Harlequin5942
No bio...
User ID: 1062
Harlequin5942
11mo ago
A fundamentalist Christian film is unlikely to portray a lot of casual sex and drug use.
If nothing else, pretending to be unwoke/sinful is bad for the actors' moral fibre.
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
"End in itself" and "freedom issue" are two different things, though. If you have one system where an individual can choose to vote or not, and another system where an individual has no choice (mandatory voting or mandatory non-voting) then the first is a system that gives that individual more choices (positive freedom) and doesn't stop them doing something (negative freedom).
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
where and how should people try to meet partners?
Can't their parents arrange a meeting?
More seriously, I think the idea is either (a) you already know someone, (b) your mutual friends set you up, or (c) "Of course we all hate online dating, but I suppose it's the only option?"
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
Morning has broken
Do you mean the song with the verses:
Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day
That sounds to me more like a Christian song with a few secular themes, not the other way around.
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
The US is not a sensible target for Russian nuclear weapons unless it is likely to use nuclear weapons against Russia. However, in the event of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, the US and it allies have a lot of extreme measures they can use that are short of nuclear war or even direct attacks on Russian soil:
(1) Massive, apocalyptic cyberattacks that cripple Russian access to the internet.
(2) Attacking Russian satellites to destroy Russian TV and communications capacity.
(3) Closing off Russian access to the sea at all points.
(4) Closing off Russian civilian air access to all possible points.
(5) Closing off Russian civilian land access to all possible points, including Kalingrad, which would face food shortages etc.
(6) Expelling Russia from the United Nations Security Council. China would almost certainly abstain at worst and maybe vote for Russia's expulsion, since association with Russia would be massively toxic. Russia's suspension from the UN would also be an option. This would mean that, in future, Russia would face Korean War type scenarios, where the UN Security Council could vote to mobilise the UN against Russia and/or its allies (assuming it still has any after Pressing the Button).
(7) Extension of sanctions to countries that still trade with Russia, which after Pressing the Button may not be that many. While India would be out, somewhere like Cuba might still be in, and would face apocalyptic sanctions.
(8) Intensification of sanctions in all respects.
This is why, unless Putin is colossaly stupid, he will not Press the Button, even on a limited scale, let alone bombing Ukrainian cities. Much of the world still likes Russia and there is a lot of incentives for the West to keep their powder dry on extreme measures. Once Russia ends the nuclear taboo, it loses both of those, and goes into a forced pariah status that is unprecedented in human history.
You may say "Are China/India really going to give up on Russia in this situation?" Think of it from their perspective: right now, using nuclear weapons to any extent is taboo. This means that e.g. India doesn't have too much to fear from nuclear war with Pakistan, and China doesn't have to worry about the US using tactical nukes to defend Taiwan. If Russia breaks the nuclear taboo without massive consequences, then that sets a precedent for Pakistan or the US to do so without massive consequences.
Harlequin5942
1mo ago
This is not to say that passion is a necessary component of great writing
Do you mean sufficient effect?
For Sonic fan fiction, I bring you the lowest depths to which the human mind and soul can sink: https://youtube.com/watch?v=LCWoZEXyGU0
Harlequin5942
1mo ago
They can't really attack her for being a right wing extremist when her world famous books are a pretty clear allegory of Racism Bad.
As the TERF controversies showed, agreeing with right wing extremists on Current Year issues is enough to be judged guilty by association. For example, Julie Bindel is far to the left of almost all of her critics, on most issues. Controversies-of-the-day create weird alliances: think of Christopher Hitchens and neoconservatives on the Iraq War.
When someone is talking about the 'sexual market place' in the context of dating in the western world they are obviously not talking about brothels and prostitution. You are not being rational or precise with language when you play these word games. It is at best obtuse and obfuscatory.
If someone uses "Nazi" to mean "conservative", then they obviously don't refer to conservatives, but would their usage really not affect their inferences or the inferences of others?
The point I'm making is extremely simple. Man A gets approached by women, gets replies on dating apps and in general finds casual sex and relationships very easy to come by. Man B gets none of those things. In fact women don't even look at him for longer than 2 seconds to decide that he is not attractive.
Man A doesn't need to think about his life goals in terms of what he needs to garner attention from women. Man B does. Man B recognizes that if he does not come by some form of 'thing' or 'currency' or 'bargaining chip' or 'whatever word you want' to balance out his apparent unattractiveness to women, he will likely end up alone or unhappy. Both of these guys might be similar otherwise, but their struggle is not the same. Both want sex and affection. One needs the 'thing' to even be able to play the game, the other does not.
True, different men, like different women, have to work more or less hard to get romantic success. (This is more unforgiving for women than men: almost any woman can get sex, but what people usually want is a loving long term relationship, and men tend to be the gatekeepers for that. A man can work to balance out his unattractive physical traits, whereas a woman's degree or money is unlikely to help her much with the opposite sex.) This is because people care about physical appearances. Physical attractiveness is certainly helpful for initial attraction, though things like conscientiousness and agreeableness seem to be more important for maintaining love long term, since the latter requires a lot of empathy and (rewarding) hard work.
Now, why is working harder to get what you want through labour, exercise, study etc., rather than largely getting it due to inborn attractiveness, not "masculine"? Stereotypically, I would have thought the opposite: a man who is admired by women through displaying virtues and competence is more "manly" than one who is admired by women purely on innate physical grounds. Consider a reversal: is there something unusually masculine about the story of a woman who DID win the affection of her beloved through her abilities and character, despite her plain looks and innately awkward personality?
I appreciate the appeal of gaining easy approval due to one's looks, but I see it as a more classically female way to gain romantic success. Even in nature, among animals that do mating rituals, it's the male that needs to prove himself through dances, chasing the female around etc. in order to mate. Usually, the female just has to look fertile and healthy, and perhaps not even that, even if the result of mating is the male being eaten.
Think Cinderella (be beautiful and agreeable, then someone will eventually be nice to you) vs. Indiana Jones (handsome man, but still only gets the girl by proving himself, proves himself by solving problems and by saving her from danger - sometimes repeatedly in the same movie). Obviously, the latter is more of a classically masculine archetype: the questing knight in European folklore.
This is also seems to be why "saving the man from danger" has more of a maternal rather than romantic feel when it's a woman doing the saving, whereas "saving the woman from danger" has more of a heroic and sexy quality when it's a man doing the saving, unless it's literally saving his daughter as in the Taken movies. And if a man can save the village/kingdom/world/universe, then he's that much more of a classically masculine figure, since he must display great virtue/competence to do so.
Harlequin5942
11mo ago
Russia doesn't need to benefit, Putin and his neo-nomenklatura/oligarchs need to benefit. They benefit by deflecting from their social, economic, foreign policy, and military failures.
Initially, it seemed like it could be Putin's Gulf War moment, but it has turned into a slow-motion Suez Crisis, as Russia must now come to terms with no longer being a dominant regional power - let alone a superpower in most respects.
Harlequin5942
11mo ago
Frente de Todos is hitting it with 97% interest rates currently and it's still not making a difference.
Those are nominal rates, not real rates, though they could still be tight with 100% inflation if the Argentine economy is weak or disinflationary real interest rates are low for some other reason.
they have enough oil for war use
Citation needed.
Also, an energy blockade of China would be unlikely to just last for the duration of the war. The US proved with Cuba that it can impose sanctions for a long time if it doesn't get what it wants.
Finally, the Chinese government's legitimation heavily comes from its provision of prosperity in return for obedience. The younger generations in China have never known a recession or war. They rapidly forced the government's hand over comparatively undemanding covid policies. I doubt that Xi wants to test just how tough they are again.
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
There are a lot of models among nearby countries, but populist right with a spark of social democratic welfare policies seems to work well in ex-Eastern Bloc democracies. If Ukraine joins the EU, I see them as bolstering the Vysehrad Tendency: in favour of the EU, but also strong on sovereignty issues, especially regarding borders.
That seems more likely than the National Liberalism of the Baltic States: fierce patriotism + liberalism. Some of the most fanatically anti-Russian and anti-communist people I know are very woke Balts, with militantly centrist liberal views on economic issues. Some of them are currently volunteering in Ukraine. Even though this is arguably the more natural way to reconcile the parts of Ukrainian nationalism that you mention.
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
Therefore it seems to me enough to offset damage caused.
Nobody is denying that. The question is whether it is MORE than enough.
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
Lumping together fighting with handling dung is a low-resolution picture that is inadequate for understanding past norms about masculinity.
The example of great admired men was just some of the evidence that earning a living from physical labour was not, historically, seen as a norm for men. Another would be that idle landowners and royalty didn't generally use their spare time to do physical labour, although some did.
Of course, there are exceptional individuals and periods. For example, the social status of male physical labour seems to have risen in the Victorian period. I recommend reading the works of Samuel Smiles, e.g. Self-Help and Life and Labour. Part of the novelty of his books was that he was esteeming proletarian labour - not just proletarian inventors and savants, but also men at all levels who worked hard and honestly. To this day, I think there's a degree of social esteem in men earning a living from physical labour, but it is important to note that this is a recent phenomenon.
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
Nothing matters, all choices and lifestyles are equal.
But nobody in the West thinks or acts this way, and the laws are contrary to it. For example, pedophile lifestyles are not considered to be equal, and people very frequently act as though they think that things matter.
Not to mention the nigh-mandatory participation in politics; as they say, you may not be interested in it, but it is interested in you, and it's not going to leave you alone
I don't know how much you know about Afghanistan, but it is also this way.
Even people in such a thoroughly politically apathetic and nihilistic country as Russia found that politics was interested in them once they found that they or their children were going off to be under fire in the cold mud of Ukraine.
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
If you watch Youtube economics videos, you will see a lot of this sort of thing in the comments:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WN-YkZ8YTlM&lc=UgwWe_CeXm7MVMSDom14AaABAg
One tell-tale sign is the use of real names, rather than things like Queefburglar69.
Quite a lot of effort for minimal advertising, but I suppose that the cost of bots is much lower.
Harlequin5942
1yr ago
I don't know anybody in my circle of friends/aquaintances who has spoken out in favour of it, and I know people who loudly proclaimed their appreciation of Ghostbusters 2016.
I actually find the hate-watchers tedious at this point too. Is there anything shocking in Current Year about a once-respected intellectual property being driven into the ground to promote the careers of mediocre creators, who put in woke elements to either cover their asses, promote their careers, or further their socio-political agenda? It was interesting to tear that apart in 2016. In Current Year, I am happy to move on and enjoy classic entertainment from better times. You only have to go back to the Golden Age of television to enjoy countless hours of great television which are neither preachy not hamstrung by woke ideology, e.g. I don't even think about drug legislation when watching Breaking Bad, let alone Race, Class, Gender issues.
When it comes to mass manufacturing pieces of steel financial hubs won't do well. The US sees itself as economically superior because smart americans work with insurance, investment banking and Netflix while Russians work in a tractor factory. The tractor factory will produce far more mortars than Netflix.
The US produces more steel than Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production
And "smart americans" can buy steel from the Chinese, who massively outproduce Russia (or the US).
The US is also a major tractor manufacturer and exporter, Russia is not: https://blog.howdeninsurance.co.uk/tractors-where-are-they-manufactured/ -------- though Russia does import a lot of tractors from countries with better tractor manufacturing industries: https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/russia-agribusiness
Just because the US outperforms Russia in service industries, it doesn't mean that the US doesn't ALSO outperform Russia in manufacturing.
Having lived in quite a few European countries and knowing British history in some detail, I would put it this way: the UK had a period of great comparative success across a huge range of fields (prior to about 1945) where European countries they didn't outperform economically (France, Germany) were outperformed militarily/diplomatically, and the UK developed a fairly "laissez faire" type of imperialism that had some definite advantages over Belgian rapaciousness, French assimilationism etc.
The UK had a period of relative decline in 1945-1979. This was only relative (this was a period of mostly solid growth) and with some exceptions (UK unemployment rates were low in this period, even compared to e.g. the US).
The UK had a concerted and successful effort to combat relative decline from about 1979-2007. This took different forms, e.g. Thatcher had great confidence in Victorian institutions, practices, and values; Blair had a huge love of America (especially Clintonian America) public service modernisation, and wanted the UK to lead the EU into a modernist, progressive, American-style supra-state; Major was somewhere in between, with a strange sort of quiet iconoclasm in favour of "ordinary people" that ranged from the clever (getting rid of stupid regulations on everything from employment agencies to service stations) to the absurd (the "Cones Hotline").
For various reasons, I mostly blame Brown and subsequent UK politicians, and of course the UK voters to whom they pander. For example, the UK has a great edge in financial and business services. UK business services are one area where the UK still does great, partly due to language, partly due to regulation, and partly due to agglomeration in London/South-East England. What do UK politicians and voters love? MANUFACTURING. Steel. SHIPBUILDING. It's like a tall, scrawny but fast kid wanting to play rugby and set weightlifting records rather than basketball and netball - admirable, but stupid. So the UK overregulates and taxes its financial sector (as well as the occasional kick to its oil sector) and then wonders why its economy underperforms.
Similarly, the UK voters hate paying taxes at the levels of European countries. So they have the opportunity to e.g. save more of their own money for retirement, taking advantage of the huge long-term gains that private investment can make relative to pay-as-you-go state pensions. But they also want state pensions at European levels (no Boomer left behind) so politicians have introduced an unsustainable pensions uprating scheme that has meant that, despite significant spending cuts in some areas (welfare, education etc.) and despite tax rises to about peacetime highs, the UK public finances are still shit. This is not how a serious country deals with an ageing population.
And there's the UK national religion, the NHS, a healthcare system designed to save the UK Labour party from the wrath of doctors in the 1950 election, which voters think (a) should be improved, (b) should not be changed, and (c) should not cost them personally any more in taxes or fees. I suppose there are some religions with more absurd origins and principles...
Scotland is the beak of the UK ostrich: deepest into the sand it has buried itself.
I have lived in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, Italy, Greece, and other places. These countries all have their own chronic problems and a similar lack of ambition in dealing with them. For me, it just stands out more in the UK (and more recently in the US) because the Limeys used to have some leaders and an electorate who were serious about tough changes. For all her faults, Margaret Thatcher was about the closest the West has come to a Lee Kuan Yew figure: someone who really thought, "If a policy is too popular, then we are being too careful."
Harlequin5942
2mo ago
Anecdotal: I have a look recently at women playing Super Seducer. I thought it might be an insight into how at least some of them think of seduction and dating. Plus, Richard La Ruina operates in an interesting borderland of acceptability, where e.g. the woker girl gamers feel like they should demonise him but keep on saying "Huh, that's actually good advice."
Where they tend to fail is that their basic plan for a man to pursue a woman is to try and make them his friend. This makes sense: for straight women and even lesbians, befriending is their main interaction with other women. Many women, even seemingly "awkward" women, are actually very good at this task. They know how to flatter women, find common interests, make women feel comfortable around them etc.
While these skills can obviously be useful for dating women, it's not surprising that a lot of these women's advice are textbook paths to the friendzone, because that's what they're designed to do.
Also, even if a woman thinks "How do guys seduce me?" it's hard to answer that honestly, because a woman being seduced is potentially a status loss, so it's necessary to say things like "He has to know me for months and be kind and just treat me like any other friend" etc., because something like "His best strategy is to be confident, asserive, push things forward, one step ahead, and stand out from all my other guy friends in some way" suggests that she's prone to manipulation, and nobody likes to admit that. Men too: I have seem men been obviously lured into a relationship and hate to admit that the woman was actually the one coordinating the interaction. Never me, of course...
Harlequin5942
2mo ago
Of course not. But what aspect of that is relevant to make the distinction below? They still can surely consent to all sorts of things, even having generally weaker understanding.
Agreed, but obviously not everything is beyond a child's understanding.
Expand on this. I'm considering Activity X, and I want to know about the gravity and breadth of the moral implications. How do I check where it falls? How do I connect this to the particular aspect of the weaker ability that you identified in the above question?
That's hard to answer in the abstract, because different activities have different moral aspects. I think that value pluralism is a plausible explanation of why moral issues can be so complicated, and (almost?) any moral principle seems to be riddled with contextual defeaters. However, there are some recurring aspects. One of them, which might suggest somewhat of a convergence with a "harm to children is the (main?) reason to think that pedophilia is wrong" is that the harms involved in making a bad decision.
Analogously, think about someone who is blind drunk, staggering back from a nightclub on their own. Should they be able to buy a greasy, fatty, sugary kebab? Well, there's some potential harm to their health, but they can plausibly comprehend that, if they're able to e.g. exchange the cash. Should they be able to hand over all their assets to support the charitable works of the Church of Latter Day Suckers in a legally binding and irrevocable contract? Presumably not, that's a level of commitment and potential harm that's beyond their capacity in that context.
Are you aware that, as I mentioned in the linked comment far above, many people think that sex is like tennis? It's just a fun activity that two people choose to do, expecting to have a little bit of a good time, and then nothing interesting follows from it. They don't think there's any gravity to it, and certainly not any breadth of any moral implications... at least not to anyone who isn't a sex-negative prude (probably due to religious superstition). How would you perform the gravity and breadth of moral implications analysis in your explanation to them?
That's a tough one, I think that's what a lot of people say, but not what they actually believe. So I'd start by talking with them about their own personal sexual choices and emotional history. Then I'd probably get slapped in the face...
There is a funny irony here: some (mentally able) adults, especially among the young, the unwise, or the unconservative, don't have a much better understanding of sex than children, yet they can still consent to sex. However, (a) edge cases make bad laws and (b) I don't claim that a sophisticated understanding of sex is required for consent, only a stronger one than children can attain.
Of course, I am pleased that you do not hold a consent-only sexual ethic. Of course, that does also open up the question of whether there are other areas that do not abide by a consent-only sexual ethic. It is truly a shame that you will be a cancelled bigot as soon as this is found out.
Depends on the circles. I was teaching about labour exploitation and sex in a class not long ago; it was the left-wing students (albeit not Americans and not liberals) who almost all found it quite easy to reject a consent-only view in both areas. I also know a lot of left-wing academics and I'm not sure that any of them think that consent is all there is to sexual ethics, though I admit I haven't talked with them a lot about it for years (if ever).
I only hope that the two of us can figure out a really careful, theoretically-solid reason for this, preferably within a consent-only framework, because without it, when we tell the new social revolution that children can't consent to sex, they're going to ask why not, and then they're going to shun us for not having an answer and for being a bunch of outdated bigots (probably clinging to some religion or something).
Not sure about that. Eugenics wasn't killed off by carefully reasoned arguments, nor did the careful reasoning of e.g. James Fitzjames Stephens do anything significant against the influence of John Stuart Mill's muddled views and the rise of social liberalism. Outside of the sciences (Newton's Principia and Darwin's Origins are masterpieces of thoroughness; they were rightly once included in some Great Books courses) I struggle to think of many books that were both theoretically solid and very influential in the course of history.
Rigorous arguments are great and I'm glad that people are developing them, but I think that their historical influence is limited, for both good and ill.
Harlequin5942
2mo ago
Are you opposed to animals having sex with each other?
No, because I don't make the same moral requirements of animals as I do of humans. "It's wrong for humans to have sex with a non-consenting partner" doesn't imply "It's wrong for animals to have sex with a non-consenting partner," any more than "It's wrong for humans to torture mice for their amusement" implies "It's wrong for cats to torture mice for their amusement."
Harlequin5942
4mo ago
Anecdote: I remember a friend I had who had been watching lots of vegan Youtube/Instagram videos and was doing a vegan diet for "aesthetics." She was struggling to make it work. We had a mutual friend who was a vegan, so I said, "Why not ask him for advice?" Her response? "Have you seen how he looks?" Our mutual friend looked noticeably unhealthy. While a lot of that had to do with the drugs and drink, the vegan diet was no panacea. Turns out that to look like a Californian influencer, copying their diet is not enough.
Annoyingly for her, I'd lost a lot of weight in that period on a diet where my main principle was just reduce sugar consumption and eat high-satiety foods (fat, fibre, protein, complex carbohydrates).
"Social conservativism" isn't something that IMO can reasonably be separated from its religious roots.
Not sure about that. David Stove was a socially conservative philosopher. Many of the sharper defenders of social conservativism, e.g. Fitzgerald-Stephen and de Maistre, did so using arguments that weren't religious; Fitzgerald-Stephen's criticism of Mill's social liberalism was brilliant exactly because they were both utilitarians. One of the most successful books in the US culture war, The Closing of the American Mind, was written by Allan Bloom, a secular Jew, and the book's critique of liberal academia does not rely on a single religious premise. (You might say that Bloom was not conservative in his own life, but he'd probably joke that he was so reactionary that he'd gone past Christianity and all the way to Classical Athenian homosexuality.)
I'm not convinced that this is the case. The practice of shaming simply seems to be shifting towards two norms:
(1) Don't punch down. Intersectionality makes this norm very complicated and it may be in decline - I don't hear prople saying it any more, whereas they did say it about 5 years ago when trying to explain why e.g. cruel jokes about white people are ok.
(2) Only shame people for things they choose. So sexism, racism, transphobia, homophobia etc. are worthy targets of shaming (at least if someone doesn't check themselves after being "educated") but being fat, gay, transgender, violent (if sufficiently marginalised) etc. are not choices and thus beyond the scope of acceptable shame.
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