Blueberry
2yr ago
My moral calculus is different in that I care about future potential. Babies have their whole life ahead and murdering them snuffs out so much potential possibilities. Children are literally the future!
That is why I fundamentally disagree with Singer and find it a great tragedy that western countries locked down young children, despite them not vulnerable to Covid, and who then missed school years and crucial socializing with friends and forced them masking up, just to protect 80+ year old geezers.
Another aspect is that infants are helpless and innocent. Because of that I have much higher empathy and instincts to protect them instead of an adult who can fend for himself. Not-yet-sapiency is in that respect a bonus.
Thinking about Covid more I would even go further: The lockdown and other measures lowered birth rates. Even this (only virtual) loss of life I value much higher than the protection of senior citizens. Maybe my main objection to Singer ethics is that they are individualistic and are not strengthening, but weakening the tribe.
This picture was posted on the chess subreddit and I can't stop laughing and thinking about it:
https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/12r6psl/a_story_in_two_pics/
The right picture is Ding Liren, who is currently playing in the World Championship against Ian Nepomniachtchi, when he had something of a mental breakdown which lost him Game 7. He played fantastic as black until he had a small advantage, but then he froze, he blundered his remaining time because he couldn't bring himself to make a move. He just couldn't. He was paralyzed by his fear to overlook something and losing the game. Which ironically lost him the game. When he finally moved with 0:45 seconds remaining for 8 other moves (Nepo had 12 minutes left) he was visibly lost and depressed and he just got through the motions until he lost the game. Anish Giri commented that Chess is not a physical sport, so you don't normally see when someone collapses, but this was a collapse.
The left picture is Gigachad Magnus Carlsen, soon Ex-World Champion but still nonetheless best player in the world, arguably maybe best player ever, better even than Kasparov and Fischer at the height of their time, who has the time of his life partying with the Botez sisters and GM Aryan Tari, drinking shots and having fun playing Chess while everyone is dancing to cheesy Europop bangers.
When he mouseslipped and only got second place in an online tournament he exlaimed to the laughter of all: "I quit the fucking world championship for this?!"
"He should be ashamed for this. What a nonsense."
vs
"this is a fever dream of a stream tbh"
"Fever dream is the best way to describe it. Magnus is having so much more fun, has plenty of money, and has little left to prove. Seeing him vs Ding and Nepo right now makes it clear to me he made the right choice for himself"
vs
"what a time to be alive"
In your life try to be like Magnus, even if you are like Ding. It looks way more fun and you can wear cool sun glasses.
Blueberry
7mo ago
Charles Kushner, the father of Jared, wanted revenge on his brother in law, so he paid a prostitute to have sex and record the encounter, and then he sent the video to his sister:
He was pardoned by Trump four years ago and was now nominated as ambassador.
Blueberry
7mo ago
Explain like I am a 55 year old non-American non-4Chan non-always-online person?
I think I know who Southern Lauren is back from Gamergate (but searching her I find a video that she fled a tradwife life because of her horrible husband?), and I sometimes hear about this Destiny guy (why is it noteworthy that he is gay?), but I have no idea what he is or for what politics he has (was he some StarCraft streamer?) and Nick Fuentes seems to be some rightwingnut troll? What does it mean “to be a fed”? Is this just a diss or a really serious allegation?
I think there should be a more extensive KnowYourMeme or outOfTheLoop explanation?
Blueberry
8mo ago
Landing legs are heavy and any mass you lift up lowers payload. You also prevent damage from the engines (which are much more powerful than the Falcon 9 Merlin engine) blasting the surface and reflecting heat/shockwaves back to the ship.
https://x.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1844870018351169942
He [Elon Musk] was not enamored with the landing legs being planned for Starship’s booster. They added weight, thus cutting the size of the payloads the booster could lift.
“Why don’t we try to use the tower to catch it?” he asked. He was referring to the tower that holds the rocket on the launchpad. Musk had already come up with the idea of using that tower to stack the rocket; it had a set of arms that could pick up the first-stage booster, place it on the launch mount, then pick up the second-stage spacecraft, and place it atop the booster. Now he was suggesting that these arms could also be used to catch the booster when it returned to Earth. It was a wild idea, and there was a lot of consternation in the room. “If the booster comes back down to the tower and crashes into it, you can’t launch the next rocket for a long time,” Bill Riley says. “But we agreed to study different ways to do it.”
A few weeks later, just after Christmas 2020, the team gathered to brainstorm. Most engineers argued against trying to use the tower to catch the booster. The stacking arms were already dangerously complex. After more than an hour of argument, a consensus was forming to stick with the old idea of putting landing legs on the booster. But Stephen Harlow, the vehicle engineering director, kept arguing for the more audacious approach. “We have this tower, so why not try to use it?” After another hour of debate, Musk stepped in. “Harlow, you’re on board with this plan,” he said. “So why don’t you be in charge of it?”
Blueberry
2mo ago
“This Post from @kanyewest has been withheld in Germany, France, Poland based on local law(s). Learn more”
Wait, the X Account was reinstated? I guess Elon intervened? I just skimmed his tweets (always wild) and he shares Luigi memes (even wilder, I would have guessed he doesn’t like assassins!):
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1866389839362359790
Edit:
I know marijuana can cause for some paranoia, I never heard much about negative effects with psilocybin. I am sceptical about the drugs-fried-his-brain explanation. But I don’t have experience with drugs.
Zoophilia and meat eating are made comparable by Singer because he frames it as such. He illustrates that himself as "Imagine that you are an animal etc". But if one rejects this framework, if I imagine myself as a human, than it is effective to cut short engagement by having a simplified emotional response, eg by being shocked or mocking the idea. Taboos (an old fashioned word, you can also describe this category as "infohazard" or maladaptive training data which derails your brain software) are best preserved not by studying them in ever increasing detail, but by making them unthinkable.
For example a different framework could be: "Moral is that which makes my village survive the winter and makes my tribe/family/progenity thrive". A diverse diet does that. Romantic/Erotic attachment to animals does not and triggers disgust (maybe even genetically encoded?). It is noteworthy that the recent rise in veganism was not caused by the old arguments against animal harm like "imagine being an animal", but by new egoistic pro-human arguments like "veganism is more healthy" or "red meat causes more colon cancer" or "vegan calories can feed the world cheaper" or "western diet produces too much CO2, destroys the rainforest for cattles and we should switch to something more sustainable".
Blueberry
2yr ago
I'm willing to bet we'll reach 30% unemployment in five years. If not sooner. The question becomes - what do we do about it?
30 hour work week like Keynes intended.
Blueberry
2yr ago
Though Scott stresses repeatedly, that anorexia or anything else is not "less real" even if the underlying cause is 100% social and 0% biological. Do you think mass shootings don't exist? Of course not. An anorexic girl will still be anorexic and is in danger to hunger herself to death.
This is a bit weird to truly wrap ones head around. Lets take demonic possession. Deciding that there are no demons (or maybe very few) is a valid position. But there is a difference between A) this isn't real, possessed people are faking it, and B) the brains predictive engine is very good in simulating, and the individual experience/qualia is suffering under demonic influence.
Barack Obama and Donald Trump chatting away before Jimmy Carter's funeral is quite something to see:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5cnfNgvKsoo
Does Barack humor him diplomatically like a crazy MAGA uncle at the Thanksgiving table? Maybe, but Obama coolness breaking into a chuckle is genuine, Donalds joke must have hit. At the same time Obama has literally the ear of the next President, Trump is listening intensely what he has to say. You know deep down Trump thinks Obama is cool.
Blueberry
1yr ago
The deniers are just coping or contrarians.
It is very easy:
A) CO2 absorbs infrared radiation.
B) Industrialization increased its percentage in the atmosphere.
Preindustrial CO2 rate was under 300 parts per million.
2000 it was 370 ppm
2024 it reached 420 ppm
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-region
It is skewing to the last decades: half of the emmissions from 1750 to now were emitted in the last 30 years.
The amount of coal and oil we burned and will burn is stunningly large. A hundred times more every year than all vulcanism. HOW could that NOT have an effect?
Do you have more background info? I am surprised how negative here the reaction is too. I will come out as saying that while I didnt follow her I often found her insightful to read (whithout necessarily agreeing).
Blueberry
2yr ago
I have never encountered a truly gorgeous, promiscuous woman in my social class who has had problems finding a ‘high value man’ (ie. handsome, outgoing, masculine, successful, whatever) to marry.
I think you are onto something. The original article makes it clear, that not her bodycount is the problem, but her self-undermining behaviour and her unability of maintaining a relationship (and probably her taste in men).
I never encountered a counter example where a man rejected a woman because of that. If it is truly an effect felt by women, instead of just being an assumption, maybe it is simply a selection effect? Promisciuous woman are meeting/are interested promisciuous men, so if they want to settle down the try to do it with someone who is less interested in that, but the problem is not out of slut-shamingness?
Blueberry
13d ago
Asian tiger parent culture is different due to bugman conformalism
I can’t parse this sentence. Asian culture is more conforming, so their children go to public instead of private schools? Weird tech-nerds are more non-conforming? I don’t know what bugmen are.
Blueberry
9mo ago
Here is the Cato institute proofing with many studies that Hispanics turned to the Dems because the local GOP was more and more anti-immigration. That pushed minorities away:
https://www.cato.org/blog/proposition-187-turned-california-blue
Hispanic voters were alienated from the GOP and welcomed by the Democratic Party during the fights over Proposition 187, Wilson’s reelection, and during a series of other propositions proposed in the mid-1990s. One way this shift occurred was by galvanizing Hispanic naturalization in response to the perceived GOP threat.
Here is Mother Jones saying that demography is destiny and the whites deserved it:
It’s that simple. Prop 187 probably cemented Hispanic support for Democrats, but that was about it. It was demographics and redistricting that really made the difference.
If you believe in the demographic theory of presidential elections, the same thing will happen nationally when the non-white vote reaches about 50 percent. Unfortunately, that’s still a decade or two away.
Blueberry
1yr ago
I even think "cultured meat" will be a dead end and plant based substitution products will win:
https://www-merkur-de.translate.goog/verbraucher/als-vegan-variante-unternehmen-sieht-langfristige-entwicklung-ernaehrung-wurst-klassiker-jetzt-nur-noch-92781805.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
[German] Sausage manufacturer completely eliminates “classics” – and only produces vegan versions
“This shift in the range is not an effect that we are only seeing now in the current Veganuary, but rather a long-term development,” explains CEO Michael Hähnel of the decision. The proportion of the range has been shifting towards plant-based products for years.
Blueberry
3mo ago
The next step would be test your model of the world on the stock market. Which can be humbling.
A recent study of ethnographic data spanning the past 100 years—much of which was ignored by Man the Hunter contributors—found that women from a wide range of cultures hunt animals for food. Abigail Anderson and Cara Wall-Scheffler, both then at Seattle Pacific University, and their colleagues reported that 79 percent of the 63 foraging societies with clear descriptions of their hunting strategies feature women hunters.
An article from 2020 about that:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/early-women-were-hunters-not-just-gatherers-study-suggests-180982459/
Their analysis revealed that regardless of maternal status, women hunted in 50 of these societies—or about 79 percent. And more than 70 percent of female hunting appeared to be intentional—rather than opportunistically killing animals while doing other activities, per the study. In societies where hunting was the most important activity for subsistence, women participated in hunting 100 percent of the time.
“The hunting was purposeful,” Wall-Scheffler tells NPR. “Women had their own tool kit. They had favorite weapons. Grandmas were the best hunters of the village.”
The researchers also found that women played an active role in teaching hunting, and they used a wider variety of weapons and hunting strategies than men did. For example, while men tended to hunt alone or in pairs, women hunted alone, with a man or with groups of women, children or dogs. Women hunted small game in 46 percent of the studied societies and took down medium or large game in 48 percent of them. In 4 percent of societies, they hunted game of all sizes.
I mean, Artemis is after all a female goddess: (2nd century statue copied from a Greek original dating to 330 BCE). And as Thomas Carlyle meant to say, the real use of bow & arrow is to make all humans tall.
https://www.worldhistory.org/uploads/images/10157.jpg
Plus the easiest way of hunting animals is trapping. You don't need to be strong or athletic endurance to catch squirrels and rabbits with snares. Look at this boy trapping birds, which is so stupidly easy probably even a girl could do it as long as she isn't vegan and doesn't mind being cruel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapping#/media/File:34-caccia_tortore,Taccuino_Sanitatis,_Casanatense_4182..jpg
I don't know how to interpret the statement "Grandmas were the best hunters in the village", but I imagine their hunting looks less like battling a grizzly and more like these Aborigines finding a lizard (from 2:50), Also an example for opportunistically killing animals:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iP7Nn3whUTo&t=160
That said:
I wonder about the math here. If in 46% of foraging societies women hunt small game and in 48% larger game and then 4% all sizes how does that result in 79% of societies with women hunting? And I wonder what the total calories provided are. Was it more a novelty thing women did when they were bored or out of necessity or was hunting their sole profession? I read the book about the Pirahã in the Amazon (who have this strange language without recursion which refutes Noam Chomskys central thesis) and the role of the man was mainly to fish on canoes in the river (protein, every day staple meal) and going into the jungle to hunt was done less often because it was more dangerous and also you could come home empty handed to your disappointed wife and hungry children (but if you brought meat you were the king of the village and shared with everyone) and the women digged for vegetables/tubers (carbohydrates, also everyday staple food).
You Americans have more stories about Native/Indian American tribes, how and what did Native/Indian women hunt?
Blueberry
7mo ago
Vance argues that there is no solution to hillbilly culture. The best we can do is try to tip the scales to push a few marginal cases in the right direction. … Mentorship is one option. Vance attributes much of his success to the positive influence of a handful of family members, and now he tries to do the same for a few teenagers in similar environments. It’s especially useful to give these kids a jump start on the civilizing process, with simple tips like “wear a suit to a job interview” or “don’t curse in front of your boss.”
You should also embed your gf in your family to unlearn toxic behavior, eg visit with her for Christmas your parents instead of the chaos of her family.
It is getting even crazier:
Lebanon's official news agency reports that home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut
I wonder how deep Israel did go. And how much is paranoia/fud now.
Edit: And more! Exploding toasters next?
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-820703
Unofficial reports claimed that iPhones, video cameras, IC-V82 radios, and other devices also detonated. Unofficial reports also claimed that Hezbollah told its members to dispose of devices containing a lithium battery or that are connected to the internet.
Blueberry
11mo ago
as were laws requiring doctors to treat infants born alive after an abortion
Is there more information about that? Not treating the infants would be highly unethical and even without specific laws illegal, wouldn’t it?
Biden congratulated Trump and invited him to the White House:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-congratulates-trump-phone-call-invites-meeting-white-house/story?id=115560662
This happened hours before Kamala Harris concession speech. Which is starting right now in this second:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0ASIeYMfh14
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