completely disinterested in justice, but he might just be Tzeentch straight up. Dark stories are cynical about ultimate justice and whether good deeds have meaning.
Sanderson is a good example of an author who is not grimdark, and he explicitly rejects the concept. Yes, the Elantris and Mistborn settings are deeply broken, but the protagonists are trying to fix things, and their efforts are rewarded. The brokenness of the settings isn't a grimdark immutable constant; it's the result of previous bad choices and calamities that can be addressed.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
I would say that the unfiltered (or at least, less filtered) side of you comes out when you're inebriated. This is the "real you" if you consider those filters to be an artificial construct constraining your true self, but I would not agree. Behavioral filters, like habits, generally are constructed, but they are constructed by a long series of choices that are morally attributable to yourself.
Similarly, however, the choice to become inebriated is a choice to relax those filters (involuntary intoxication is another matter), and that is also a decision with moral weight. In short, if you don't like what you tend to do while drunk...don't get drunk.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
I believe the 163x series is ongoing, among others. (First book is 1632 by Eric Flint; a small town from West Virginia in the year 2000 gets sent back in time to Germany, late 1631. Timeline divergence starts immediately.)
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
I posted the following earlier in the CW thread; reposting here in case someone finds the reference links useful.
If polling aggregators are a thing you find interesting, here are links to 538's 2022 Election Forecast page and RealClearPolitics' Election Central 2022 page.
If you're going to be glued to the television/internet tomorrow evening, and want to know what races to watch as early indicators, here's an hour-by-hour breakdown from Decision Desk HQ, and their General Results homepage. The night will begin at 7 PM EST with a trio of key Congressional races in Virginia, and the Governor and Senate statewide races in Georgia. At 7:30, start looking for returns from North Carolina and Ohio.
One of the reasons DDHQ is one of the best locations for US election returns is that their analysis pays particular attention to margins of victory, not just winners and losers, in forecasting outcomes on election night. Sure, a particular county might always vote Republican, but if the margin is R+5 on the night in question, that's very bad news for Republicans if the county was R+15 in 2016. You'll also see a lot of "if this race is called early for the Democrat, that's good news for the D party; but if the call is delayed, that's good news for Rs" or vice versa, depending on the race in question.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
If polling aggregators are a thing you find interesting, here are links to 538's 2022 Election Forecast page and RealClearPolitics' Election Central 2022 page.
If you're going to be glued to the television/internet tomorrow evening, and want to know what races to watch as early indicators, here's an hour-by-hour breakdown from Decision Desk HQ, and their General Results homepage. The night will begin at 7 PM EST with a trio of key Congressional races in Virginia, and the Governor and Senate statewide races in Georgia. At 7:30, start looking for returns from North Carolina and Ohio.
One of the reasons DDHQ is one of the best locations for US election returns is that their analysis pays particular attention to margins of victory, not just winners and losers, in forecasting outcomes on election night. Sure, a particular county might always vote Republican, but if the margin is R+5 on the night in question, that's very bad news for Republicans if the county was R+15 in 2016. You'll also see a lot of "if this race is called early for the Democrat, that's good news for the D party; but if the call is delayed, that's good news for Rs" or vice versa, depending on the race in question.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
When NoI-aligned people get involved in partisan politics, they either run as or support Democrats, not Republicans.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
The black t-shirt, eh whatever, but you've got to admit that "say nothing" is powerfully good advice in context. "Mouth shut, ears open" is something every novice usually doesn't hear enough.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
Skyforger's summary is correct; if you're curious about how the cure for scurvy got "undiscovered," this blogpost from some years back is fascinating reading.
That claim doesn't even make sense. Yes, the Dobbs leak happened before the midterms, but so did the release of Dobbs itself, as everyone was aware. How was the draft release supposed to affect the midterms in a way that the actual decision release would not?
Also, you are sliding right past the claim that the Dobbs leak was intended to affect the eventual decision reached in Dobbs itself, by leveraging public pressure into swaying votes on the Court. That was a central concern, as one of the longstanding beefs that conservatives had was with Justices "growing in office" and abandoning their earlier principles.
Edit to add: If the claim was rather "I expect Dobbs to harm Republican chances during the midterms," I would not object. Perfectly plausible claim, in my opinion. But I do object to the claim that the Dobbs leak would have a direct impact on the midterms beyond the decision itself.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
There have been leaks of private information from the Supreme Court before Dobbs; what made Dobbs unusual was that it was a full draft leak, not just a reported outcome, and crucially that it was well before Dobbs was announced, which meant that the leak and public reaction could have plausibly changed the outcome.
Oh, and there was an assassination attempt against Brett Kavanaugh. Because of the Dobbs leak. So yes, conservatives thought the leak could be damaging against their side, given that the senior members of the Democratic Party were pulling their best "will no one rid me of these meddlesome Justices" act.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
Yeah, a lot of organic material depends on how its twisted up (conformation), and the shape is governed by a bit from over here being attracted to a bit from over there due to ionic charge, hydrogen bonding, etc.--things that are not standard atom-atom covalent bonds. Those secondary types of linkage either form more easily or get disrupted more easily depending on pH, temperature, and solvent type. Something is "denatured" when its useful twisty conformation is untwisted, which makes it not useful. Depending on the organic material you're talking about, sometimes restoring it to a friendly environment will cause it to re-twist back into its useful conformation, but other times the sticky pieces just glom onto matching sticky bits elsewhere and you just get a mess. (A lot of cooking is based on this process; intentionally denaturing some components of ingredients using acid/heat/water, and then cooling the result into a different state.)
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
Certainly. I can take a look at my immediate family, and link up all sorts of similarities in terms of likes/dislikes, talents, emotional reactivity, communication style, etc. It's just that this sort of observation can't really separate nature vs. nurture when you're linked by both genes and experience.
Though once you've gone through the massive stack of adoption studies, twin studies, everything-we're-allowed-to-do-ethically studies, etc., you find that both matter a lot.
There's a pattern in the interaction that I suspect is very common. Take height as an example. Your maximum potential height is genetically determined, full stop. But your actual height as a fraction of that potential is environmentally determined--did you get adequate nutrition as a child? Did your legs get amputated in a car accident?
That said, this is more examining individual cases and family clusters, rather than the trends of population genetics.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
I'd offer a third take: it's likely that the high degree of overlap between parentage and culture is due to the mutual influence each has upon the other, over time, to the point that there are very good reasons it's difficult to tease the two apart.
Genetics shapes culture. If a group has a higher than normal tendency to reclusiveness, or aggression, or neuroticism, or quantitative ability, etc., then if the resulting society is to be successful, it must shape its institutions to both offset the negative impacts of that tendency as well as guide the positive aspects in a productive direction. Successful institutions must deal with people as they exist, not as anyone wishes them to be.
Culture shapes genetics. Culture is what determines status, and status heavily influences who has an easier time contributing his genes to the next generation.
Overall, I'd say the blank-slatists are trivially wrong, and the HBDers are directionally correct, but that it's unfortunately easy to overstate one's case.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
He's here; his most recent post was about an hour ago. I've had a bit of trouble with the search function myself, but not the technical chops to troubleshoot it.
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
I'm offended by Carol peeling a goddamn avacado in the episode.
I mean, yes, that's bad, but did you know that some places think guacamole can be made with green peas instead of avocado?
ApplesauceIrishCream
3yr ago
When it comes to the idea of Russians barreling to Finland Ukraine-style, I would much rather put my trust to the Finnish army than to civilians with guns to hinder the onslaught.
I realize that as a Finnish person, you are confronting this reality far more closely than I, but my immediate reaction is por que no los dos? In your shoes, I would like to have an army, an armed populace, many allies, and space lasers if I could get them, or at least as many of those as possible!
Aside from the strictly amoral or immoral, one of the worst conceptual types is the one who knows a very long list of moral systems, from various flavors of deontology to different types of consequentialism to the ethics of many virtues, and applies the moral justification to fit his situation. In any given instance, he has a perfectly cogent explanation for why his choice was justifiable, and even an argument for why his justification was the best type for the context, and yet the central point of morality was lost along the way--fencing off bad choices from good ones. Different systems will have somewhat different fence patterns, but hotswapping fences to fit your behavior ends up destroying the concept and purpose of the fence.
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