Crowstep
2d ago
I wouldn't put too much stake on 'the realities of CICO'. No matter how much the public hears 'calories in, calories out' the obesity epidemic continues unabated. If it was as simple as choosing to eat less, we'd see far fewer fat people than we do. Nobody wants to be fat.
Maybe your wife will be able to reverse her expanding waistline, but if she does, it might be because she's started taking ozempic rather than through sheer force of will. Hoping that the latter will work has a good chance of disappointing both of you.
Crowstep
3d 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
3d 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.
We pressured Ukraine into committing suicide.
That's not how it happened. The west originally assumed that Ukraine would be conquered in three days. It was only after the Ukrainians themselves demonstrated their will to fight against Russia (and their success doing so) that NATO et al started arming Ukraine.
America is not the only country in the world with agency.
Crowstep
5d ago
Do you have a wife, or children?
If you want to do something good for the world, passing on your successful software engineer genes would be right at the top of the list. If you want something meaningful, having kids will probably be the most meaningful thing you will ever do. If you're worried about living a selfish life, bringing new life into the world is pretty selfless.
Crowstep
8d ago
It might be because I live in a city, but I've found the easiest way to socialise is just to invite people round to mine.
They enjoy not having to plan or host. I enjoy not having to travel or spend too much money.
Board games, film nights, drinks, house parties, dinner parties. I've found that people are looking for an excuse to meet up in person. If you build host it, they will come.
Having a girlfriend or wife who you live with also helps. I've outsourced a lot of my friendship maintenance to her. Plus our joint friendship group is larger than our individual ones.
Crowstep
11d ago
Just finished Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness but I think I may have hit the limits of my audiobook comprehension because I was left thinking "wait, when does stuff start happening?". Maybe it's just not that type of book, there have been enough potent lines that it may be a book you just have to enjoy the language of.
Were you listening to the Kenneth Branagh version? I think his reading is amazing but I haven't heard any others.
Crowstep
11d ago
When most people say 'work' they mean something like 'provide good living standards for the median person'. Marxists tend not to brag about how communist countries have the biggest armies, although having a huge army is certainly possible when the state (nominally) controls the entire economy and the leadership doesn't have to pay too much attention to the needs and wants of the populace.
Like sure, the USSR worked in the sense that Russia colonised all its neighbours, spent huge amounts on its military, suppressed opposition and built walls to keep its citizens in. It failed at providing good living standards, innovating technologically, creating economic equality (arguably its cardinal goal) or creating a society that wasn't rife with corruption.
Crowstep
11d ago
I think he was referring to Dor Yeshorim. The organisation's database is used by the traditional Jewish matchmakers to avoid pairing up carriers of diseases like Tay-Sachs.
Crowstep
15d ago
The millennials are the children of the boomers, they are going to inherit those expensive houses that the boomers are living in. Some people think that they will end up being the wealthiest generation who have ever lived.
But yes, I'm sure that millennial pension schemes will be drastically less generous than their parents get now, due to ageing populations and the fact that those pensions were never sustainable to begin with.
Crowstep
16d ago
Very interesting. I wonder if a lot of the griping (in the US at least) is also influenced by the state the griper lives in. My understanding is that some states (e.g. California) have overly restrictive planning laws that push up house prices, while others (e.g. Texas) have more liberal laws that allow more housebuilding.
Low Texan house prices bring down the national average, while high Californian house prices still price out millennials who want to stay in their home state.
Google says the average house is Texas costs around $300,000 while the average house in California costs $765,000, which seems to bear this out.
Crowstep
18d ago
I would say it's less about Scotland and more specifically about the Scottish National Party. The Holyrood parliament doesn't have to deal with grown up issues, like deficits, foreign policy or immigration. They are guaranteed a constant subsidy from England (or more accurately, London). After the failure of the independence movement, they need to redirect their grandstanding elsewhere or the public will ask what their purpose is.
As for COVID, that was clearly a case of the SNP purposely trying to distinguish Scotland from England. Their model of governing for years has been to create distinctions where none need exist, to be different for difference' sake. For COVID that meant copying the government in Westminster, but being more restrictive on every axis.
Crowstep
19d ago
Around 2030 all Americans are going to have to turn on eachother and carve that missing million out of their fellow citizen… This might be millennials becoming even greater debt slaves, this might be boomers kicked out of nursing homes to beg in the streets, this might be ethnic conflict to either make the white middle-class pay 2x the income tax forever, or a violent assault on the black inner-city to destroy the millstone of welfare America once and for all and free up millions in real estate in now usafe cities… This might take the form of a communist revolution, the confiscation of all real estate, and the forcing of Americans into work camps, this might take the form of the mass slaughter of Federal employees and IRS agents so that no federal insurance schemes can ever be paid out and no pensions because the government employees are dead… This might take the form of mass Euthanasia of cancer patients, drug addicts, and the non-working… Everyone who shows up at hospital and isn’t expected to be net profitable, axe em.
Why are any of these extreme outcomes more likely than say, governments inflating away their obligations like so many have done before?
Crowstep
28d ago
I'm pretty sure demand for fast food is much more elastic than you're suggesting. You can't use misanthropy as an excuse for ignoring the fact that consumers do respond to higher prices and firms respond by lowering them.
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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