Doubletree1
6mo ago
You could make the symmetric point that many deaths attributed to communism are actually due to totalitarianism or some such. For example, if you believe holodomor was an intentional policy by Stalin to exercise political retribution on Ukrainians, then I wouldn't say that those deaths should be attributable to communism.
Doubletree1
10mo ago
Nothing worse than what gets posted on the regular here. Except it might be targeted toward the right vs left
Doubletree1
8mo ago
An alternate explanation is that these kinds of extreme pro-ethnic-cleansing arguments are genuinely unpopular among large swaths of the center right.
Doubletree1
8mo ago
The Left -- that is, the mass of men and women who are in control of nearly every relevant channel of Western power and influence
To the extent that this is not just a tautological redefinition of "the left", this strikes me as factually inaccurate. The right of center has significant support among the the police, military, non traditional media, and a large minority of traditional media. Republicans routinely win ~50% of elections at all levels, a supreme court in their favor. A majority of high-wealth individuals are Republican.
The good advice in this post is for Hanania to be honest with himself and his beliefs. It is a virtue to courageously stand up and truthfully say "yes I believed this, but here is why I changed my mind" or "I used to believe this; I still do but I used to, too". It is obviously cowardly and expedient to apologize if he does actually hold those convictions.
On the other hand, large swaths of this post are deeply uncharitable and indistinguishable from a self-fulling siege-mentality worldview (which may or may not be in accordance with reality). Many leftists have an exactly symmetric but opposite narrative, just as passionately and deeply held. I suppose you can both be right, but you both can't have the moral high ground.
Doubletree1
6mo ago
This explanation doesn't track for me. In practice most nominally communist nations got their start on the backs of a huge stock of peasant farmers, not HR departments.
In America, the unionized working class were highly sympathetic to socialist ideals for a long while. It's only relatively recently that this has changed.
Yes that heavily downvoted post... great example! The community obviously thought it was below some standard on some level, and I would tend to agree. We will see where FC's post will stand in 24 hours.
Given how conservatives still seethe about the moral mutant post, it seems to me an obvious net negative in its impact on the discourse. In fact, I think I recall FC, or some other, citing that post as a justification for their tone. Well obviously defection begets defection. I think the ideas in that essay could have been presented another way, and should have, but the OP chose the way of brash, arrogant condescension. And we see the fallout from that.
Doubletree1
10mo ago
Nah, fuck ads.
Ads are tools that aid problem-solving by matching people to tools that solve their problems.
The purpose of ads, the reason for their existence, is definitely not to help me get what I want, nor are they tools that primarily serve my interests. If they were, then an advertising agency would be something that I sought out and paid for to help me solve a problem or find a solution. Instead, they're the other thing.
Doubletree1
5mo ago
Your argument is just status quo bias. "auto licensing should be treated as a given because -> our infrastructure is designed around autos because -> we've always treated auto licensing as a given". If auto licensing were not treated as given, then we would be incentivized to adapt our infrastructure appropriately.
Doubletree1
10mo ago
A long time ago if you wanted to build a house you needed land and the knowledge of practical house building skills: brickwork, carpentry, plaster, etc. Today, the practical skills associated with house building are more complicated: electricity, plumbing, gas lines, scoping for major appliances, carpeting, the physical systemization of everything, a higher expected level of finish and polish on everything.
It's harder now to build a house just based on practical matters- it is less likely that a regular person will have all the skills to do it himself. He might be forced to hire a specialist or three. He may feel like he is no longer a master of his fate in this regard.
Navigating regulation is a skill of its own, which must be learned. It is not an intuitive skill. Some people aren't good at it, but I don't think it represents a phase change in personal ownership- only a change in degree.
That being said, the value/cost ratio of regulation like this is probably low in a lot of cases.
Doubletree1
6mo ago
On reddit, the mantra was that the downvote was not an "I disagree" button. If that's not the case at the motte I sure would like to know that.
Now this would be a violation of this community's decorum.
How so? To seethe means to get angry or become highly agitated. It seems to me factual that many conservatives did angry over the post. And I don't blame them really. It is no less factual or inflammatory than FCs follow up claim that 70% of blue tribers hate his kind and vice versa.
I am baffled by what you consider acceptable decorum. Do you believe Ozys essay meets the decorum standards of this community? Yet my use of seethe does not.
Full disclosure, I think both the substance and the tone in Ozys essay are both quite bad. If there is any kernel or value to be had in discussing it, then the discussion should proceed in a tone that inversely proportional to how inflammatory the subject is. This is a basic principle I think that allows highly charged topics to be discussed productively. I don't think Ozys or FC's posts meet that standard.
Doubletree1
6mo ago
Yes it is all about decorum, that is in fact my point. I have seen many people criticize conservatives, but none that I have seen have done so with decorum youve shown-- the finality of the tone and extreme positions advocated for, (at least originally) without explicit argument, while at the same time telegraphing your intent to defect from your enemies...
You say this could be tolerated from the left, but I really don't believe it. I would welcome some examples from you if you think otherwise.
Doubletree1
9mo ago
Why is it that when people try to engage their local democratic system to influence the education of their children, they get branded as "hate groups" and "domestic extremists"?
Unfortunately, it is the religious conservative crowd (and their sympathizers) who were the public face of anti-lgbt for some time--and this group has zero credibility when it comes to arguments rooted in principled liberalism.
While there are many kinds of diversity that can be tolerated in a liberal environment, one that rejects the principle of liberalism itself is obviously logically incompatible with that environment. In that case, the best that can be offered is an enclave-type arrangement.
You could say that all this applies to the illiberal left as well. I agree. Without condoning it, I think the left, bring borne from the same tradition as classical liberalism, is simply better than the right in couching their position in liberal terms; they have the credibility. I try to tell any liberal who will listen that the left is not liberal but old habits and all.
Doubletree1
8mo ago
Removal of parking minimums doesnt necessarily mean no parking. The urbanist thesis is that code-enforced parking minimums are often higher than would be supported by the market
Do you think this is just a fine example of the kind of decorum that's acceptable here? If these kinds of posts were 100x more frequent, at the same level of decorum, would that make the motte a better or worse place? Personally I think the motte would quickly become unusable.
Doubletree1
10mo ago
A society that regained those skills would be much stronger, more self-actualized, and more operationally democratic than the one we have now.
Agreed. Maybe I was taking issue with the framing, as if these skills were "just lost" like a penny in a gutter, or via some nebulous "force of bureaucracy". They were abandoned for the same reason that you cannot build a power drill yourself (or probably even a hammer).
(Though I also believe we'd be a better society if everyone knew how to make a power drill)
Doubletree1
8mo ago
No. The left could be filled with 100% terrorists. That doesn't affect whether extreme HBD policies are or are not popular on the center right.
Bari Weiss is running a university to attract customers. those customers may include the center right, woke-skeptic, and also find extreme HBD policies distasteful.
Doubletree1
8mo ago
Thank you-- but with one further clarification/nitpick. My "pickup truck" analogy was intended to describe a situation that is closer to the (b) kind of association. The (a) kind of association seems to me to be causative since there is a clear mechanistic cause and effect relationship.
Doubletree1
8mo ago
Subdivision is not always trivial. I would not say that the there is only a single fixed cost, there are also variable costs associated with land surveys, environmental surveys, administration, utilities, etc.
Then there are selection effects. Areas with large blocks of land are usually more rural which have lower land prices.
I have a feeling that the complete picture here has to do with the marginal utility of developed vs undeveloped land, economies of scale, and maybe commercial vs residential markets.
It seems intuitive to me that the utility value of developed land does not scale linearly with size, unless you're a farmer or something.
If I'm a large developer that can afford to buy a large parcel, subdivide, AND develop those parcels, I will likely (up to a point) get a better ROI from a larger number of smaller plots. In SFH residential markets this happens often because there is a consumer desire to "own" their plot. In commercial markets, this demand matters less, so the ROI maximizing strategy is to buy a large plot, build X storefronts, and rent to tenants. The size and distribution of those storefronts should reflect the market for commercial renters, and I think that is what you do see (a decent mix of large home-depot style tenants and smaller independent businesses).
Yet on the other hand, selling a small plot of undeveloped land is challenging since you need to develop it, and you will almost always be outcompeted by large developers who can afford to buy the larger plot in one go.
So you have a market dynamic where both things are true: the utility (and marginal market) value of the developed land is proportionally greater for small plots (or small storefronts), yet it is not always useful to simply buy a large plot, subdivide, and resell.
All this is to say, holders of large plots of undeveloped land are usually incentivized to sell in one go. Whereas developers are incentivised to buy large plots and then extract maximum utility via subdivision or multiple storefronts, which is what I think we do see in practice.
Doubletree1
8mo ago
I read your post. You clearly say.
but the fact remains that practicing homosexuality is a lifestyle with health consequences similar to those we associate with smoking, sedentary lifestyles, bad foods, etc. Which we typically do not ban, but do often seek to regulate, or at least socially disapprove.
Without presenting evidence that the association is any more than correlative.
Later you say
But you said you "don't see anything unhealthy about homosexuality," which statement would seem to me to require a very constrained definition of "unhealthy," much more constrained than we apply in basically any other context.
I disagree. I think way we use "unhealthy" in normal contexts is far more often causative "smoking is unhealthy" rather than correlative "driving a pickup is unhealthy".
"[A]dvances in HIV treatment have surely raised that number in the last few decades, but the fact remains that practicing homosexuality is a lifestyle with health consequences similar to those we associate with smoking, sedentary lifestyles, bad foods, etc."
The argument is basically centered the definition of unhealthy. It is not precise to label actions that are merely correlative with worse outcomes as "unhealthy" per se. Driving a pickup truck vs a Prius is likely correlated with worse life expectency (i.e., being a male living in a rural area). But it would be absurd to say "driving a pickup truck is more unhealthy than driving a Prius (for the driver)" without extra caveats.
Furthermore the original use of "unhealthy " in the thread in cake's post used a different definition altogether (likely ideologically based) -- making naraburns' reply somewhat of a non sequitur.
Doubletree1
10mo ago
And power drills and nails are designed and fabricated at locations very far from you, and are useful to you or not (supply, packaging, standardization, spare parts, etc) based on the decisions made by far away people, often times leaving you no recompensed if those decisions impact you negatively.
Doubletree1
10mo ago
Dealing with your life being ruined because of an indistinct rule created by a bureaucrat you've never met and will never meet is much more emotionally difficult than having your life ruined by Steve down the street.
I disagree, or at least I would warn against generalizing on this point
Doubletree1
9mo ago
I deny it.
Doubletree1
1yr ago
we dismiss things that look like non-inertial movement as non-inertial movement is impossible
If aliens can violate the equivalence principal then what other laws of physics could they violate? the Born rule? Or, why not the laws of thermodynamics? If aliens can break the laws of physics in this way then What constraints are there on alien capabilities? Against this you say that "glitches etc" have too much explanatory power. Forget a small war, aliens could construct a second earth somewhere between here and Mars and we would never know.
Priors are supposed to be updated both ways.
I think you should pick some numbers and calculate. I think you'll find that the size of the update is much larger in one direction vs the other.
Ive seen several of these types of posts from you but this time I feel compelled to say something. The motte seems to be one very rare place where people on the left and right can engage in intellectual cooperation with some semblance of a shared set of principles. These polemics against perceived enemies on the left, in a tone so radical and final, is just shitting on the public good here. Given what you've written here it's obviously pointless for anyone who might disagree to engage with you.
I cannot fathom why the community tolerates this kind of thing; certainly it would never tolerate any naked calls for the explicit demolition of conservative power structures from anyone left of center.
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