FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
No bio...
User ID: 675
edit: well, OP changed substantially after I hit post.
Sorry, it's a bad habit. This still seems like a really good reply, though, and I'll try to get a substantive response.
One note, real quick. The quote is:
The last several years are best modelled as a massive, distributed search for ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble.
It's like "A Tribe Called Quest", you have to say the whole thing. I try to keep the phrasing as consistent as possible, I've been using it for years now because I think it's a really important insight.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7mo ago
It remains to be seen whether we can actually bridge the gap between our current situation and that eventuality. It's entirely possible that our current system suffers catastrophic collapse before it achieves full automation. Given the likely outcomes of the sort of future you're describing, such a collapse might even be preferable.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7mo ago
Purportedly, the same sort of things as Hunter, minus the crack and illegal firearms possession.
There's been a fair amount of discussion about Biden's pardoning of Hunter. There are people here willing to argue that it's a good thing, that it shows humanity on Biden's part to be willing to act as a father rather than as a politician. Others disagree, of course, but while the conversation about the current state has certainly been productive, it seems to me that rationalization on either side is always a failure mode, and the cure is predictions:
Suppose he pardons his brother Jim next? Is that also a good thing? Do you think it will happen, and if it does happen, what does it mean?
If I had the time, I think it would be pretty interesting to write an effort-post detailing how the conversation over the Biden family's alleged corruption has evolved over time, here and in the broader public, and the specific events and disclosures that have shaped that conversation. My perception is that many of the arguments made to defend Biden, his family, and the conduct of the investigations into their activities have aged exceedingly poorly. In particular, it seems to me that this saga has been an excellent example of a common pattern of group behavior wherein the facts, as they emerge, consistently break against the tribal narrative. This pattern seems to me to be a good indicator of entrenched tribalism attempting to deny reality, and likewise a good demonstration of the limits and shortcomings of that tribalism, which should guide us to a better understanding of how the Culture War is likely to play out.
Zooming out a bit, another interesting pattern is, for lack of a better term, "reasoning break points". There's a lot of evidence that Biden's family is corrupt and that Biden himself is involved, but evidently not quite enough evidence for anyone on his own side to do anything about it. Likewise, there's quite a lot of evidence that Biden is meaningfully senile, to the point that his own side forcibly un-nominated him for the presidential race. And yet, somehow, he's not quite senile enough to actually remove from office. One might expect these two issues to compound each other sufficiently to tip the scales on either, but somehow they aren't quite enough even in combination.
It seems to me that the Blue Tribe consensus is that these problems can be managed sufficiently to minimize harm to the cause, separately or even in combination. I perceive this to be a serious error. It seems to me that Blue risk assessments are based on the current state of conversation, and are largely based on the implicit assumption that their tribe has something approximating a veto on what what topics and perspectives that conversation will include. This is a mistake for two reasons: first, because the conversational veto has pretty clearly gone away, and second, because there is no reason to presume that the present set of facts will endure into the future. For the tribe staking their claim to "norms", there seems to be little awareness that the actions they take now are shaping those norms in the future.
Here's a short excerpt of what this looks like in practice:
REPORTER: "He's saying his own Justice Department is broken."
KJP: "He believes in the Justice Department."
REPORTER: "He just said it's infected with politics!"
KJP: [repeats talking points, quotes Biden] ""...even as I've watched my son be selectively and unfairly prosecuted...""
REPORTER: "How many selective prosecutions are there at the DOJ?"
KJP: I can't speak to that.
Damn, that sounds pretty bad. I wonder why no one ever bothered to look into that? Hunter Biden pretty clearly engaged in money laundering and tax evasion in an attempt to conceal earnings from his illegal activities. Did Kushner do that? If so, why has he not been charged?
...On a deeper level, it seems that this topic highlights a salient difference between our perspectives. I do not "trust the system". I am opposed to the "manipulation of procedural outcomes." I am in fact opposed to corruption, but at the moment it seems to me that corruption is best opposed through an adversarial process, not a cooperative one. I think Biden's corruption is best prevented by Republicans prosecuting him. I think Trump's corruption is best prosecuted by Democrats prosecuting him. The Democrats have shot their wad, and have nothing to show for it. Now I want to see the Republicans take a good, honest swing. I am not swayed by arguments that "everyone does it", because I have observed that these appeals to informal "norms" are one of the primary mechanisms by which procedural outcomes are manipulated. If Kushner is corrupt, which I do not particularly believe, Democrats have had ample opportunity to prosecute him and their failure to do so is their own failing. It seems to me that the best path toward low corruption is to enforce the laws fairly but mercilessly against Democrats where my side is able, and trust self-interest to compel Democrats to do the same to my side where they are able. To the extent that corruption has been normalized among our elites, with a common understanding that a blind eye should be turned to bribery and influence-selling, defecting on that understanding seems like an excellent way to break it for good. And since that understanding seems entirely against the public interest, this seems like a good thing to do.
This logic has been a huge part of the value of Trump generally, in my eyes. We all knew the system was corrupt, but no one involved was interested in burning their own meal ticket, and so all involved cooperated in maintaining and concealing the corruption. The solution was to feed the system something it couldn't cooperate with, and this has worked astonishingly well. The system can conceal its corruption and it can suppress attacks on its legitimacy, but it can't do both at the same time while also fighting a war with itself. And so, we see the perceived legitimacy of large parts of the system outright collapsing, and direct attacks on major institutions are now within the Overton window.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7mo ago
If you think broad-based consensus on the legitimacy of the justice system's interactions with politicians isn't something that we should consider terribly important, then sure. It's not as though such questions have been a chronic flashpoint for the Culture War over the last decade. I'm sure it'll be fine.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7mo ago
There is considerable evidence that Hunter was selling access to Joe. That is, by itself, quite illegal and highly objectionable.
It gets worse when "illegitimate foreign influence" has been a consistent talking point against Trump and anyone else who went against the Blue Tribe policy consensus.
It gets worse when Trump was impeached for attempting to direct the justice department to investigate the evident corruption.
It gets worse when the Justice Department evidently slow-walked investigations and attempted to cut sweetheart deals to provide political advantage to Biden.
It gets worse when The federal government and state governments have been bending and outright breaking laws in an attempt to destroy Trump legally and politically.
It gets worse when this is not a recent problem, and in fact Trump made opposition to it central to his campaign in 2016.
The media is, of course, in no hurry to assemble the facts into a coherent, easily-digestable normiefeed narrative. That doesn't change the weight of the actual facts. There is path dependence here, and the result is that you will never, ever get trust and cooperation across the aisle in this area ever again.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
Making a video game is an extremely risky proposition. Wokes coordinate to credibly threaten increased risk for those who resist, and can at least plausibly promise reduced risk for those who cooperate. Up until recently, the other side wasn't even on the field as they had to build an entire information economy from scratch. This is not all of the picture, but it's a big part of it.
IMO, the more recent Steven-Universe-style trend of depicting intentionally homely looking women came later. And you notice that the character here looks, at least in the still, pretty good, for what they were going for; she's less uncanny and more intentionally obese.
I am almost certain that is intended to be a male.
[EDIT] - Aw man, it was a good post! Why delete? I thought about adding a picture of Ellie from borderlands, to give a better example of the point you were making!
Out of curiosity, what's your opinion of Christian Rock as a musical genre?
What do you have against basic human decency?
"Basic human decency" is an appeal to shared values. When the values are not shared, the term loses all meaning. Making an appeal to shared values when values are not shared is straightforward deception. Attempting to change the definition of "basic human decency" to point to some novel, bespoke value set you invented five minutes ago and which have no buy-in from even a significant plurality of the public is an extremely central example of dishonest rhetoric.
The history of the Culture War over the last several years has essentially been a case study in the long-term downsides of such a strategy. The strategy burns scarce trust that cannot be replaced, with woeful effects for the community in question long-term.
Unless the speaker just means Trump is a 'Russian asset' in the minimal sense that his existence is of value to Russia (rather than in the spycraft sense).
...What specific beliefs of the purported "Gribbles" are both widespread and remain preposterous when granted this level of charity? I do not think Flat Earth is a belief held by an appreciable percentage of Republican voters. Ditto for Qanon, which as a diffuse meme has the added benefit of being almost entirely undefinable. What specific Qanon claims are widespread among Republican voters, that we might compare to specific beliefs among Democratic voters?
The others seem a bit more like rash overclaims than complete fantasies to me though it really depends on how the speaker elaborates on what they mean when questioned.
This is a Russell Conjugation: I raise good points from a skeptical perspective, you rashly overclaim, he is a conspiracy crank.
Let's take something pretty spicy: One prominent point in the constellation of Qanon memes is that elites are abusing children and covering it up at scale. Or, alternatively, we could phrase it "Nancy Pelosi is raping and murdering children in a basement under Memories Pizza to harvest their adrenochrome". Now that more specific formulation I just made up; I have no idea if any specific person has ever used it in the wild, and my prior that it is true rounds to zero. But the former formulation is just straightforwardly true, as Diddy's prosecution is now demonstrating. It seems to me that the way you are using Qanon is meant to imply that the specific, explicitly ridiculous formulation is the central example of a Red Triber belief. It seems likely to me that to the extent that Qanon has ever been widespread, the most widespread versions of it have been the least specific and the most plausible, while the least widespread versions of it have been the most specific and least plausible. This should not be surprising, and is not unusually centered in Red Tribe even in the present.
Innocent black men are routinely killed by corrupt police in large numbers, and the murders are covered up.
With the inclusion of the word "routinely", this moves straightforwardly into the realm of conspiracy theory. Certainly there is at least one and perhaps as many as a dozen cases a year in a nation of ~350 million, but Blue Tribers routinely overestimate the number by two to four orders of magnitude, speaking as though this is how the vast majority of homicide against Black people is committed. It is not hard to find prominent Blues feeding the fantasy within the last few years. Nor is the conspiracy element extricable from the structure of this belief. The narrative is that cops routinely kill innocent black people and get away with it, despite obvious formal mechanisms to catch and punish such actions. Major changes in policy have been implemented nation-wide on the basis of this belief, both formal (body cams), semi-formal (the Defund the Police movement) and informal (biased rumor-mongering and disinformation, which remains endemic). The effects of this conspiracy theory have been devastating: nation-wide riots and a collapse in the effectiveness of policing, resulting in a serious violent crime wave and tens of thousands of additional deaths, most of them among Black people.
The Russians hacked the 2016 election
The central example of the claim I'm citing is that Russians hacked the voting machines and changed vote totals to ensure Trump would win. That is very clearly an example of a conspiracy theory. Then we have a motte and bailey where the motte is "Russia engaged in hacking relating the 2016 election" (true, and as you note irrelevent) > "Russia hacked the election, deciding the outcome" (not true and highly deceptive, but with a fig leaf of unfalsifiability) > "Russia hacked the voting machines and changed vote totals" (flatly false.)
Brett Kavanaugh is a rapist, and the Republican machine helped him cover it up.
Two of the three accusations against him were proven false and withdrawn. The third, original accusation was repeatedly proven false on specific questions of fact, only to be serially altered into unfalsifiability. The reality is that there is no credible evidence that Brett Kavanaugh is a rapist or an abuser of any kind, and there is no evidence that the Republicans ignored to secure his confirmation. The beliefs of a large portion of Blues shares no overlap with this reality. And again, conspiracy is implicit here; they're claiming that an obvious truth is being concealed by a definable hierarchy of people for nefarious ends.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
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Innocent black men are routinely killed by corrupt police in large numbers, and the murders are covered up.
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Donald Trump is a Russian Asset, controlled through Kompromat.
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The Russians hacked the 2016 election
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Brett Kavanaugh is a rapist, and the Republican machine helped him cover it up.
It seems to me that these four fit your definition of "conspiracy theory", do they not?
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
I killed my first demolisher tonight. Built a tank, built a bunch of shells, drove forward and opened fire.
...I hadn't really accounted for the demolisher's abilities. My tank got severely damaged and I lost a couple bots, but managed to kill it despite the lava bomb spam. Then I made the mistake of reloading to try for a cleaner kill, and it massacred my tank in the next ten or so tries. Finally managed to kill it again, and I think I'll be holding off on expanding my territory until I can figure out a better method. maybe artillery, maybe mines. The lava bombs are extremely difficult to dodge and slow the tank, and it's astonishing how fast "kiting" turns into "getting eaten by a huge worm monster."
If you're going to do turrets, get red ammo; there's no tradeoff since the resources are effectively free, so get several dozen turrets and an entire inventory of ammo. With enough turrets, you should be able to penetrate the regen and armor. Maybe lure it in with a tank, retreat, let the turrets draw its attention, then swing back around to chunk it down with the cannon when it goes for the turrets?
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
I missed that one, thanks for the link. Assuming you've read it, what did you think of his arguments?
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
Man, you're importing water on Vulcanus? I think you should get acid neutralization soon. Maybe when you start harvesting calcite?
The ship I arrived in is still in orbit, and its eight asteroid collectors pull in a fairly large amount of ice while it's just sitting up there idling. It's pretty easy to periodically drop the collected ice from orbit and load it into the cracking plant. I'm a sucker for free resources, and it seems like acid neutralization is intended as a significant sink for both acid and calcite; if I can work around that step, it looks to be a free and very large productivity bonus right off the bat, with the bonus of giving me an excuse to lean into orbital infrastructure. It'll be a bottleneck until I get launches going again, but with the launch capacity Vulcanus offers I'm looking forward to building the mother of all space stations.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
I don't get to play as much as I'd like these days, but I got a spaceship sorted out after three iterations of redesign, and sailed easily to Vulcanus. I came down with a pretty good selection of material to work with, and the last few nights have been figuring out the basics of the new environment in the landing zone. I made the annoying mistake of building my first dozen smelters using an assembler rather than the first smelting machine, but it's a minor hiccup and I'm getting my bootstrap base built now. Coal liquefaction is going, but I'm handicapping myself by trying to run the oil system off orbital ice rather than acid neutralization; this makes everything slower until I can get launch capacity back up and build a serious orbital ice farm. If worst comes to worst, I can always cannibalize my ship for the purpose, but pushing through the production chain the normal way seems doable at the moment.
I've unlocked orange science, and the obvious next step is to start worm hunting to expand my buildable territory. My current plan is to build a tank and a bunch of piercing shells; even with the constricted environment, it seems like it should be pretty easy to kite the worm while the cannon grinds it down. I really appreciate how they've added and expanded more "breakthrough" moments in the game's design, where you can see a goal that will significantly change what you're doing, plan how to achieve it and execute the plan; right now, that's securing minable tungsten so I can stop relying on the bits and bobs from harvested surface rocks.
I started messing with quality on nauvis, but that's on hold while I deal with the million things that need to be built-out on Vulcanus. I'm salivating over the launch capacity available there once I get a proper factory set up.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
Doubtless. But I think a big part of how that happened is them being labeled "right wing" and cast out by their erstwhile compatriots on the left. From personal experience, being "thrown in the pit" invites a lot of reflection and re-evaluation about one's views.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
Another way to put it is that the definition of "right wing" has expanded to contain even people like Musk, Rogan and Gabbard.
I mean I could but most of what I think of as victories I would imagine you would classify as defeats.
Why speculate when you could give it a try and find out for sure?
No amount of anger at the establishment makes the "Trump is a king and he is going to hit the make the economy good button as well as the decrease prices button" worldview any less delusional.
There are degrees of delusion, and "We can trust Elites/The System/The Science/The Acolytes of Codified Procedure to police themselves and secure good outcomes, because they've done such a good job in the past" is considerably more delusional.
Trump is in many ways a buffoon. He is winning a straight popularity contest because his opponents are arguably worse. I am not confident that he can "hit the make the economy good button as well as the decrease prices button", but leadership and good stewardship do in fact exist, "leading economists" predicted his first administration would tank the economy when in fact it was one of the best economic periods of my life, and his opponents were very recently denying the existence of inflation before they pivoted to proposing federal price controls.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
It is. The rest of the game is just absurdly good, and I'm confident they'll iron this part out in short order in any case. I've made it to Vulcanus, and am figuring out the smelting system in preparation to World War Worm. It's amazing how much better things have gotten from what I previously would have sworn was the perfect game.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
It might help if those attempting the reality check had some plausible claim to a superior grasp on reality themselves. By all means, list off the victories of the Establishment, the evidence of their prudence and sound judgement. They've been running the country as a coherent bloc since at least the fall of the USSR, so there should be plenty of victories to list, no?
If you've got a comprehensive debunking of the x-ray claims I'd like to see it
Can you link the x-ray pictures you considered credible, so the debunking would be more direct?
Minus specific pictures, a comprehensive debunking is not complicated. The Israelis generally use 5.56mm NATO rifles for their regular troops, and 7.62mm NATO sniper rifles and machine guns as support weapons. The physics of these rounds are well-known, and you can, right now, go to youtube and watch a functionally unlimited number of examples of what happens when a roughly skull-like object is struck by one of these rounds because "shooting skull-like things with a rifle" is an entire genre of video entertainment at this point. The short version is that when skull-like things are struck by an assault- or battle-rifle projectile, they explode from the transferred kinetic energy, and the bullet continues on its merry way.
In order for the bullet to stop dead inside the skull, it needs to be moving very, very slowly. It's possible to get a bullet moving that slowly if it was fired into the air and comes down a great distance away, but this would make deliberate aim impossible. It's also possible for a bullet to expend almost all its energy penetrating some obstacle, and then hit someone on the other side with a marginal penetration, but again, this would no longer be aimed fire.
It is almost certainly not possible for a sniper to be shooting kids in the head in a way that the bullet stops in their skull, positioned properly for a photogenic x-ray. It would be trivial to fake such a photo, though.
For what it's worth, if you've got video evidence of the attacks, I'd certainly be interested in seeing it.
It was a fine argument. We have overwhelming evidence that it can't be maintained in an environment of values-diversity. The same author went on to write Be Nice At Least Until You Can Coordinate Meanness, and then a year later wrote Kolmogorov Complicity And the Parable of Lightning. Now, I'm given to understand, he declines to write about these matters at all. Taken in sequence, it seems to me that the trajectory isn't hard to plot.
You know who hasn't had to engage in a grinding rhetorical retreat year after year? Zunger. He got it right the first time. Ditto for Ozy.
near as I can tell, the best way to handle things at the moment is to go to your platform, make a note of all the things you need, then place a requester chest on the ground one space away from the rocket, set requests for the items and amounts, wait for them to be delivered, replace the requester with a steel chest, add an inserter, and then launch the rockets until the chest is empty. There's probably a way to do it better with circuit networks, but getting the correct amounts into the rocket is a pain to do manually, and you need to switch to the platform and open the hub to get a summary of what is actually needed. It definitely could use some serious improvement.
There might be a way to do it better with combinator witchcraft, but I do not worship Satan.
I'm given to understand that this point in particular was straightforwardly false. Polling error leaned heavily toward undercounting Trump voters.
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