Felagund
9mo ago
This is a pretty good response.
He makes it clear that he doesn't hold the same views, and finds them repugnant. At the same time, he doesn't back off from his current writings, and avoids grovelling.
It won't sate those who can't be sated, of course, but it will probably be sufficient for those who aren't put off by his current views, but who would be repulsed by his former ones, and aren't fans of cancelling when views have changed.
Felagund
10mo ago
Hey, be fair. He didn't start it, others brought it up, and were saying he argued inadequately. That's a totally reasonable thing to respond to.
was corrupted and lost through misguided translation attempts.
Wait, does that mean that they would accept the untranslated versions? We definitely still have those. (Or, more precisely, while there are minor textual differences between manuscripts, we can be sure of the text of the vast majority, and even more if you only care about ones where the differences are at all meaningful)
Felagund
1yr ago
There looks like there's now a comment there from a mod saying that those topics were removed.
Eh, not terribly true for me, unless "sort by new in reddit style threads on themotte," "read newest substack articles of people I run across" or occasionally, "look at the newest (not algorithmically generated) tweets for someone on nitter" count.
I don't know that his post will prompt lefty investigations here; it's not like he's acted terribly right-wing besides merely investigating the matter, and it's pretty egregious.
I assume he can flee to conservatives, even if he's not really one, for defense for this kind of thing, if needed.
That said, can you imagine the articles they'd write about themotte? (I suppose that would solve any evaporative cooling problems for the short term, but lead to large quality and moderation problems.)
Edit: Actually, maybe the anon (I believe?) account with enough biographical information to make doxxing not hard might be pretty attractive to some journalists. (How many gay-married ex-mormons in law school are there?)
Felagund
4mo ago
Of course, this argument will not at all be persuasive to those who empathize with the satanists—what they want is religion gone, and "allowing religion means hitler" would be a sentiment that they'd be delighted to see make the national news.
Felagund
10mo ago
To what extent should it be presumed that sexless men will become rapists? Certainly we can look at some statistics proving rape exists, that some subset of men will eventually become rapists, or worse, school shooters.
Is it actually true that sexless men are more likely to be rapists? I don't have statistics, but that's not obvious to me.
It's only nerds that think of humans as rational agents. It's only nerds that think of humans as rational agents. It's only nerds that think of human ok you get it.
What do you mean by rational agent?
In any case, I really don't think this is a fair description of social dynamics (nor do I think it was meant to be—it's probably meant to be attacking the people on this site, since I'd imagine a good deal of us would self-identify as nerds). I've hung out around plenty of nerds, and I can only think of one who I knew had issues with unwanted attention towards women (and in those cases, he generally was able to be made aware that he was in the wrong, per my recollection). For some of Scott's thoughts, this seemed a nice collation, which seemed to generally be pushing back against some of what you've been saying.
Can't say that I've really run across bullying either, though, so maybe I'm in unusual environments.
Felagund
10mo ago
I want to be called dextrous, and left handed people should be called sinister.
I jest, but the fact that those words have those connotations indicates that that kind of thinking was likely in use at one point.
Felagund
3d ago
Sorry, I kind of have to agree with ArjinFerman—at least, it would be disastrous for the forum if everyone started adopting your tone and habits of response. You're consistently above-average in antagonism and dismissiveness. And this definitely is one of the factors in you drawing more downvotes—it's often the reason if ever I downvote you. That of course doesn't address the overall problem of voting based on whether people like it driving dissenting views away, but it could make a meaningful difference in your particular case.
So I guess, two.
I think your point is probably right that that would reduce tension, though in all likelihood that would just shift elsewhere (e.g. economic policy). But I think your specific policy suggestions are pretty bad.
Say fine, trans women are women
I'm definitely more sympathetic to this than many other conservatives, at least in the sense that I do think that taking cross-sex hormones has appreciable effects putting people into something of a tertium quid. But I don't think this is good policy. The trans movement on the whole seems pretty clearly deleterious to people: giving people costly treatments, making them dependent on hormones for the rest of their lives, now they probably can't fit in with either gender too well, can't have children, they have higher rates of suicide, etc. Since it seems clearly to be the case that it's in part a social contagion, that's a really bad contagion to have and normalize. It's possible that normalizing it could decrease rates of trans-ness—not sure that I have an opinion on that—but I think it should be unequivocally the case that we should want fewer people to transition. So because I think this has fairly large social harms, I think it might be a mistake to just let it be.
Moreover, I think this is something that seems weirder to many normies than gay marriage does.
Say sure, diversity is a strength, so lets hire some black CEOs who align with our mission to crush unions, roll back regulations, and lobby for tax cuts for the rich.
I think the current affirmative action regime is bad in a whole bunch of ways. For one, it's the product in a bunch of cases of regulations: the disparate impact standard makes everything possibly illegal, because nothing you do will be without an impact, so you have to play by the rules the agency in question sets, as well as that all government contractors, which is a quarter of the economy, have to follow rules that are definitely (ha!) not quotas. This sort of regulation seems clearly bad to me, and is one thing that I'd want to roll back. It's bad because I don't think that the skill distribution matches the racial distribution, meaning it distorts things away from what's economically efficient. It also leads to attacks on meritocracy, because any attempt at choosing better employees has to be racially equitable if you don't want to be sued, and ability is not evenly distributed across the buckets that the US government tracks. I also think the principle of colorblindness and individualism is admirable, and don't like the identitarianism.
Because efficiency results in racial gaps, and we're trying to adjust everything to fix racial gaps (at least, at some levels of society), we lose out on much of the efficiency.
I have no problem with black CEOs, I just want them to be the most capable man for their job.
Further, racial discrimination is not something that's popular, and is something that's already prohibited by the statutes if people would just interpret them in the manner that they were obviously intended to be interpreted, so it seems like a fairly low-cost, high-reward thing to try to fix.
Felagund
2mo ago
It's consistently been among the most valuable things I get out of themotte.
Felagund
2mo ago
That's not helpful.
Let me clarify. What normative beliefs do you see HBD as being?
A lot of what people cared about 538 for is the use of data and models far beyond what you see anywhere else (maybe not explicitly, but at least that people might have some idea of what's going on beyond idle speculation), and at least currently, 538 is still the best place for any of that that I know of.
Edit: just read further down that Nate Silver is the one with the rights to the models—guess 538 being the best may no longer be the case.
Felagund
10mo ago
And much of that may just be due to people having lower thresholds—low but nonzero numbers on the Kinsey scale might have previously been considered heterosexual, but now bisexual (at least, if the person wishes to think of themselves that way).
Felagund
11mo ago
It's definitely not Rings of Power, since Rings of Power messed up the lore in all sorts of non-racial ways, while this has turned out to be mostly racial things.
Yes, the racial things make no sense. My point was that, contrary to my expectations, they did a really good job with most other things, including faithfulness in non-racial matters to what's in The Lord of the Rings, which was not at all true of Rings of Power.
Felagund
11mo ago
Moreover, the Certificate of Need boards (and I would assume whatever other regulatory agencies) often have representatives from the existing health players on them, who have a vested interest in making it difficult to meet the standard of need for new competitors.
This comment was I think an apt summary of some of the sorts of problems going on in the healthcare space (among others), although perhaps in the case of healthcare, it might be even worse, because of the costs being hidden.
Felagund
1yr ago
I'll have to wholeheartedly agree with the comments of people about the sense of some great past that we now have only remnants of. Tolkien's really good at writing nostalgia. But then that also heightens what remnants we do have. Elrond, who has walked the earth for thousands of years, is lord of Rivendell, and the older still Galadriel of Lothlorien. Gondor still stands, the sons of the men of Numenor, and Aragorn, its heir, we are told is far more like the kings of old than any ruler has been for a long time. The civilizations are fading, a thing of the past, but what is left of them both shows the heights of what the elder days must have been like in middle earth, but also maintain a present dignity of their own. If you eventually decide you like Tolkien's worldbuilding, I can definitely recommend the appendices.
I think the other thing big thing that is a love of the things that are wholesome and honest and good. It is no accident that Tolkien is writing about hobbits, people who live essentially ordinary lives, doing ordinary things, until four of them end up on this journey. And it is no accident that songs occur in the book, even though they might often be seen as a slog by the readers, (and I suppose, often support the previous point), and that the book talks about laughter the way that it does. The hobbits are a homely and a hearty people. The fellowship, being nearly half hobbits, put the humble plainly on a level with the great.
I think it's in light of things of this sort that a lot of the things in Lord of the Rings should be seen. I think the delight in the book is maybe more in the people and peoples who are accomplishing things than in the things they accomplish.
I'm wondering if this could be some of the cause of the stilted dialogue, as you put it. Tolkien is not trying to write the way that we talk. If he were, he would be wretchedly failing. I think he is trying to make it poetic instead, and to give the right feel. Tolkien is attempting to describe characters and a world who delight in friendship and in song and in the good things of life, as they struggle onward with courage and earnestness towards a great danger, and also to portray loftiness, dignity among the great. He's not trying to imitate our world so much as make a better one. (although maybe that's put badly, as I'm quite confident he would think our world better than his.)
I think because of all this, because so much of the value in the book lies in the character of the people and places rather than in the barebones architecture of the plot, that it can be vulnerable to the problems that @OracleOutlook was talking about, and that taking care to not let that happen might help.
Oh, also, I've always found book 4 (the second part of the Two Towers) to be a drag anyway, but it sounds like you're not there yet.
I'll add also that I'm talking about the Lord of the Rings here. The Hobbit is pretty different in tone. There's clearly much less at stake in that—just a quest they're going on vs. a threat to the whole of middle earth.
Let us know if any of our thoughts affects how much you like it once you read a little further!
Felagund
1yr ago
This feels to me a like a sort of post I don't like seeing others make. It's criticizing our common outgroup (generally speaking), progressives, and is kind of just irritated. It doesn't provide too much more value or insight than "hey, bad thing happened over there." I agree with it, of course, being its author, but I want to do better. Any thoughts about how I could talk about the same topic, while holding the same view, in a better way? Or is the answer just find other things to bring up?
Felagund
1yr ago
I think I see some of what it was modded for—it's a pretty partisan, Outgroup Bad, take, especially the end there, not really aiming at courtesy. But I don't know that it's entirely without value either, since it is a good thought experiment.
Felagund
2mo ago
How much of the good things in the economy are from borrowing from the future?
Felagund
2mo ago
I'm not familiar with the illegality of tutoring or whatever. Do you have more information or somewhere you can point me?
Felagund
2mo ago
My answer is 'probably around 300 to 500 years.'
This seems like an overestimate to me. Have you seen the studies on how in places like china, people who were part of the regime were, after the communists took over, much poorer, worse off socially, etc., but in two generations, they now are again the ones in power? This would make it seem like a tendency towards being an elite could well be heritable. You'll respond to this that there are substantial cultural differences (they raised their children differently) which is entirely fair and reasonable.
When I look at what is holding black people back, I don't think the left's policies are well aligned. Setting aside IQ sorts of things, there are obviously real problems with US black culture that no one really is trying to fix—the high rates of sleeping around, low rates of marriage, high rates of divorce, low rates of fathers present, glorification of crime, less savings and financial responsibility, higher levels of dependence on welfare, and all around less of a vision of what a healthy life looks like and more of an emphasis on taking nice things now. Or at least so I have been led to believe.
The solution, apparently? Affirmative action, which does little to deal with most of those, and instead promotes black people beyond their level of ability, leading them to systematically be less competent and hurting those who genuinely deserve the positions they have earned by their own ability. Affirmative action literally makes racism justified—I should rationally expect that a black person holding a position is less competent than a white person holding the same position, for most high status jobs!
This is true for many other progressive policies: opposition to prosecution of crime leads to more crime, which makes black culture worse. Not stopping shoplifting reduces the presence of stores and leads to higher prices. Opposition to SATs, because of racial disparities, when in actuality SATs are more equitable and better measure merit at the top levels than the metrics more easily gameable by wealth.
The attempt to argue for systemic racism, and simultaneously defend black culture, when the systemic racism is black culture is unhealthy. Bush was not wrong when he spoke of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
As it currently exists, if a black person is capable, they will have no problem reaching the upper echelons of society (though they may not be as respected when they get there). They will have preferential treatment at every step of the way.
One thing that makes this make more sense than what you are suggesting: black immigrants do better than their children, who do better than their grandchildren, I believe. Many see this as a genetic regression to the mean (I'm not familiar enough with how that would work), but it could also be due to that the children/grandchildren end up more captured by the harmful culture. Under your model, they would have successful parents, and so should be more successful.
What then should be done? I'm not sure. Legislation could surely be passed, tax/welfare incentives could be adjusted to promote a healthier culture. Policing should increase (and the carrying out of the sentences, racial disparities be damned), drugs etc. should be kept out to the extent possible. Focus on literacy, mathematical ability, and so on seems reasonable, but whatever's going on with the schools is surely not working, so there needs to be a better plan than "dump more money at it."
Similarly affirmative action, etc. even if we decide that we need to have some sort of program to fix disparities, should be tested to see if they actually work. Do these programs cause (not correlate with) the children of the beneficiaries to have substantial better life outcomes? And if so, is it worth the negative externality of forming a stereotype of black incompetence? Worth the promotion of those who are best at exploiting whatever the grant systems are over those who are best at being productive?
Those forces push away from a meritocracy, so if you want a meritocracy you have to actually study what those factors are and apply some type of corrective against them.
Perhaps this depends on what you mean by meritocracy. Dropping of regulation would lead to a meritocracy, on average, in that, whoever is most fit for the position would get it. Perhaps it would miss those who were born with whatever capacity but do not currently have it. Then, should we push harder for a meritocracy for children?
Felagund
4mo ago
That color scheme is hilarious. Clearly lets you know which side Wikipedia prefers.
Felagund
9mo ago
Have you considered the possibility that this is sincere? That is, that he genuinely doesn't hold or like his past views?
Now every time someone attempts to discredit him by posting the huffpost article, someone else can post this in response, which'll take off some of the bite.
This seems like the right play to me.
A 126 page legal analysis of section 3 of amendment 14 of the constitution was released yesterday, arguing that Donald Trump, among others, is ineligible for public office, including the presidency. The authors are conservative, active in the Federalist society.
For reference, the relevant part of the constitution is
Among the arguments made were that it is legally self-executing—that is, it applies, like the 35 year old minimum age, without an explicit system to handle it to be set up by congress. Further, they think that people at almost every step along the process, from state officials deciding who goes on the ballots, to those capable of bringing an Amendment 25 complaint have a duty to ensure that this provision is fulfilled.
In reference to Trump, they argued that the events on and surrounding January 6th intending to overturn the election would constitute "insurrection or rebellion" as understood at the time of the passing of the amendment.
I can't see this not being important, but I'm not sure how exactly it'll play out—we could get court cases, possibly going up to the supreme court (no idea how that would play out). We may see state officials refuse to put Trump on the ballot. I expect this to lead to a substantial increase in support for Trump if this is seen as illegitimate, as it undoubtedly will be. At the same time, if this happens during the primary elections, and Trump is not even on the ballot in some states, it might make it significantly easier for another candidate to become the Republican nominee, unless the national Republican party interferes with it.
Note on the link: the pdf isn't opening for me right now and the wayback machine isn't helping. It was fine earlier, not sure what the issue is.
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