@FirmWeird's banner p

FirmWeird

Randomly Generated Reddit Username

0 followers   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 05 23:38:51 UTC 

				
User ID: 757


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
FirmWeird


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Randomly Generated Reddit Username

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 23:38:51 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 757


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom New Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Can anyone offer me an argument in favor of ad-blockers that doesn't amount to some kind of misanthropic "The system, man, it's broken; so whatever I do against the system is a-ok"?




I don't think there's anything misanthropic about this position at all. I feel that youtube is run by people actively antagonistic towards me and my interests(and, ultimately, humanity in general), so I use adblockers when browsing normally and purposefully run ads on ad-supported channels I like in a browser window muted and obscured in a way that the browser cannot detect in order to funnel money towards content creators I wish to support while making advertising on the platform a worse deal. I contribute more, and not just financially, to the content creators that I support and wish to endorse than the average user.


Additionally, I think that this kind of advertising supported model is bad for the internet and for society as a whole. It rewards clickbait, it rewards SEO and most damning of all it rewards content that explicitly encourages anger, hostility and division, because those emotions are excellent at drawing clicks. When possible I prefer to use Brave, because it has an advertising model that I'd actually support - it should be my choice who gets my advertising revenue. I fundamentally do not believe that websites targeting the lowest common denominator like Buzzfeed deserve to be financially rewarded for degrading the level of societal discourse, and while I do not consume their material if at all possible, enough people are susceptible to it that I want to make sure that they are not rewarded for what is effectively rerouting intellectual sewage into the public sphere.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Personally I think that they're just not using democracy in the same way that most people understand it. To the best of my knowledge, "Democracy" when used in these contexts essentially means rule by the global professional managerial class. If Donald Trump won 85% of the popular vote and was elected in a perfectly functioning democratic election, that would be a defeat for democracy - and at the same time, if the FBI intervened and announced that actually electing Trump would be illegal and Hillary Clinton was to be installed as president instead, that would be classified as a victory for democracy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh, I think that democracy as a word is still useful and that people can still have meaningful discussions using it. But I'm certain that a lot of people and organisations/institutions use the definition that I've suggested.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


My take: while Fox is certainly useful for presenting facts that other sources don't, it's made factually incorrect claims that remain uncorrected. Those would make it difficult to use as the only source for a claim, and if you can't do that, what's the point.




Wikipedia is a nakedly political organisation and has been for some time. "Made factually incorrect claims that remain uncorrected" is not the criteria being used by Wikipedia - if it was, then you'd be unable to rely on any mainstream/"reliable" source of information. I have a long enough memory that I can recall discussions during the gamergate period where wikipedia editors made it clear that even if there was direct proof that a reliable source was lying, the reliable source was to be the viewpoint presented in the article no matter how much evidence there was to the contrary. Wikipedia has already been politicised, and has been for a long time - I would prefer it if they were just honest and flat out said that Fox was being banned for political reasons.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think that "do it yourself or convince someone to" is actually going to be possible - if I tried to make an earnest, good faith effort to fix the inaccuracies and politically slanted representation of the articles that concern me, I would just be banned within short order. And while I appreciate the offer, I do not believe you can actually meaningfully do anything to correct the "political lean" of the sort that I'm alluding to. Are you going to single-handedly remove a bunch of admins and institute sweeping reforms to the culture of Wikipedia? I don't see any other way to make articles like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower_meeting present a balanced and accurate picture of events as opposed to what they show now.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_truth




Sometimes we know for sure that the reliable sources are in error, but we cannot find replacement sources that are correct. As Douglas Adams wrote of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it's always reality that's got it wrong."




I'm sure I can go dig up an example for you if you want, but here's the actual official policy on this topic.


EDIT: This isn't the official policy - this is an essay on the official policy. See below for correction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am absolutely not interested in registering an account on wikipedia or providing my IP address to that site - but I can tell you about the missing context and inaccurate, deceptive framing of the events presented in that article. However you're going to have your work cut out for you, as this article and the events in question are also linked and referenced in multiple other pages on the site.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ah, my mistake. In that case just take it as an essay on the official policy rather than the official policy itself - I was confused due to seeing this particular course of events play out in real time, and then seeing this essay essentially explaining what had just happened.


EDIT:




Knowingly using sources that are lying is straightforwardly stupid and I'd hope that both (1) no actual Wikipedia policy can be construed that way, and (2) no discussion has concluded that way.




This was in fact the situation in which I was made aware of this policy. If you want to see more, please go read the archived talk pages for the Gamergate article (hope you have some time on your hands).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Numbers are seriously sketchy by nature, but have found that rapists typically have more consensual sexual partners than the average non-rapist. So that's a strike against the hydraulic theory, and points to there being a non-sexual element to rape. Which probably comes out as power, since on the list of human desires it can't be food or shelter and we've already ruled out sex.




I don't think you can really make this leap. The most prolific pirates of copyrighted media and music tend to be the most passionate fans of that media/music and spend more on it than the average person. I imagine a similar phenomenon could be taking place here - if an individual man has a much higher sex drive than average that would explain both sexually-motivated rape alongside a higher number of consensual partners.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't really understand this comment with the full context of American action in the Ukraine in the decade leading up to the conflict, nor do I recall Russia ever officially announcing that they would then move on to conquer the rest of Europe after Ukraine (provoking a nuclear conflict and the end of the world in the process). Can you please provide some citations for Russia announcing FIRST UKRAINE, THEN EUROPE? I was under the impression that Russia was taking action in order to prevent the US from setting up a client state next door, as opposed to a world conquest plan.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Eventually if you keep doing a thing and it causes another thing to happen, regardless of your strenuous verbal discouragement you own those consequences




I disagree.


If I decide to make a new account called Evinceo'sGreatestFan4243452 and post gigantic walls of text praising your immense intelligence under every single post you make, to the point that my gigantic posts render the forum unusable for anyone else, and I continue to do this despite your strenuous verbal discouragement, would you accept that you own those consequences? Would you, in this hypothetical, be willing to admit that you are responsible for the forum being rendered unusable?


That's not the only problem with this argument however. You could just as easily flip it around - are the people who get their personal information posted on sites like Kiwifarms responsible for it, despite their strenuous verbal discouragement, because they continue to act in ways that motivate others to post and share their personal information?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If the pipelines are destroyed and Europe becomes energy-independentish




Not happening. Barring the discovery of some brand new too-cheap-to-meter form of energy generation. there's no way for Europe to become energy independent without a dramatic decrease in quality of life, energy usage and/or population.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Whoopi Goldberg was totally in the right - after the definitions of race and racism were adjusted to make sure that it was impossible to be racist against white people, "the holocaust wasn't about race" is actually correct.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				What caused the Nord Stream pipline explosions?
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It doesn't seem like a terribly popular view on here but I think you're totally in the right on this issue. Germany simply cannot cut off Russian fossil fuels without undergoing an economic contraction and reduction in quality of life so severe that the political system will be unable to prevent outsiders and nationalist politicians from gaining power. I pay a lot of attention to energy and fossil fuel issues and I really can't see any other plausible explanation for what's happening or why the pipelines were destroyed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If being a superior athlete and cross-country runner is supposed to result in higher speeds, why do I outperform Usain Bolt whenever I hop into my car and drive? What does it tell us that despite Usain Bolt having a significant genetic advantage when it comes to athletic performance, he falls way behind on speed compared to me?


If you think that the HBD position is that higher average IQ for a given ethnicity is enough to overcome any and all other differences in context then I think you need to go and do some more research before you can credibly claim to understand the position you're arguing against.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not who you're arguing with but the first example that comes to mind is the influence of the uterine environment. There's a plausible argument that the uterine environment has an impact on a lot of different areas in life (birth order effects, FAS, etc) and there's a whole galaxy of potential interactions there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It would, but those differences would not be the ones we see in the world we live in and they would respond differently to testing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So I'm inclined to believe that these news organizations are "mostly right" because they have entirely too much invested in being mostly right.




Hard disagree.


Have you seen the recent CJR reporting on the Press' coverage of Russiagate? https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php


If you listened to and believed those news organisations you were not just uninformed about the state of the world but actively misinformed. They lied about Trump, they lied about Biden (and his laptop), they lied about Russia, they lied about Syria, they lied about Iraq. I cannot point to a single period of my life where those mainstream news organisations have not been staking their credibility on claims which have later been proven to not just be false, but so easily demonstrable as false that ignorance cannot be an excuse for their coverage (unless you wish to make the argument that all those journalists are extremely incompetent). Beyond that, there are even multiple instances where journalists have spoken about how their political mission is more important than actual journalism.


Even now, I can just go and compare the NYT's reporting on the Ukraine war to the reports recently put out by the RAND think tank, and the observable gulf between reality and what is reported in the NYT is so vast that I cannot understand how you can believe that the NYT is actually practicing journalism and not manufacturing consent. It doesn't matter how many bureaus they have when on any issue of substance it is nakedly obvious that they are lying to you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For the record, the RAND think tank recently released a report talking about how the Ukraine conflict, which they originally proposed in 2019 as an effort to "extend" Russia, is now having the opposite effect (i.e. extending the US). Rather than a US geopolitical victory, the US military is actually now talking about how they're going to have to pull back out of the Ukraine in order to avoid becoming overextended and hence unable to deal with China in other theatres.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The idea of the piece is that they're right and honest about most things, not that they're right and honest about every thing. Yeah, wrong about russiagate, but right about most of the ukraine invasion, 'who won the presidential elections', TSMC's american investments, china's lock downs, and tens of thousands of other things, small and large.




But this is meaningless - the actual importance and weight of their "mistakes" (I am honestly unsure as to the precise blend of incompetence/malice responsible) vastly outweigh their accuracy when it comes to talking about how the fire brigade rescued a kitten or a dog was trained how to surf. If a financial manager made a thousand trades which earned one or two dollars in profit and a single trade which lost seven billion, "they were right most of the time" is not an argument that would convince me to give them my money or support.


Additionally, I don't think they have been right about some of those things - their coverage of the Ukraine war at the very least is something I'd consider highly misleading, but that would be a separate topic that multiple essays could be written about and I won't go into it here.




Someone who wants to "reform" the media to fix their blindspots on race, right-wing politics is not endorsing those stances.




I do not want to reform the media - I want to replace it, and that replacement is currently ongoing. There's a huge variety of alternatives to the media that don't just try to target a different segment of the market but actually outcompete them on the quality of their analysis. Ultimately I don't think it is possible to reform the media without effectively destroying it - the existing incentive structures and culture ensure that the media cannot actually do the job they claim is their raison d'être. Of course, the Hanania article doesn't apply to me anyway - there's nothing blind about my distrust or hate of the media, nor are my complaints hysterical.




And can you give an example of NYT/Rand differences in ukraine that are so 'vast'?




Sure. Read this report https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA2510-1.html and then go read the NYtimes coverage of the war - I cannot give you any specific articles, however, because I have hit my limit of "free" articles from the NYtimes and hence cannot actually do the due diligence required to make sure I'm not sending anything particularly egregious. As I'm sure you can probably guess, I'm not interested in paying them any money, so I'm not going to be subscribing any time soon.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC the stated fear was actually the positioning of nuclear interdiction systems in Poland, which could convince Americans that they'd be able to launch a nuclear first strike without fear of retaliation. Those US leaders would be wrong to think that and wrong to even start going down that road, but they've put out a few white-papers on the subject, and by actually putting those ideas out into the world they have given Putin an iron-clad motivation for the war in Ukraine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Incorrect - the conflict in the Donbass had been ongoing for some time. If Russia just did nothing, there'd still be an active warzone directly on their border.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
???


I don't understand the purpose of this comment beyond advertising that you do not like Russia.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think that the best example of the non-mainstream perspective on COVID and the vaccines is John Michael Greer's post "A Hypothesis" https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/140421.html


The bear case posited there, that the vaccines cause lingering immune system problems which make repeated infections in the future more dangerous, is actually a pretty good fit to the data that I've seen. A weakened immune system means that you don't have this really clear and immediate correlation that is easy to find, because of the galaxy of confounding factors that determine what actually kills you in that situation. There's no clear and direct timeline between when you get the vaccine and when a disease overcomes your immune system (or you experience some other kind of complication).


That said, I find it hard to talk about this issue because I just cannot find data that's trustworthy, and even if I do there's all sorts of in-depth research required (a lot of studies talking about death rates include people who get the vaccination and die in the first two weeks in the statistics of the unvaccinated, because you don't count as vaccinated until some time after your second dose) to make sure that the data hasn't been massaged or corrupted.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If you're not willing to take a stand on something when it's easy (Ukraine), nobody will believe for a second you'll do it when things get hard (Taiwan and looming Chinese expansionism)?




Do you actually believe that the US government's actions abroad are motivated by a principled desire to be good and moral? I cannot possibly understand how you could given the history of the US and specifically their military adventures over the past few decades. When I look at the actual actions and even the statements that come out of the US military, the idea that they base their decisions on morality as opposed to the hard calculations and strategic gameplaying of empire is utterly farcical.




Depends on the status quo, not necessarily. But that's a silly argument to make in this situation. Supporting Ukraine required ~zero American blood so far and, by the standards of modern conflicts America has been involved in, very little treasure.






In terms of bang for the buck, this might (so far) be the most successful conflict the US has been involved in since WW2.




The US has not achieved their goals, and the blowback/second-order consequences from the sanctions they placed on Russia are only beginning to come back around. Cutting off a major energy supplier like Russia is going to cause, and already is causing, severe issues in energy markets. The current conflict and the US response to it is playing a large part in the massive inflation we're seeing all over the western world, and these things are continuing to get worse, not better.