Crowstep
17d ago
If the annexed territories are ‘officially’ part of Russia, why hasn’t Russia nuked Kiev for invading its sovereign territory?
It’s a bluff, it always was. If NATO tanks roll in from Poland, Russia will choose retreat over nuclear Armageddon.
Crowstep
6mo ago
Your comment makes me think of an incident when I was at university. A girl came up to me in a bar, stood right in front of me smiling and said hi. I said hello and then stood there staring, like an idiot.
In retrospect, she was hitting on me, but I was so taken aback with that kind of approach that I didn't really know what to do.
I wouldn't say she had a bad time, although she probably hoped for a more graceful response than the one I gave her...
Crowstep
6mo ago
I was speaking more in the HBD-sense. Hong Kong and Singapore have Chinese people, with an average IQ of ~110. Levant Arabs have average IQs in the low-80s. Maybe the Gazans would be able to carve out a niche like some of the Gulf states have, but they'd have to do it without oil and gas wealth to kickstart the process.
Crowstep
6mo ago
It would be easier for me to be sympathetic to the open border case if British politicians ever actually made that case.
Instead they strongly argue that we must reduce immigration for myriad reasons, and then immediately increase it.
Even pro-immigrationists don't seem to make a case for it, they just make the case against any type of restriction or enforcement of the law.
Crowstep
6mo ago
As I said in my post, they are only talking about reducing immigration, not actually doing it.
Part of me wonders if it isn't a strategy to import more future conservative voters. International students will be (mostly) middle class, so will Hong Kongers, I can see them and their children becoming Tory voters. The Ukrainians will probably vote conservative as well, seeing how strongly the UK has supported their war against Russia.
Maybe they realised that actually reducing immigration was impossible (perhaps due to obstruction from the civil service and judiciary, or just a lack of state capacity) so better import immigrants that are more likely to vote for your party.
I don't think you can really blame the gullability of the voters though. If we had a proportional electoral system, we'd likely have had a UKIP/Conservative coalition and that would probably produce at least some change. With first past the post, the median voter has two parties to choose between, and they're hardly going to expect Labour to reduce immigration.
Crowstep
7mo ago
I would argue that by definition, anyone who has snuck into the US is an economic migrant. Even Mexicans facing cartel violence can move to other parts of Mexico.
Developed countries need to abolish the asylum system. As long it exists as a last resort for illegal immigrants who get caught, illegal incursions will never be stopped.
Australia's system works because boat people are guaranteed to never be granted residence in Australia. As long as you hold out the carrot of legal residence (or in parts of Europe, an indefinite, all inclusive hotel stay), immigration enforcement will always have one hand tied behind it's back.
Crowstep
7mo ago
It's a shame you can't read the article, because yes, the accuser handed over her file from the rape crisis centre to the Times.
All the factual claims in the article (except the he said she said stuff obviously) has been verified by the journalists as far as I can tell.
Crowstep
8mo ago
Do you really think that they wrote 'this photo does not represent real Londoners' with the intention that the reader interpret this to mean 'these people look like tourists'. If they had wanted to say that the family looked like tourists, they could have written that. But they didn't, they wrote a caption which a normal person would interpret to mean that the photo has inadequate racial representation. If they meant what you're claiming they meant, they could have said that the caption was poorly worded. Instead they said it was 'added in error' whatever that means.
As for the street photo, I'm not sure which one you're referring to, but you answer your own question regardless. Mostly white is okay because this still has diversity, entirely white is bad because this photo is not diverse and therefore the people don't represent real Londoners.
Crowstep
8mo ago
Oh don't worry, I'm not posturing against the resident Holocaust denier for my own sake. I just think he degrades the quality of the conversation here by bringing every other conversation back to his own pet pseudohistoric topic.
I realise that a place like this is vulnerable to witches and is to some extent a necessary compromise we have to make, but damn is it annoying.
Crowstep
8mo ago
There's no dedicated site like Dreaming Spanish for other languages yet (although they do plan to branch out in the future). There is the Comprehensible Input Wiki for lists of YouTube channels etc. You could also try searching Reddit as I'm sure the question has been asked a lot for your target language.
Crowstep
8mo ago
So I guess that's equivalent to watching Spanish videos with subtitles, which is fine. That said, Dreaming Spanish advises against doing it too much as it can cause your listening to lag behind your reading.
Crowstep
8mo ago
If you look at the chart Trends in Daily Calories from Major Food Groups on this article, you'll see that vegetable oil consumption per capita has almost tripled since the 1960s. There are dozens of other sources online saying the same thing. Literally nobody is arguing that vegetable oil consumption has fallen. The only debate is whether the gigantic increase in vegetable oil consumption has anything to do with the gigantic increase in obesity that happened at the exact same time.
Meanwhile both sugar and grain consumption has actually been falling since the late 90s.
Crowstep
8mo ago
Feature suggestion: buttons to add text hyperlinks. Whenever I'm on mobile I try to add them with parentheses and I always seem to mix up ( ) and [ ]
Crowstep
9mo ago
I've been wearing Lacoste Essential since I was a teenager. I've never found one I like as much since.
Crowstep
9mo ago
I find typing on my phone easy enough (although not as fast as on a keyboard). The hard part is opening other tabs to reference something. Editing is also easier on a desktop or laptop.
Crowstep
11mo ago
I had phimosis as a young man, but was able to stretch out the foreskin manually and desensitise the glans gradually in the shower. It took a couple of months but since then my sex life has been fine.
I also had mild frenulum breve (I think) and I was also able to rectify that through gradual stretching and simply letting my erection stay with the foreskin fuly retracted.
Are you in the US? I wonder if the use of circumcision to treat phimosis is an artefact of the fact the procedure is common there. When I spoke to my doctor about my phimosis, I don't think he even considered circumcision, although I don't think I asked about it either.
Crowstep
11mo ago
Finland deserved to win. Sweden's song was good, but it's not sporting to send a previous winner back, especially one with an established music career.
Overall not a particularly memorable contest in my opinion. The staging was great (as always) but very few stand out songs.
Crowstep
1yr ago
At least one industry (weight loss centres) is already feeling the effect:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/28/business/jenny-craig-weight-loss-ozempic/index.html
Crowstep
1yr ago
I completely agree with your assessment. Mantell definitely seemed like she was trying to rehabilitate Cromwell, and her depiction of Moore was cartoonish.
In particular, the (not) torture of Mark Smeaton before he confessed to adultery with Anne Boleyn was absurd. The idea that he would confess to a crime that guaranteed his death due to being put in a scary cellar wasn't exactly convincing.
The BBC miniseries was also fantastic. They really went all in on the historical realism, including things like not having any artificial lighting, and even refusing to use modern candles in place of historically accurate tallow candles.
I might give Macculloch's biography a read, the reviews on Amazon seem positive.
Crowstep
1yr ago
I tried listening to the audiobook of Middlemarch a few years ago but gave up. I'd like to say my dislike was something profound but I just found it really boring.
Incidentally, if you're looking for another audiobook, I recommend Heart of Darkness with Kenneth Branaugh narrating. Best narrated audiobook I've ever come across.
Crowstep
1yr ago
I personally classify class by education then by income. A well paid tradesman would be upper working class, while a poorly paid researcher would be lower middle class. The middle classes broadly earn more than the working class, but there's enough income variation between them that incomes overlap.
Crowstep
1yr ago
I guess that could technically be correct. But then it just begs the question as to why sloth and gluttony increased linearly in the latter half of the 20th century at the exact time as countries adopted seed oils into their diet.
If it were true, we would also expect to see people who work longer hours get less obese, because they are demonstrably less slothfull than their peers. We don't see this. Instead we see people who are objectively smart and hard working (for example, medical students) getting fatter just like everyone else.
Crowstep
1yr ago
I'm looking for an article from a blog that is vaguely in the rationalist diaspora.
The topic is the Eurovision song contest, and how it succeeds as a modern tradition (it happens once a year, winning means a country can host it next year, Eurovision parties are a time to see your friends etc).
Does anyone know the one I mean?
Thanks, that's super helpful.
I imagine I will stick to the oral version if I do take the plunge. Taking a pill is easier than explaining to my girlfriend why I'm shooting up once a week. Looks like the price from Indiamart is about half what I would pay from a UK supplier.
Has anyone used an iPad mini?
I currently have an Android tablet (10 inch screen) but it's a bit big for my liking. I'm considering getting the iPad due to its smaller size.
I would mainly be using it for reading ebooks and watching videos, so nothing requiring much power. I've previously tried a smaller Android tablet but it was so slow as to be useless.
More options
Context Copy link