Crowstep
7d ago
I believe there are malicious, intelligent, competent agents
Looks like the present tense to me. I assume that you're retreating from your original claim then? Unless you're willing to be even a tiny bit specific about who you're talking about I can't see how it is possible to have a meaningful discussion.
Crowstep
12d ago
What's bizarre is the Western world asking Ukrainian men to bear nearly the entire brunt of this conflict as if their lives have no value.
The 'Western world' isn't asking anything of them. The Ukrainian people and government want to fight, and want the west to support them. If the Ukrainian government wanted to surrender, they could do so tomorrow without asking for anyone's permission.
Other countries have agency too.
Crowstep
6mo ago
I wonder if part of the strategy is just making (remaining) Gaza even more densely populated. We know urban living reduces birth rates. A more densely populated strip should spend up the birth rate decline.
Crowstep
7mo ago
I think they're the cause of the obesity epidemic and the main cause of chronic disease.
Crowstep
7d ago
Well, we don't live in pods, nor do we eat bugs. I'm not sure how being able to walk to work counts as a 'cage' but whatever. Falsified, I guess?
But you haven't answered the key question. Who are these malicious actors? What evidence do you have for their exitence or motives?
Crowstep
7d ago
I think it was pretty clear from the context that the first part was a summary of your views. Plus, I did literally quote you later on with a far stronger claim.
Your prediction isn't predicting all that much. Birth rates are plummeting and have been for decades. Global births peaked in 2016 and the world's TFR is about to fall below replacement. That the global population will shrink significantly is mathematically certain.
The second part is stronger (at least the 'absolute' part if not the 'relative' part), but seems very unlikely to me.
However, we weren't discussing whether or not the average human will be poorer in 2100 than they are now. The discussion was about the 'malicious, intelligent, competent agents'. Who are these agents? Where is your evidence for their existence and motives? What would you accept as falsification of these claims?
Crowstep
7d ago
I think the accusation of Bulverism is unfair. 'Me and people like me are being oppressed by shadowy, unnamed forces' is impossible to falsify. The onus is on you to prove it. If you can't or won't do that, then speculating on why you might believe that there are malicious, intelligent, competent agents which plan for humiliation and elimination of large masses of populations is a reasonable thing to do.
Crowstep
8mo ago
Seems to be that they are most likely 'fake' artists and songs, created by Spotify to pad out their playlists without having to pay so much in royalties to real musicians.
Crowstep
2mo ago
Putting on my lateral thinking hat, couldn't you just...cheat on her?
Obviously, breaking up with her would be dumb and you would regret it. But you also say that you're currently long distance. Some carefully planned infidelity could scratch your casual sex itch and hopefully make you realise how little you're missing out on.
Of course, you would be betraying your girlfriend's trust, and there is a risk that you get caught even if she doesn't live near you. I suspect that your 'sleepy conservative hometown' isn't overflowing with loose women, and if you are religious then, as you say, the Bible is pretty clear on infidelity.
It goes without saying that if you do listen to the suggestion from the devil on your shoulder some asshole on the internet, you should never tell her or anyone else.
Crowstep
4mo ago
That's a good point. I'd rephrase my initial comment to say that young women (let's say, 18-24) are less threatened by younger women than the next cohort (25-30).
Crowstep
5mo ago
Well upping my fat didn't actually help in the end. I think the issue was a lack of tryptophan caused by the low protein diet.
Crowstep
5mo ago
'Selling her body' is a terribly misleading metaphor. Chattel slavery involves the selling of bodies, prostitution is more like selling labour for a fixed period. Of course, people use the 'selling her body' metaphor on purpose to frame the practice in a maximally negative way.
If our hypothetical 14 year old girl was selling her body, surely that would mean that Epstein owns her body after the transaction? If he doesn't, then he hasn't 'bought' anything.
Crowstep
6mo ago
My girlfriend is pretty sanguine about it, but then she has wide hips and intends to be as drugged as they'll let her be.
The women in my family have narrow hips so they all had/are having ceasarians, and none of them seem to be worried about that.
Salsa (LA, Cuban and NY), bachata (sensual) and kizomba (traditional). I recently taught myself to call rueda which I'm really enjoying.
I've also dabbled in lindy hop, zouk and forro in the past. I figure I'll learn tango when I'm old.
What's your dancing background?
Crowstep
8mo ago
I actually did start with Language Transfer myself. The Spanish course is very good and the guy who runs it is impressive. I stopped halfway through when I discovered Dreaming Spanish but will probably finish the course one day.
I won't necessarily say that I'm opposed to it, but I think it works better if that kind of formal grammar explanation comes after you've had significant input. I've found that explanations like he offers 'stick' more if you can apply them to things you've already heard many times from input.
Crowstep
8mo ago
You're not really addressing the argument I'm making. If weight loss is simply a case of choosing to eat less and choosing to move more, why does all the literature show that dieters regain their weight in the long term? According to your model, they must be choosing to lose weight through dieting and then choosing to regain more than they lost? Why do people who lose significant weight have permanently lowered metabolisms, and burn fewer calories than we would expect for their size? Why did the entire planet suddenly start getting fat in the 70s?
Calories in, calories out isn't a prescription for weight gain or loss, it's a description of it. It's like someone asking why the bar gets full on Saturday night and responding with 'more people enter than leave'. You're describing weight gain, but you're not explaining why it happens.
Look at this chart, what do you think caused the massive inflection?
Crowstep
8mo ago
'Eat more and move less' doesn't actually work. We have almost a century of evidence showing that this advice does not work. If it did, people would successfully be able to lose weight long term. Just Google 'long term weight loss study' and you'll find pages and pages of evidence showing that even among the small number of people who successfully lose weight, almost all of them gain it back. Dieting and/or exercising for weight loss does not work. Cruelty is pretending that fat people lack the moral fiber necessary to lose weight when actually, nobody can do it (barring a tiny number of outliers).
We do not control our appetites, we do not control our metabolisms, we do not control how our body partitions nutrients. We can temporarily override our appetite and consciously try to burn more calories through exercise, but ultimately the body's lipostat wins. Fat people have disregulated metabolisms, not a lack of self control. If self-control were really the issue, then we would have to come to the baffling conclusion that the entire industrialised world started to decline in self-control in the 1970s.
Or, it could be because we introduced massive amounts of an agricultural waste product into our diet in the mid-20th century that doesn't have the same nutrient profile as anything humans have eaten in our evolutionary history.
Crowstep
8mo ago
I thought his mother was Jewish, but I must have imagined that as I can't find anything online about her.
Crowstep
11d 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.
I wondered how long it would take for this to be about Jews. You never fail to disappoint.
As far as I can tell, you are upset that Rationalists regard high-IQ Jews as superior to Kurt, despite his noble physiognomy and the fact that they are 'short, weak, ugly nerds'. Am I getting that right?
I would worry about this being an uncharitable take, except for the fact that you cannot stop posting about how Jews are bad.
Have I misinterpreted the post? Could you summarise your thesis in a sentence?
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