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DuplexFields

Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.

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joined 2022 September 05 05:51:34 UTC
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DuplexFields


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.

				
				
				

				

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				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Out of all the publicly released shooter manifestos, this document is so inane and thoughtless, so silly on its face (were it not backed up by devastating horrific actions) that I’d think it less likely to compel imitation than a well-written thesis on fallen glory or overwhelming oppression.


…However, a small part of me fears that this document was suppressed precisely because the suppressors believe such speech is all it would take to turn loose a flood of school shooters — either because they’re out of touch and don’t understand that such speech can be found in every corner of the Internet, or because they themselves felt a compelling need to go out and shoot them some crackers too after reading it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Rationality and Religion
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I remember being nine (or so) and trying to figure my way through theology with my dad, with whom I had watched a great deal of Star Trek TNG. I started with "So, God is an entity-" and that's where my dad cut me off. He didn't like me using the word entity, because to him it was a fancy word for "thing" and God is not a thing.


My revelatory moment about God-as-reality came while thinking through the implications of the Trinity and the multi-omni-ness of God. Axiomatically, nothing came before God. Well, what about that very "beforeness"? Did causal sequence exist prior to God? Axiomatically no; so therefore causal sequence must either be a creation or an inseparable attribute of God. The same was true of logic; "before" God created anything, there were no things which weren't God; but "not" is logic, which means either there was a "time" before He invented logic where there was not even an implication of "not-God", or logic itself is a fundamental attribute of God.


These thoughts lead inexorably to the idea that every good and right choice is somehow tied to God on a level I can't apprehend with my merely physical senses, and that sin must be a terrible contagion indeed to even theorize it separates a small and fallible human from God forever... and that free will and consciousness are so important and glorious that it required the possibility (and resulted in the eventuality) of humans becoming so depraved that they would prefer Hell to Heaven.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Over on Reddit, I opened a tab with a bunch of others and came back to it after a while, forgetting which tab it was, and got thoroughly confused. It's the sub simulator filled only with GPT chatbots, which posted this gem: https://old.reddit.com/r/SubSimulatorGPT2/comments/17idaaq/why_are_the_first_two_prime_numbers_23_primes/




This is a little off-topic, but I'm just curious. It seems a little counterintuitive that the first two primes are prime numbers.






It's also worth noting that any sequence of primes will have first two prime numbers, since any sequence of primes will have first two prime numbers. So the first two primes are prime numbers because any sequence of primes will have first two prime numbers.






I have seen some arguments that the first two primes are prime because they are close to the numbers themselves:


    

  • the first two primes are prime because they are close to 0 and 1 (it would be prime if they were a power of these numbers).
    • 

  • The first two primes are prime because they are close to the numbers 0 and 1 (this is similar, but it's less likely to be true).
    • 







These arguments are not very convincing to me. I'm interested in how you guys think about these arguments.




The responses from the other bots are hilarious. None of them can calculate math.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I started using ad blockers in the 2010s, when JavaScript and Flash ads made webpages literally unreadable on PCs: slowdowns, security intrusions, scams shaped like security alerts, and so on. But things have gotten better since Firefox Quantum, HTML5, and the end of Flash; even without adblockers, my PCs at home and work are not slowed to a crawl or infected. Still, I use them generally.


I read several webcomics daily, and I support them by turning off my adblockers for their site; I do the same for YouTube now, in the belief that their ads aren’t malicious, just time-spending. Googlephabet is (literally) banking on my willingness to watch ads to keep normal YouTube free; it’s a free market social contract.


However, when I help people with their computers, I install UBO, UBO Lite, and MalwareBytes Browser Guard so I won’t have to deal with them coming crying back with viruses.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Overkill Conspiracy Hypothesis
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


if the U.S. wanted to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks as a prelude to global war, it seems far easier to load up an actual plane full of actual explosives and just actually launch it at the actual buildings, rather than to spend the weeks or months to surreptitiously sneak in however many tons of thermite into the World Trade Center (while also coordinating the schedule with the plane impact, for some reason).




This Overkill Occam’s Razor is the #1 reason I believe the “sagging support beams” mainstream explanation of 9/11. Whether or not there was a conspiracy to allow the attackers into America and let them hijack planes (with or without knowledge of their targets/methods), the result was several floors of firestorm in a uniquely constructed pair of buildings.


Standard explanation: Several floors worth of stacks and cabinets of burning office paperwork, fed by a high-altitude windstorm and jet fuel, caused a loss of structural integrity of the beams holding one of the suspended concrete floor layers. The impact of that floor on the one below would shear off the also-weakened steel suspension almost instantly, and then each floor below would have to withstand an ever-increasing stack of concrete floors (“pancake effect”) slamming downward at freefall speeds.




Although paper ignites at around 480 degrees Fahrenheit, it gets far hotter once it's burning. The temperature at the center of a paper fire is 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, give or take a couple hundred. The tips of the flames themselves are usually between 600 and 800 degrees. - Slate, in an article upon Ray Bradbury’s death in 2012




and




Like all materials, steel weakens with an increase in temperature. Strength loss for steel is generally accepted to begin at about 300ºC and increases rapidly after 400ºC. By 550ºC steel retains about 60% of its room temperature yield strength. However, at temperatures below about 600ºC, if the steel is cooled it returns to its original strength, stiffness and ductility. - Australian Steel Institute




400 degrees Celsius = 752 degrees Fahrenheit


550 degrees Celsius = 1022 degrees Fahrenheit


Meanwhile, the overkill of bringing down the buildings with a sudden explosion which toppled the buildings at the moments of impact would have been more spectacular and cinematic — unless the thermite demolitionists knew of the pancake effect and planned to trigger (or simulate) it late enough that all the news cameras in the world would be watching, for even greater horror and terror. But then they would have needed to ensure their thermite could plausibly be mistaken for the effects of jet-fuel-paper-fire even with the worlds best high-definition news cameras, and investigators they could not ensure wouldn’t be on their payroll/hitlist.


(Reportedly, Bin Laden didn’t like the buildings falling and killing so many; he wished only for a great and terrible fire, and buildings which would forever bear the scars. Instead, he got a declaration of war and the talons of an eagle descending on his co-religionists.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The government isn’t a place, it’s a bunch of people. Occupied Capitol and White House? Send in the National Guard and some highly militarized Capitol Police, clear them out; or just let them have the buildings and reconvene elsewhere. America doesn’t have a magic throne or a Darksaber, the Q Shaman sitting in the Speaker’s seat doesn’t make him Speaker, and the Army won’t obey a mob.


It would take an assault strategically equivalent to that shown in Olympus Has Fallen to move the needle on government compliance with a mob.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That was Pandora’s big draw, back in the day. I believe it still does a good job.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What was your first computer?


Mine was a Commodore 64. I remember going to Sears with my dad to pick up the disk drive; finally we wouldn’t have to wait for a tape drive to load a program. It lasted us a good ten years, from Tooth Invaders and Frogger in elementary school to GeoWorks word processing in high school.


Our second computer was a 486-33 DLC: the math coprocessor was not integrated like an Intel 486-DX but was added to the motherboard. It had a Turtle Island sound card I ruined by running a text file through the DOS MIDI player.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Waste half his life? The man was at the cutting edge of alchemical research-gathering and experimentation at the stage just prior to what we consider modern chemistry. He had proven the heavens to be run by math, and he was trying to do the same for materials.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It’s the bloody inverse of the golden rule: do unto others what you imagine they might do unto you. It’s the tribal justification for the cleansing fire of war since human history began.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


lockstep approval




Although both the lock-stepping Nazis and the celebrating Palestinians are/were anti-Semites, I’d instead characterize the latter as “like-minded.”


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thank you for this post with a completely alien perspective of my faith. It shows me where the real battle for understanding is.


I have worked for a Christian businessman before, and were it not for that job, I would have found less professional success in my life, and less freedom from my emotional turmoil. It was the job with the healthiest emotional environment I’ve ever been in. Yet his small business, his petit bourgeois success, is exactly the kind that Marxists would make impossible.


C.S. Lewis would have said that the Saturnalian reversal was an echo in pagan thought of the later true divine reversal in which the Son of God washed his followers’ dusty feet and, instead of taking over the world and ruling it, willingly dying for the sins of all. Satan the rebel wanted God brought low, but not like this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				On the Importance of Staring Directly into the Sun
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’ll rephrase the toilet illustration in general: people tend to mistake knowledge of interface for knowledge of function.


I know how to drive my car. I know the four main liquids to feed it, because the under-hood interface is designed to be serviced by me. I know the anatomy of internal combustion engines about as well as I know the anatomy of my own heart. But I couldn’t fix it with all the tools in a well-stocked commercial garage. I am not a power-user or a mechanic.


This leads me to my first conclusion: that discoveries of function are probably discovered by people who are not familiarized with an interface. Japan could miniaturize all of the electronics that America invented, because they were more focused on understanding function than familiarity with form. I, as a person born with autism, do not have a natural social interface, so my discoveries in philosophy and psychology are based more on observation and manipulation of function then on once-described and redescribed and propounded ideas which have propagated over the eras.


In other words, my hypothesis is that the naïve may be better at discovering new things than the expert.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
“Mine, yours, theirs” asymmetry: “Democrats show admirable solidarity in the face of Republican radicalism,” but “Republicans cause gridlock, refusing to cooperate in a spirit of bipartisanship.”


Tribal bias turns negotiable differences into irreconcilable divides. Each side’s marketing says it is the only side operating in good faith on the side of good, making good decisions for the good of the people. This is why politics is the mind-killer.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My priors are that the progressive technocracy are the de facto rulers of the planet at this point. That means Trump gets his business (of completed buildings, fulfilled contracts, and repaid loans) taken away for “fraud,” and SBF gets a slap on the wrist and another couple billion to play with.


If we were on Reddit, I’d ask the RemindMe Bot to remind me in a year and a half.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Alcoholics generally don’t drink because they “want to drink,” they drink to fulfill one of the behavior functions (attention, escape, access, and sensation) because they can’t fulfill a different emotion elsewhere in their life.


Somewhere in their past, someone else made a bad choice which not only impacted their lives negatively, it also injured an instinct: the choice made them believe their world wasn’t how it should be and they’re just going to have to live with being personally screwed by a bad deal. It could be a bad identity: they’re born with the wrong skin tone or genitals. It could be a bad relationship: their teacher cares more about homework than understanding. It could be a bad imperative: they didn’t get something they needed because someone neglected them. Often it’s because one of their caretakers was neglectful or even abusive.


What’s key to understanding alcoholism is the compulsive nature of the disorder: they feel driven to drink, and they haven’t had the tools, the technique, the time, or the teachers to help them find and disarm the emotion which compels them.


Alcoholics Anonymous gives all of these things, in an atmosphere of nonjudgmental camaraderie, patience, and mentorship where people who realize they need help can find it. The program was so successful (compared to other things) that it became the model for recovery from other addictions, such as narcotics, sex addiction, and life drama addiction (CoDependents Anonymous).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are three categories of emotions (per Triessentialism): Identities, Roles, and Imperatives.


    

  • Identities can be stated in first, second, or third person, singular or plural, and carry positive (towards) or negative (away from) polarity. “I am an American” is an example identity of mine, a positive emotional component atop the bare fact. “I am white” is not an identity I have, positive or negative, despite its factuality, but “I am a descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims” is.
    • 

  • Roles in perceived relationships can also be singular or plural, positive or negative. Unlike identities, they come in pairs which are either peers or unequals: student/teacher, boss/employee, husband/wife, lover/lover, brother in arms, brother/sister, etc. Roles have duties, explicit or implicit, which if neglected or denied will crater the relationship.
    • 

  • Imperatives are best stated as wants and needs. Wants are for something, needs are to avoid something unwanted. I want dessert because I want the positive experience of eating it. I need food to keep my blood sugar up to avoid a crash, my metabolism churning to avoid a slowdown which would cause me to gain even more weight, and my organs nourished to avoid their dysfunction or death.
    • 



Each of these can drive compulsions in search of fulfilling or self-validating those emotions. The specific ones are so subjective to each individual's experiences and history that even guessing would be foolhardy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Alcoholism, despite the stereotype, almost always has an emotional component which, if resolved, removes the driving compulsion to drink, though not always the urge.


Behaviorism has identified four drivers of behavior: attention, escape, access, and sensation. Some memory in her past, I’m guessing, carries a stressful semantic meaning which makes her feel she is required to escape. By my experiences, probably an initial event and a reinforcing event.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would like you to take 5 capsules of vitamin D every morning upon waking, and report back in a month. For science.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If I drop something on the floor indoors, but I say “I dropped it on the ground,” everyone knows what I mean.


If then I say of my childhood, “Every night I went to sleep on the cold, hard ground,” but a moment’s research shows that I slept indoors, in a middle class household in a bed, it would be obvious hyperbole or straight-up lying, depending on how charitable my listeners decided to be. If I said it was a metaphor, perhaps some people might consider it a valid part of the class war against the ultra-rich.


If then I play the role of an activist, defining anyone who sleeps on less than a queen size mattress to be sleeping on the ground, and defend it not as a metaphor but an abstraction, anyone who is poor enough to actually be forced to sleep on the floor and anyone homeless who sleeps on the ground would rightfully be angry at me for minimizing their struggles by putting my meager suffering at the same level of theirs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wait, does that mean that by dissolving the company, the judge is “firing” him and thus nullifying his residence there?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This pre-print, as reported by Yahoo News in 2021.


This study in Nature is about HCQ alone, and suggests it would have been even better during Omicron than previous waves due to the different pathways Omicron takes.


This study in Clinical Infectious Diseases of a "prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial" on zinc alone, with positive results.


This extensive examination of Zinc's use with HCQ for COVID by Alberto Boretti in Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology
Volume 71, May 2022.


This ScienceDirect study on the so-called "Zelenko Protocol" of zinc, HCQ, and azithromycin (AZM), with astounding results.


Disclaimer: I used dogpile.com to find this clinical data, which doesn't have the restrictions on misinformation (and "misinformation") of Google. I don't have a list of citations at hand, so I did this search in approx. 1 hr.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
HCQ, when taken with zinc, has always been the silver bullet. It worked wherever it was tried. People were sneaking it into the hospitals to give to their relatives. I guess the Mayo Clinic finally had to bow to actual science.


Anecdote:


Since I couldn’t get any HCQ, I took tonic water (quinine water) with lots of zinc, plus horse paste (ivermectin), vitamin D, and vitamin C during my first bout (probably Delta, Nov. 2021). I remember the final night of the fight, when I felt the characteristic flu-like aches, and took aspirin. The next morning, I felt far better than the previous week, and I was on the mend; I lost my sense of smell for a year, but didn’t have brain fog or long COVID. My dad and mom, squarely in the risk zone of their 70’s, took a similar medicine regimen and also both survived without long COVID.


On my second bout (summer 2022, Omicron), I got a week’s groceries and prepared for another long haul. Vitamin D and zinc, plus tonic water and walking outdoors in direct sunlight, but to my surprise it was over in three days. Not only that, I felt great afterward! I felt better than I had before the illness, oddly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sound of Freedom beat the final Indiana Jones movie at the box office, albeit through a ticket multipurchase scheme, and the idea that Hollywood might lose its power is unthinkable to them. The "need" is to regain control of a public narrative of mainstream moral superiority over Christians, and nothing hurts Christians in the news like the "hypocrisy" of a single Christian falling like Samson to a woman's wiles.


That's the Culture Total War mentality: destroy all monuments and great works the other side might conceivably claim as theirs, and salt the earth, from football and beer all the way down to knitting forums.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Mostly, yes. The power plays are the key: weakness vs strength, or even power over someone in a way which overrides consent and free choice.


    

  • “He was mean to me”: “Why are you whining, didn’t you know people would be mean?” “I bet she did something to deserve it.” “Here are some ways to be less susceptible to meanness.” Mistake Theory: This terminology should be replaced because it feels like victim blaming. Conflict Theory: This terminology doesn’t emphasize the power disparity in a way which allows for social movements and government intervention.
    • 

  • “He was violent to me”: “Oh you poor dear! Let me help you!” “Someone should lock him up for that!” “The governor has declared a public health emergency to curb a surge in violence…” Mistake Theory: This terminology should be used because it emphasizes how helpless a “survivor of verbal violence” feels when someone’s mean to them. Conflict Theory: This terminology justifies use of force against someone who is now seen as using force.
    • 



(A previous edit of this comment used “Motte” and “Bailey” instead of Conflict and Mistake Theories.)