Corvos
1mo ago
She was, but it wasn’t until later that she decided that you couldn’t be feminist and write a world containing a male-only organisation that was powerful and wise. Especially when a certain number of your women are witchy - powerful but often in a secretive and manipulative way.
Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising quadrilogy. (Skip the first one until you’ve finished the rest.) To my mind it’s the best of what British fantasy can be, though not modern.
Corvos
1mo ago
Brandon Sanderson is the most successful ‘Christian’ writer I can think of today, meaning a writer who both is Christian and whose religion clearly informs his work.
Notably:
- He never depicts literal Christianity in his work.
- Most of his characters who think a lot about religion really think about it. They have crises of faith, they wonder how to reconcile their faith with what needs to be done, etc.
Corvos
1mo ago
I’m up for coop if you want but IMO your problem is that you are playing only the hardest, densest games despite being a 28 year old with a serious full time job and other hobbies. Like it or not, this is your body’s way of telling you it’s time to be a filthy cashul.
In all seriousness, try playing some stuff like Subnautica or Hardspace-Shipbreaker or Doom 2016 or the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Stuff where the gameplay loop is a bit more reactions-based and rewarding and the game is a bit less like a second job. See how you get on and then come back to the tougher stuff when you’ve had more sleep or a vacation.
My current thing is Elden Ring and while that certainly has difficulty spikes, there’s also a lot of downtime exploring the world.
(I know none of my suggestions are really to your taste but it’s what I do).
Corvos
1mo ago
The Devil Is a Part-Timer. Done by the same guy as Steins;Gate I think and similarly has more range for the voice acting and snappier writing compared to the sub or the original Japanese.
Apologies if you find the metaphor specious. It's deliberately extreme, of course. Although interestingly an inability to draw these kinds of conclusions about the actual mafia is apparently wreaking havok in Germany.
But given that everyone making the "leap of logic" to assume it is true just happens to be someone who hates Jews, I find it reasonable to be skeptical and demand more evidence
Doesn't it make at least as much sense to reverse this? I suggested before that the main factor determining whether one believes or disbelieves in foul play about these kinds of incidents is:
- Do I have a prior that individuals belonging to Group X are extremely influential?
- Do I have a prior that individuals belonging to Group X often use their influence inappropriately to benefit their ingroup?
Then it would make total sense that individuals who hold both these beliefs then dislike Group X. It would be kind of weird not to. Chicken, egg. Egg, chicken.
That if you're reasoning in a hostile epistemic environment, you have to make leaps of logic without evidence because evidence will be denied to you.
If, hypothetically speaking, a murder was carried out in a heavily Italian-American town and the burly, besuited man caught with the gun in his hand disappeared from police custody and reappeared in Sicily with a new house and a nice car, you might suspect Mafia involvement. You won't have evidence for that suspicion, because those involved in the case aren't total idiots, but you might suspect it anyway. And your friend might say, quite reasonably, "Look, some of the police are Italian-American, yes, but not every Italian-American is in the Mafia. Do you have any actual hard evidence to back up your story except a DVD of the Godfather?" And you might reasonably say back, "Look, these people are not idiots who drop their receipts and a fax of their telecoms all over the place."
In short, because competent operators don't leave evidence on the ground, your opinion on 'Was this Zionist Jew removed from custody through the nefarious actions of other Zionists/Jews' is going to basically be a referendum on:
- How much influence do you think that Zionists/Jews have in supposedly impartial structures?
- How likely do you think they are to leverage that influence for dodgy in-group-assisting purposes?
And depending on the conclusion you reach, will probably shift your priors/needle on those questions a small but appreciable amount.
Corvos
1mo ago
High-risk high-reward strategy is to build up a clear list of cases where his behaviour lost the company money, either directly or in missed opportunities, and then take that list to the level above him once it gets big enough and explain how you or a different person could increase profits. I've seen a friend do that to great success, but you need to have a good reputation yourself plus a willing superior and a very delicate touch to make it work.
Corvos
1mo ago
The irony when Vance is on the Motte explaining why people think Vance is on the Motte :P
I'm well aware, and I'm against it. I'm a leftist at the object level while strongly disavowing cancel culture and persecution. This is an awkward position, awkward enough that I am not optimistic about the Left reforming itself from within. Hence, I view the anti-woke Right as potential allies in the shared project of bringing an end end cancel culture, with the aim of restoring a status quo that's better for everyone than a crab bucket where everybody is constantly persecuting everybody else.
Fair. And I do get where you're coming from, then, and I even agree with you to some extent that "these are dirty tactics, and our enemies are inherently rotten for using them, never mind whatever crazy stuff they're fighting for". Please bear in mind that 15 and even 10 years ago I was saying, with absolute sincerity, "I don't like what you're saying, but I'll fight to the death to defend your right to say it".
The point where I part ways (I think) is:
the only hope was that the opposition would provide a credible alternative; for a while it seemed as though they might; but now they look like they're just content to stoop down to their enemies' level, abandoning all the high-minded principles they rightly criticized their enemies for flouting ten years ago. And thus we sink a little further towards total collapse
I don't think the result of seriously, fiercely enforcing neutrality will end up in a reasonably civilised, open academy. Partly because:
-
'neutrality' is in the eye of the beholder: confirmation bias is often enough to dismiss non-woke conclusions as wrong or to (subconsciously) judge them much more harshly than friendly arguments. It's an improvement to go from 'X should be fired' to 'nobody takes X seriously and he can't get funding for his silly ideas', but it's still not great.
-
I think we tried neutrality in the 90s and the result was to delay wokeness by 15 years max, maybe making it worse when it arrived. People bring up the metaphor of the tide coming into shore wave by wave and that is broadly how I see it. Putting a halt on overt politicking just means right-wingers being slowly frozen out anyway, without being able to point to any overtly bad behaviour and therefore without much recourse. The old theories are never actively repudiated (because that would be political), they become just something that ‘everyone knows’ and then the new generation arrives with no antibodies and apply them and we get woke. Contrast anti-socialism in the US (where there was a huge counterpressure and even in the 90s people would spit at the sound of the word), versus the UK where even in the post-Thatcher period you were broadly allowed to do it as long as you didn't say it. I know you're Left-wing and may consider that an objectively good thing, but I'm just comparing the results of the two backlashes.
That’s why I think that you with your stated goals should support some level of pushback past the point of, say, viewpoint neutrality as conceived of 10 years ago. Liberty in the traditional sense arose when all participants were tired of fighting the Wars of Religion, but you do have to have the wars first. Otherwise it’s just surrender and you will swiftly lose any power to enforce the conditions of peace.
On a purely personal note I have other reasons:
-
As a base principle, I believe in fairness, which I define as 'equal treatment'. I don't like the idea that if someone hits, the other guy shouldn't hit back. He might choose not to, and that's admirable or foolish depending, but he absolutely has the right to.
-
Personal disclosure: I was treated quite badly in academia by certain pre-woke academics, just before wokeness really kicked off and when I was much less right-wing than I am now. I'll be honest, I want payback. They made my life miserable when I stood up for just the principles you describe, and I want them to get the same back. Not more - I believe in fairness, as I said - but just the same. I don't claim that it's a noble impulse, but I'm adding it here as a disclosure.
Please forgive me for dog-piling you. The thing is, I think there's a big case of 'two screens' going on here.
The impossibility of neutrally adjudicating which [ad-hominem arguments about who is incompatible with academia] hold up, and which don't, is precisely why we need a society-wide norm that no arguments of that form will be considered, under any circumstances.
I really think we'd have better science if all science was done by committed atheists. But I have never and will never advocate for setting such a policy. Arguments of this form are an indiscriminate superweapon that unravels societal trust when anyone starts breaking them out.
I respect your personal commitment to not discriminating against academics on the basis of religion, but the few Christian academics I knew when I was a PhD in STEM hid it very carefully even 10 years ago. Precisely because they knew they'd be discriminated against if their religion became widely known. And I have other stories about how academics were made to feel in danger, though relatively few smoking guns because people were in the closet already so I can't point to explicit discrimination.
From a right-wing perspective, all the stuff you're worried about already happened. It's been happening for years and it's been coming from inside the house (i.e. not just admin). This is the backlash.
You don't have to agree with that, of course, but I think it will help you understand where I and perhaps others are coming from. And it might explain why 'Trump's administration should stop people discriminating, without discriminating themselves' isn't seen as enough by many people - if you believe as I do that most academics lowkey want to discriminate, then a pause on discrimination will work only until Trump's power and attention wanes even slightly.
Corvos
1mo ago
But AFAIK that's not what this is. I have complicated feelings about that and will happily discuss another time, but that's not what this is.
Long term, a truce. For a long time we had free speech because everyone understood that policing speech was a double-edged sword - even if it works for you today, it’s going to cut your head off tomorrow.
When everyone understands this, then you’re safe because nobody seriously demands loyalty tests because everyone understands how that ends. All of this came about because the woke thought they were able to escape that and win permanent victory.
MAD requires demonstrating that you are actually willing to fire off your nukes.
(Note also that Trump isn’t demanding a loyalty test. There is no requirement that universities be Trumpist, only that they not openly discriminate against white, Jewish and Asian students. Which seems fair to me.)
To prevent academia from leveraging the power that it has (to pronounce Official Expert Truth) in support of the Left.
Rescuing academics would be nice but the vast majority of people who weren’t at least lukewarmly woke left years ago, like me. And the ones who are left will find they can get a lot of mileage out of “of course I agree with you but if I say it in public Trump will pull our funding”.
Even if the admin have a woke score of 110 and the academics only have woke scores between 30-90, neither group actually likes me.
Corvos
1mo ago
The biggest expense for almost anything is salaries, at least in the UK. I was costing a project recently and even with quite tricked out hardware and server costs, 70% of the final number was just salaries.
Corvos
1mo ago
Without “some BS” this seems like a clearly true and factual statement. I can certainly dig up a number of “‘political correctness’ is just basic decency” quotes.
Corvos
1mo ago
They're... otherwise occupied. And indoors.
(The jokes are usually about Wales rather than Scotland, and of course not fair in either place, but occasionally I can't resist proving the hinterlands right about how oppressed they are.)
Corvos
1mo ago
Corvos
1mo ago
Must not make jokes about sheep…
Must not make jokes about sheep…
Must not make jokes about sheep…
Corvos
1mo ago
More likely to be the other way round, don't you think? People who feel a compulsive need to travel are going to be drawn to occupations that let them do so. Combine that with the tendency of children to do the same job as their parents et voila.
Corvos
1mo ago
Also they're just aware we don't have the personnel to make Europe work the old way any more. Even the politicians are increasingly aware that mass immigration isn't a long-term solution, though they can't wean themselves off it until something takes its place.
Corvos
1mo ago
you can run Qwen3-30B-A3B at ridiculous speeds on medium-end gaming rig
How are you doing that? Qwen3-30B-A3B-Q5_K_M.gguf is 21.7Gb, are you running it at 1it/s slowly swapping off the SSD or is your idea of a medium-end gaming rig a 3/4/5090?
I mostly gave up on local models because they hit such an obvious intelligence barrier compared to the big ones, but would love to give this a shot if you explain what you're doing. I have 16Gb VRAM.
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