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Blueberry


				

				

				
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User ID: 90

Blueberry


				
				
				

				
0 followers   follows 0 users   joined 2022 September 04 19:13:44 UTC

					

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User ID: 90

Italy’s birth rate is decreasing further to 1,2:

Financial Times: Italy’s births drop to historic low
Just 379,000 babies were born in 2023, despite PM Giorgia Meloni’s efforts to reverse demographic decline

https://archive.is/T6thJ

Meloni has continued a child allowance scheme introduced by the previous government in 2021 and slightly increased the monthly sums families receive for small children, but her rightwing government has also experimented with other incentives.

After coming to power in late 2022, the coalition government halved VAT on infant products such as baby formula and nappies, but it has since scrapped those tax cuts. This year, Italy has allocated €1bn in other measures aimed at supporting mothers, including temporarily making pension contributions on behalf of working women who have at least two young children.

But Maria Rita Testa, a demographer at Rome’s Luiss university, said policymakers needed to address other factors, including parents’ economic stability and access to affordable childcare, now in acutely short supply. “They should try to tackle the problem of reconciliation of family and work tasks,” Testa said.

Italy had planned to use some of the €200bn in EU recovery funds it receives to build new childcare facilities for 260,000 infants and pre-school aged children, but Rome has now cut that target to 160,000.

The article notes that Meloni is herself a single child, but fails to mention that she also only has a single daughter. Still the low birth rate is a core issue for her and her right-wing coalition, but as in leftwing governments elsewhere they can’t find policies to reverse course.

https://archive.ph/5qyEx#selection-2497.0-2497.8

Religious Zionism lawmaker Orit Strock … gave by way of example a situation in which a Christian wanted to hold a Christmas party with a Christmas tree in a venue owned by a religious Jew.

“I assume an observant Jewish person won’t want to do this because it contravenes his religious faith… Jews gave up their lives to not do such things throughout history. The law must not treat Jewish law as something of lesser value,” she said. "The State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people … "

The end result and goal by the zionist lawmakers is segregation. The "lgbt cake case" is more like that a Jew shouldn't be forced to provide a christmas tree (creative services). But not providing a venue, is like denying to sell a generic cake.

Maybe you know (from back when the web was still young) the comic Sinfest by Japanese-American artist Tatsuya Ishida. His turn from fun webcomic to ultra-anti-woke/anti-porn/pro-maga wingnut is maybe the most surprising heel turn in history.

What confuses me though is his unashamed hamas-freedom fighter sentiment and Jews-are-the-villains narrative:

https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2023-11-13

https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2023-11-11

https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2023-11-01

Similar to Stonetoss anti-Jew/Israel comics:

https://stonetoss.com/comic/the-great-pumpkin/

I find it surprising because they align their politics suddenly with the woke blue-haired decolonization genderfluid hipsters they are normally opposed to. Instead my guess would have been, now that israelic comedians make fun of such US-student (https://youtube.com/watch?v=rbfccVBo9tE), that right wingist would latch onto that and try to flip Jews to their side. Is it just being contrarian and being opposed to whatever the mainstream media is for? Do they secretly have a hard on for homophobic/antifeminist Islam? Or maybe, as a non-American, I simply underestimated the strong JewishWorldConspiracy-Nazism-undercurrent in some right wing circles?

"Moby Dick" is a novel by Herman Melville originally published in 1851 and its full text is protected by copyright law in most jurisdictions

So close by the AI, that it is strange that it misses. Explicitly reminding that this was 170 years ago persuades it to answer correctly.

The dysgenics is trivial to solve with embryo selection

The obesity pandemic is also trivial to solve with people eating less. Mass migration would be easily solved if a wall would be build at the Mexican border.

Even if an easy solution is known, even if the solution is proven to work, it can be very very hard, often impossible, to implement it.

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://imgur.com/a/JATi25D

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?!"

https://clips.twitch.tv/AlertRespectfulQueleaHassaanChop-7SH5g20q4uKdQXlb?tt_medium=clips&tt_content=recommendation

"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.

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".

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

why does the UN have the right to just impose that on them?

Because the alternative was what happened: The right of conquest.

Who are the female counterparts to Harry Potter

Harry is totally average, aside that he has -accidentally- a piece of Voldemorts soul. But he is not the best wizard in the world or is the coolest guy ever. It is Longbottom in the end who wielded the sword of Gryffindor, it is Hermione who is most clever, the Weasley family who harbors the resistance.

Last year secular Jews fertility rate in Israel declined for the first time below replacement level (slightly under 2.0). They still do get more kids then their peers in the west, but conservative/traditional families still get more.

Kirsten Roupenian says she learned about Alexi Nowicki "from social media". (Good old online stalking.) But I don't believe it, it seems like she said it to distance herself while the details are too intimate, my bet is that Roupenian must have read through Charles phone or knew him more. Doesn't have to be romantic, maybe she was just a friend to which he poured his heart out in a vulnerable moment. Frustrating that the "encounter" is not clarified.

Anyway, I found this poignant:

We are all unreliable narrators. Sometimes, to my own disappointment, I find myself inclined to trust Roupenian over myself. Had Charles actually been pathetic and exploitative, and I simply hadn’t understood it because I, like Margot, was young and naïve? Had he become vengeful and possessive after we broke up, but I’d just blocked it out in order to move on with my life? The story is so confident and sure, helping the reader to see things Margot herself does not. In December, David told me that Charles kept his old iPhone even after he got a new one so that he could look back at his old messages with Kristen from time to time to see whether he had actually been an asshole. Sometimes it feels easier to believe the story that everyone knows than the one they don’t.

But the world did that with Atoms for Peace:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoms_for_Peace

See also the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Countries like Japan have highly developed nuclear industry, but they don’t have nuclear weapons.

Russia just dismissed the dude that organized the super clean double retreat across the dnipro

Who was that and why was he dismissed?

Elon is on the warpath again

Which isolates him more and more. He needs allies, not more conflicts. He should phone Tim Cook and cozy up to him and other powerful CEOs, not be a pain in the ass to them. He should court the White House and lobby his interests in Washington, not pointlessly antagonize politicians.

I think he is in an especially bad feedback loop on Twitter, with sycophants cheering his antics (shitposts), which will crash and burn him. Also his personality is thriving on adversity, he is amused by conflict, but that won’t make him friends or build coalitions.

Is Apple willing to fight?

Their advertising won’t come back. But I don’t see them removing Twitter app without a good reason (eg data leak of users, increased hate). Maybe Musk will do stupid subscription shenanigans to avoid the 30% cut in the AppStore/Playstore.

I was once in a monogamous relationship where my partner then expressed a strong desire to date other people.

Did you keep in touch and know how that turned out? Did she date multiple others (genuine slut interest) or gravitate to a an upgraded ymeskhout replacement (opening the relationship was an excuse to shop for something better)?

The hardest flex of him is in the comments:

I've never understood why people think English is bad for dactyls. I really like them and wrote a piece entirely in dactyls once to see what would happen: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/17/the-goddess-of-everything-else-2/

WOW this has made me think of that post in a new light. Read it at least four times and had no clue.

Many people have said this! I'm torn between "I guess I wasted my time doing this" and "people seemed to find it beautiful, and I wonder if it's because subconsciously they noticed it was poetry even if they couldn't exactly put their finger on why."

A dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables.

Out of the loop: How did Hanania plagiarize you?

She says she is a very online person and can deal with the hate, so she will be fine.

More interesting I found the exchange between gwern and Scott on /r/slatestarcodex

Gwern argued that dateMe.docs are a waste as they repel more than attract, Scott disagreed strongly and they are a good tool for filtering and have a high chance to find romance (Also Scott revealed that a few years ago he had a poly thing with her, so of course he took her side). Both didn't budge.

Gwern also linked to the inventor Putanomonit (who stole it from Aella really), who has a blog post about how dateMe.docs should not be used as "advertisment" (the same as a tinder profile) but as an application (send to a specific person/group of people).

https://putanumonit.com/2022/09/02/date-me-doc/

The issue at the heart of date-me docs is the same as that of dating profiles: the first thing they put forward about you is your desperation to find a date and inability to do so through the usual channels. This desperation and frustration are the absolute least attractive things about you. And while on dating apps this is ameliorated by the fact that anyone reading your profile admits to being in the same boat, putting your plea for TFW GF on platforms like Twitter where people go for mockery and indignation will, in fact, likely earn you some mockery and indignation.

but we only see smart Asians who made it thru Visa processes.

You miss the forest for the trees. Are the kids of these smart asians smarter than other US ethnicities? This question is not solved by noticing the strong filter, but the opposite.