FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
No bio...
User ID: 675
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1d ago
It's a quote from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
...But more generally, it seems to me that this a problem we run into quite a bit, hence the popularity of Egregores like Moloch. When I look at the problems of the world, some of them seem straightforwardly the fault of individual people, but many more of them seem to be beyond any discrete human agency. The Media seems to me to be a thing, distinct from any individual journalist, and I don't know where it keeps its brain either.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1d ago
...We just had a thread where a lot of people seemed flatly dismissive that a pot of boiling water could be a seriously threatening weapon. Inspired by this comment, I did a quick google search and confirmed that boiling water attacks are routinely charged under "attempted murder" without controversy.
I think "is boiling water dangerous" is a pretty good example of an opinion that is observably functionally meaningless, due to specific emotional valiances swamping all factual considerations.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1d ago
It is probably not real, and I would strongly recommend using that thought as open and close brackets around any reaction you have to it.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1d ago
Could there be an Is vs Ought distinction here? Focusing on the individual intelligence of a President or Presidential candidate imports the assumption that their individual judgement and analysis is dispositive. That assumption seemed shaky to me before Biden, and certainly hasn't improved since.
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can’t see where it keeps its brain." I'm not confident that we can see where a given Administration keeps its brain. Which do you think would generate a more reliable set of predictions for the outputs of a Kamala presidency: a careful analysis of her responses to interview questions, or a careful analysis and extrapolation of Blue Tribe social trends? Which should we consider the leading indicator?
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1d ago
My recollection is that they were indeed "mostly false", but it's been a long time. What makes it complicated is that once we toppled Saddam's government, neglected to replace it with anything orderly, and made little to no effort to prevent the Iraqi army's munitions stockpiles from being thoroughly looted, Iraq was subsequently completely inundated with terrorists and terrorism for the next decade-plus, so a rigorous argument would have to disentangle pre- and post-invasion terrorism.
Whatever Saddam's support for terrorism before the invasion, it seems to me that it was a rounding error compared to the amount of terrorism generated by the invasion and occupation.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1d ago
Somewhere on my shelf is a self-print copy of Dogs in the Vineyard. How low the mighty have fallen, &etc.
I've never gone back to see where Lumley is now. I prefer my memories of a better time.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1d ago
I am not confident that SJ and "let's just methodically and efficiently bomb and shoot all the Bad People" are mutually exclusive. There have been a lot of previous "Social Justice" movements that demonstrated a notable capacity for liquidating undesirables, even those cohesive enough to offer coordinated resistance.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1d ago
...Given the state of the powers-that-be, how badly do you actually want them to prove that they possess highly efficient insurgency-suppression tech? Such a capability would not be a net win in my opinion.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1d ago
/11 was treated as evidence that being reactive rather than proactive about terrorism risk was unacceptable
To expand on this, and IIRC, accusations of Iraq supporting, training and equipping terrorists was part of the explicit justification for the invasion in addition to their purported WMD.
If you want to argue that women are subhuman, or should be considered subhuman, you can actually do that if you want, provided you're willing to put the effort in to write it like everyone is reading; expending some effort into anticipating and addressing other perspectives, for example. What you can't do is post a low-effort quote that assumes women are in some way equivalent to cows as part of some ancillary point. Posts like this are not conducive to good discussion with people who disagree with you, and the assumptive close is generally not a communication strategy we encourage here.
Two AAQCs, but since then two previous warnings for the exact same infraction, and this isn't a particularly marginal example of rule-breaking. I'm giving you a three-day ban. Please take some time to consider how you're choosing to engage here, read the rules, and try to follow them better in the future.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
We have some pretty good threads going of people analyzing the bodycam video, and a number of people arguing about how justified the shoot is. What I'm curious about is, which previous examples of famous police incidents do you think are more or less justifiable than this one?
From the bit of the video I watched, it looks considerably more justifiable than Arbery, and somewhat more justifiable than Floyd or McGlockton. Significantly less justifiable than the shooting of Jacob Blake, Quite a bit less justifiable than Lil Homicide, and Ma’Khia Bryant is pretty much the gold standard of justifiable.
I'd say the cops screwed up, but were maybe technically within the law. They were dealing with a crazy lady, reacted poorly to weird behavior, and escalated things off the rails. I'd definitely be happy with the shooter losing their job, and can certainly live with murder charges, though I am curious about the contribution to the lingering unintended consequences of our last attempt at "police accountability".
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
My guess would be that once you've concluded that the subject is armed and dangerous, your job becomes securing them and ending the confrontation. If they're willing to threaten you with a pot of boiling water, how do you know they don't have a gun on them or nearby, and will escalate as soon as you turn your back? Once they've initiated a confrontation, it seems that police policy is to end that confrontation as decisively as possible, not to back off and give the suspect space to maneuver, escape, or arm themselves better.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
I mean, yes, but also no, a person wielding a weapon can charge in and close distance before the bullets put them down.
You are correct, and the phrase you're looking for is "Tueller Drill".
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
An organization starts having serious problems. People start asking questions about the guy in charge, whether he's really doing a good job, whether he should keep his job. Typically, the guy in charge and the organization as a whole dismisses these questions out of hand. When they actually put out a statement that "the guy in charge has the full backing of the Board", what usually happens is that he's removed from his position within a week or two. The fact that they need to state that he has their backing is strong evidence that he probably shouldn't have their backing. I think the claim originally comes from observing head coaches in professional sports teams.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
Has the present tumult weakened your confidence that Blues have already won and Reds should despair?
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
It's one of the foundational texts of the culture-war canon, in my view.
Back when this was written, Ozy was well-known as a reasonable, thoughtful pro-SJ blogger, someone who could put some real weight behind "okay, maybe some of these people are crazy, but there's a point here worth considering". I don't read it as proof that they're an especially terrible person. All they do in that essay is play out the necessary implications of liberal Progressivism. The values conflict is in fact real, and there is not in fact anything that can really stop it within a population.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
got a link? I have no idea which videos you're referring to.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
Well, if he's dead, he's exhibiting a remarkable state of preservation.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
The report so far claims that only Crooks’ head and scope were visible to the sniper. No idea where they got that, or how to reconcile it with the claims Crooks was using iron sights.
well, I missed that tidbit completely. The data really is garbage.
...For amusement's sake, I expect the reports of him using iron sights are correct, and the scope mentioned there is just people embellishing via the telephone game.
I wonder if law enforcement is normally trained to suppress.
Presumably the officers armed with rifles were SWAT, and I would expect them to train on suppressing fire. Then too, I don't think it's a very difficult or unintuitive technique; it's just taking very marginal shots for lack of better ones. There's also no shortage of examples of officers spraying a suspect or assailant down with rapid semi-auto fire, whether justified or not, and the line between that behavior and intentional suppression is nebulous.
Trump's entire backdrop was supporters packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, a practice that is pretty normal for political speeches; a literal demonstration of "they stand behind what I'm saying". There was nowhere else for the shots to go but into bystanders, and the shooter's position put those supporters in enfilade. Multiple casualties were practically guaranteed, because missing everyone with a given shot was for all practical purposes impossible.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
My assessment from the audio is that someone did take a poke at him with a semi-auto rifle, and presumably there will be brass on the ground and (potentially) bullet holes in him or the building to verify that.
No idea. Just after posting the above, though, I see someone else suggested that the rapid overlapping shots suppressed the shooter, which would mean the final shot from the USSS sniper is what killed him. This would make an equal amount of sense given the audio; for that matter, at 130 yards, it might have been one of the numerous ground-level non-snipers armed with LPVO ARs who did the suppressing, which given the apparent angles, would also explain why the shots only suppressed the assassin rather than killing them. this would then be reported as "missing" in the press, but would entirely suffice to explain why Crooks stopped firing (he retreated to cover when return fire invaded his personal space) and for the delay in the USSS final shot (they waited for him to poke his head out again, or else they were setting up what would have otherwise been a very marginal shot.)
I'd bet Crooks' autopsy will be released; if he's only got the one hole, that would be good confirmation of suppression and then a killshot.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3d ago
My understanding, possibly incorrect, was that there was both a USSS sniper team, and a sniper team from the local police. My guess is that Crooks opened fire, the local sniper team shot back, and then, finally, the USSS sniper fired a single shot to confirm the kill.
This seems to fit the audio recording and the official statements that the Secret Service fired only a single round. If accurate, it's also pretty troubling that the actual USSS snipers played no actual role in stopping the shooter, only "confirming the kill" after the fact. Combined with Trump's claims that no one warned him at any point, this would look very, very bad for the secret service.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
Alternatively, things really are coming apart to such a degree that even the calm, reasonable people are losing their minds.
A lot of people think that Trump dead would be a net-positive outcome. My problem isn't that this is mean, but rather that it is dangerously wrong. Trump does not generate the culture war, but rather was generated by it. Killing him will not magic it away, but will only throw gasoline on the fire.
Why?
We can observe that friction exists between various people at various times and under various conditions. This friction often gets bad enough that something has to be done about it. In deciding what to do about it, we need a theory of where the friction is actually coming from. We can observe that sometimes this friction comes from mistakes, from misunderstandings leading people to fight over things they don't actually need to fight about: a coworker is claiming someone stole their lunch out of the fridge, when actually it just got bumped behind someone else's lunchbag. Find their lunch and give it to them, exchange apologies, and the problem simply goes away. Other times, the problem is real: maybe someone really did steal their lunch, and has been repeatedly.
Someone who believes the lunch was misplaced is operating off mistake theory. Someone who thinks the lunch was stolen is operating off conflict theory. Neither is better than the other, both are appropriate in some situations and inappropriate in others. You can't simply discount either without crippling your ability to reason about the actions and motivations of others.
How is any of this illegitimate?
I'm a conflict theorist, and I think a technocracy is stupid. I'm happy to argue why at great length, but really all I'd be doing is pointing at the horrifying record of actual "technocracy" as it exists in the real world.
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