Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
No bio...
User ID: 102
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
5mo ago
I don’t care about diversity in that sense
At the risk of drawing booing, hissing and throwing of rocks I will confess that I'm super woke in this regard, and actually do care about diversity. Humanity transformed into stirred gruel of averaged out geno, pheno and culture types sounds very unappealing to my sensibilities, even if despite the numerical supermajority of Indians and Africans they somehow fail to dominate this gestalt.
Let the hundred flowers bloom, I say. The only realistic obstacle to what modern left winger would perceive as consummate planetary diversity is ironically the rejection of diversity on the local scale through self segregation and political borders - unfashionable as it is today. Interesting how through seemingly subtle tweaking of what diversity means we can arrive at dramatically different policies.
I'm aware that, to an extent, homogenization is natural in a world made smaller through technological means. With any luck, space colonization will prove a lasting obstacle to this.
I’d be perfectly happy if in 300 years nobody speaks Korean any longer
Idle curiosity: how many languages do you speak fluently?
I don't follow, why give preference to spatial-reasoning tasks when defining who is smarter? Why not the one at which women are better?
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
5mo ago
On the object level: yes, probably on average the Chinese are indeed less "creative" even with optimal incentives, and this has obvious implications at the tails
Started arguing, seemingly about Chinese HBD, leaned into some tangential points at best, non-sequiturs at worst, gave some half-baked takes about why white people suck, then unceremoniously conceded the argument. Scratching my temple wondering what was your game here
My guess is you had something pent up that might have been interesting had it been properly developed and formatted as a top level post
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
5mo ago
He wants us to wonder.
If you would, during the next prayer, do use your psychic link to relay to God that Exotic_cetacean from the motte dot org is having a rather bad time with the wondering!
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
I didn't quite reach Marcus Aurelius yet, but I've read a few books on Roman history this year and it's more or less a story of how Roman citizens just can't catch a break. I'm somewhat less impressed with Hoppean "kings have low time preference" argument now
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
This seems to be just a regular mildly charitable interpretation to me?
Per Merriam-Webster, Hunka would be a Nazi if he was either a
1.Member of the Nazi party
2.Supported Nazi ideology.
He wasn't a party member, and superficial search doesn't give any indication of him being an ideological Nazi.
There's a small matter of him fighting under Nazi command but given the historical context, it's entirely plausible, indeed probable, that him volunteering had nothing to do with a sympathy toward Nazis, but rather hatred of communists
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
I can't speak for others, but I downvoted that comment (and yours) not just because I disagree, but first of all because I thought it would be funny. Sue me!:D
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Idk man, "everything is futile and we are doomed, but it's fine, actually" was never a position I could wrap my head around. It feels...lazy? Indecisive? As if you are shrugging the problem off.
It might be easier for you to relate once you understand that it's not just fear we are talking of. I'm still young and full of vigor and death feels very much remote, but here we are. In the first place, it only took me a couple of years of my adolescence to surpass "obnoxious atheist" phase and think "wait a minute, something's off here"
Maybe our gap in understanding is caused by a missing element, like some inner romantic sentiment, or belief in fundamental human dignity. We are special beings endowed with the capacity to look at the material realm not only as participants, but as observers. And so, I claim, we can look beyond, see the insufficiency of mere matter. We can see that we are in a cage, so we deserve a way out. This here might cause you to raise an eyebrow, and maybe it's not the most logically robust claim, but it's fine. It's my intuitive conviction that comes from deep within, there's nothing I'm more sure of.
If all hopes come to nought and materialism is roughly correct, I'm ready to avow that it is not me, but the entire universe that is sick and misshapen and insane.
I broadly agree, and though I don't have inspiration to say too much, I will leave a quote that captures our atheist condition rather succinctly:
...In such a world, you are living your life inside a coffin. Now, this may be a large coffin, and certain things like love and family and rewarding work or temporary artistic experiences may distract you or please you for a certain time, but that time will pass and those things will fail and die, and you will be in the coffin whether you distract yourself from that horrible reality or not
I never felt invested in arguing about piracy simply because how unbelievably flimsy the whole idea of intellectual property is.
Utilitarian, practical angle: we use property claims, first and foremost, to avoid conflicts over scarce resources. Ideas and combinations of zeros and ones are not scarce. Maybe IP can be justified because it brings value by incentivizing creation? In the first place, I find it questionable that we should bring certain legal frankensteins into existence to maximize GDP per capita, but is this goal even achieved? How to price in costs of legal bickering over patents and lawsuits, big actors using IP to suppress potential competition? What about indirect consequences of curtailing individual freedoms and ever multiplying victimless crime legislation? Surely there's a better way to do this.
Deontological angle: Material and Intellectual property as similar things - intuitive at first glance analogy, after all we could say that creator makes a certain "thing" that he can then "own" because he made it. However, as mentioned before, IP is not scarce and IP holder loses nothing from piracy, and often gains in exposure and influence. Surely it's clear that this analogy doesn't really work. And how applying this ethical principle looks in reality? Is an Indian kid downloading a western textbook because he can't possibly afford buying western ip for dollars committing an ethically wrong act? Do people actually believe things like this? I imagine an IP advocate might bite the bullet and say that he commits a minor wrongdoing that is balanced out by him benefiting from the "theft" a-la a starving man being justified in stealing bread, but I find this whole thing laughable. Though not as laughable as I find calling breaking IP laws piracy. Ah, yes, sea-faring robbers and murderers is a very apt analogy for downloading certain combinations of zeros and ones. It's so absurd that I can't help but like it.
Edit: strongest argument in favor of IP was voiced by one of the other commenters - basically that by disregarding certain laws of the land, no matter what they are, we compromise our social fabric in an ever so small way. It's a real concern, though it would have more weight if our governments and laws were much closer to perfection than they are. I would rather put the blame squarely at legislators for outlawing mundane, victimless actions, making sure that a big chunk of the population will find themselves committing legal crimes at some point or another, which certainly doesn't benefit society.
Now excuse me, I have some torrents to unapologetically download. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Inspired by this post, but it's kind of buried there, and the topic has decidedly nothing to do with culture wars, so I took the liberty of taking it here. After going through a similar line of thought, I've concluded that the best argument in favor of free will I can think of is Magic.
"Magic is Awesome!" approach to free will
I owe Sapolsky for helping me to articulate this.
I recall him putting forward this very argument, complaining about how free will is incoherent and would have to be powered by magic. This got me wondering: does magic actually deserve to be dismissed with such contempt? For the purposes of this post, I explicitly reject the Clarkian definition of "magic" as anything merely outside of our current knowledge, but use it to indicate something that is inscrutable in a far more profound way. Consider two problems:
1. Consciousness. No scientific framework predicts it, no theory can explain it. No experiment can be devised to test it. We have no idea how consciousness works. What's more interesting is that we have no idea how to get an idea of how consciousness works. It doesn't have to be there, yet there it is. If this isn't Magic, what is?
2. Why are we here? Why is anything? One option is that one thing causes another, and another, back-propagating in the past...forever. All the way down. Personally, I find this idea unsatisfying somehow, if not downright annoying. But even if that's how it is, we are still left with the question of why does it do it, and the best you will ever be able to come up with is some variant of "it just does, I guess". This positively stinks of Magic.
The more old-fashioned alternative to an infinite causal chain is a finite causal chain, one that terminates with God—the uncaused cause, the unmoved mover... Magic? Magic.
We could even ask whether God could share a bit of this Magic juice with some of his creations; we could call it a divine spark or something like that.
That's part of the reason why common in these circles brand of autistic materialism doesn't sit right with me. Both the place we live in and our very direct experience of it seem to be a middle finger to rationality.
I don't believe that free will is something spurious and irrelevant to ethics and meaning. I'm also not convinced that linguistic atrocities like molesting the definition of free will until it's compatible with determinism are of any help here.
If you're of the same mind, "magic is awesome!" seems to be a nice motto to live by.
Too late. Retrospectively, this development makes sense - Kulak always stood out from rat-influenced writers with his passionate diotribes relying less on well-thought, charitable arguments than evocative and sharp language mercilessly cutting through all the things, ideas and people many of us resent so much. Not exactly academically strict discourse, but fun to read, so whetever shortcomings he had were easy to ignore.
Alas, I strongly suspect that from now on, when stumbling on his posts I will remember that one time he managed to get his opinion entirely coincide with most hilarious excerpts from Russian state TV, chuckle a bit, and close the tab.
Farewell Icarus, it was fun to watch you fly before you burned your wings.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
8d ago
I won't comment on whether or not he ignored compatibilism, but it sure deserves to be ignored no matter the context. Insisting on materialism yet weaseling out of biting the bullet on lack of free will is just sad.
Don’t like the conclusion of your premises? Just molest the definition of some key terms until it goes away.
Troll_face_problem.jpg
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1mo ago
Agree on LGBT, but for mental illness, it might be too lax, actually
We can't easily filter for "a total bitch who will drive you insane if you will have the misfortune to put a ring on her", so the next best thing is diagnosed mental illness. These categories heavily overlap, but the bitch category is almost certainly larger.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
4mo ago
Rest assured, morality is not a factor in what I'm talking about here
Politicians say lots of things all of the time, it's practically their job.
I'm certain there are numerous records of Western and Russian leaders saying things that totally support any given picture, including this one. It just seems like painting targets centered around a bullet hole in the wall after the fact. "Talking a lot and lying, contradicting, exaggerating routinely" applies to Putin at least as much as to any other big politician.
Are Putin's decisions sound, practical? maximizing interests of his own country, roughly based on reality as it can be observed?
It sure seems like many faulty premises were involved based on what actually happened. Perhaps the inherent unpredictability and dependence on whims of a lone, seemingly unaccountable man should be included in the equation, but it's far from easy, and at this point we are straying from what you were saying.
Ukraine was pragmatically unwise to pursue rapprochement with the West
Based on Russian rhetoric and expecting from them self-interested actions, you might well argue that moving westward was actually more sound of strategy after 2014 than before.
Threats from NATO? Leaving aside the existence of ICMBs, NATO members having veto right about new admissions, NATO states that are already on Russian border...surely that problem was solved already by the festering wound Russia inflicted on the country.
Protection of Russians in Donbass from oppression? Given that war has cooled down substantially and annual civilian casualties reached nearly 0 by 2021, things are looking good. Worst they can be expected to do is what, properly annexxing it?
Maybe Russia wants to have Ukraine in its cultural sphere, advance their language and political influence? Surely they must realize they burned those bridges back in 2014. And it's not like attacking harder will make things better.
Basically, I think there's this 'noble savage' view of Russia/Putin in the sense that there are supposed to be totally sound, realistic, predicable motivations in the driver's seat, they're just not easy to grasp for a Westerner, but I don't believe any of it holds up or amounts to more than wishful attempts to force orderly models on a messy world.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
5mo ago
I will note that there's quite a bit of daylight between "the country would not survive" and "abolishing these programs would be a net negative".
Ha, my bad, unnecessary rhetorical flair. Of course, this is a complex topic and big spending can be broken down and justified in any number of ways. I just had strong impression that you're from the team that says "no, it's okay to bulldoze over this fence, you just watch!", not the other one, so seeing you, in the context of this discussion, attempting to wield this weapon left me briefly disoriented.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
2yr ago
Sure many basic human needs can be satisfied using the path you outlined, at least this might make you too busy for existential frustration, but one might ask - is that what's life really about? Would it be insolent and foolish to ask "is there more?" Is that a solution, or a way of preventing yearning for a solution from driving you mad?
Are there actually many sci-fi books that excel not just at exploring fun sci-fi themes, but at actually delivering good prose and characters? The trend of having only the former is so persistent that I came to assume that having these two at the same time is supremely difficult for some reason, like running out of skill points when creating an RPG character.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
20d ago
I endorse the rest of this take, but libertarianism has no problem with joint ownership, and countries can be conceptualized as intergenerational, publicly owned enterprise, so the doors are opened if you ever feel like coming back
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Great idea, but I must admit I find it rather annoying to use, not even taking the lag into account. It would probably be more useful if implemented just with some hyperlinks, tags and collapsible lists
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
2yr ago
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
This is all so tiresome. Since we are going wild with ambitious proposals, how about we deport the Jews instead?
This would have to take place some decades in the future, when the space tech matures a little. That, or we just give the Jews longer deadlines. Everybody (by that I mean mostly the US) does their best to convince the Jews that the promised holy land is, in fact, on Mars. They are then strongly incentivized, both through threats, as well as generous funding, to use their superior IQ to settle the red planet. The place is admittedly somewhat drier, but on the other hand, a lot more spacious and with no neighbors to complain. I'm sure they'll do fine.
Benefits of my plan:
-Space development dramatically accelerated.
-Final solution to Jewish settlement problem. Jews don't bother anyone and no one is bothering the Jews.
-The Palestinians can have their cursed patch of desert all to themselves.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
5mo ago
Speaking of fences - do you have any guesses how did the US survive with government spending per capita dramatically lower than now for the first couple hundred years of its history?
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
5mo ago
Every time I hear this...line of thought I feel frustration with some black amusement mixed in.
NATO is problematic, if not irresponsibly hostile, while very literal aggressive expansionism from Russia itself, when it's not outright 'dindu nuffin', is complicated and needs to be understood in context, and it's their backyard, and nothing is ever black and white like that, you know.
All of this, and more, is possible at the modest price of dramatically lowering the standards to which Russia is being held.
One would be forgiven for thinking that Russia in this frame is something akin to a rabid dog that just can't be blamed for trying to tear every careless passerby's throat out.
I almost agree, though somehow the proposed solution always amounts to sticking one's head in the sand, sending thoughts and prayers to those unable to afford the luxury, and hoping everything will work out somehow, while simultaneously trying best to create the impression that this is the tough, sober, "realist" approach to international politics.
As others say, you're at best making a semantic argument. I would also like to argue that communism is indeed more genocidal than Nazism.
"Damn everybody other than my ethic in-group" is not that impractical of a life project, it can even be argued that it's simply natural human inclination driven to extreme. "Damn inequality and hierarchy", on the other hand, is at odds with the very bedrock of reality. Hence the disparity in the body count of these two worldviews.
You can run out of undesirable racial groups to kill, but you absolutely cannot run out of your betters. Communist project is completed when the last proletarian shoots the last kulak in the head. Perfect communism in not possible in practice, much like a perfect circle must remain in the realm of platonic forms, but you can still go quite far - current world record of communism belongs to Pol Pot with up to a third of Cambodia's population dead
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