HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Well that's kind of what you get if you spend years trying to code everything high-culturey as something that only liberal elites enjoy. Indeed, the 'liberal' side of the culture wars are often accused of having no regard for history or culture, but in Britian, for instance, I am almost certain that those who fill the halls of the nation's museums, theatres, opera houses and especially historic universities are disproportionately Remainers, and probably future Starmer voters.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Everything is not finite in the way land is finite. There isn't a number X of cars that can be produced, and will only ever be able to be produced.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
How much you micromanage every area of policy isn't necessarily the sign of a good President, and a lot of the people we perceive as 'weak' leaders did lots of micromanaging, and vice versa. For instance, if you asked people who was the stronger leader, Blair or Brown, almost everyone would say Blair. But he knew a lot less about policy, especially economic, than Brown did (there's an anecdote about one of his ministers asking whether he wanted cuts to welfare in absolute terms, or relative cuts in terms of % of GDP and the minister concerned makes it out like Blair literally could not comprehend the difference).
Jimmy Carter, too, was an infamous micromanager of policy, but a poorly regarded President.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
What separates someone from being 'properly' President or not? Every President, especially in the modern day, must delegate 99.999% (etc.) of the things the executive does, so I'm not sure that much separates a President who makes, say 1000 individual policy decisions in a year/term from one who makes 700 or 1300.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Well let's imagine cars were finite. There were only X many cars in the United States. But, in the places where people need them, there aren't enough to go around. In that scenario, it seems totally reasonable to place a tax on car usage, in order to ensure our limited supply of cars are being used optimally, by tradesmen, rural dwellers, and commuters with no alternative etc. rather than be people who could be taking the train, going on joyrides etc. In a world where cars are finite like land, it seems totally reasonable to encourage productive use of them.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
That isn't an argument in favour of NIMBYism, it just shows that there are lots of unprincipled people. But being unprincipled doesn't actually make you wrong.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
They're not analogous at all because what you put in your body, by and large, mostly affects you only. The finite nature of land is such that poor land use punishes everyone. And LVT doesn't stop anyone from using their land in the manner they chose, you just don't get to leech off the rest of the community, who are the reason your land is worth anything in the first place.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Land is fundamentally different to all other types of wealth, though, because it's finite. Every landowner has a complete monopoly over that parcel of land, and in that respect, land is completely unique, and as such deserves unique treatment. And it's not like bankrupting people with brown hair. We're not taxing people with land except for on land holdings, we'd only be taxing the value accrued from an increase in land values, which the entire community is responsible for but currently only the landowner benefits.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
I don’t see evidence that it is false
Well two can play at that game, I don't see evidence that it's true.
height that show strong heritable in well fed populations.
So? Just because one characteristic is heritable, that doesn't imply that they all are. Especially when comparing something so clear cut as 'height' to something so murky and vague as 'intelligence'.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Bad journalism that gets people killed is in fact illegal
No it isn't. Anti-vaxxers aren't liable for the deaths that result from lower take-up of vaccines.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
The best actor would be one that looks like the character, by definition.
Not 'by definition' at all. As I said in the original comment, that would only be the case if you intended your film to be that way. Which would be fine, but there's nothing wrong with saying 'the race of Ariel is wholly irrelevant to the story, and therefore I will cast without reference to it'.
Look at it this way; to take one random example, they almost certainly could have found an actor to play Noodles in Once Upon a Time in America who looked more like Harry Grey than Robert De Niro. Does that mean De Niro was in some way the 'wrong' choice? Of course not, that would be a ridiculous thing to say, and it's ridiculous in this case as well. Insert other examples.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
What evidence is there that they thought a black actor was the best fit for the part?
There's not really any evidence either way. So I will default to 'they chose them for normal acting reasons' not that they chose her as a diversity hire.
“best fit”
The actor they thought would do the best job representing the character that they wanted to depict. Presumably whether they were white or black was neither here nor here in terms what they envisioned for the character.
Most faithful depiction of the original character?
Why should perfect physical representation of the character described necessarily be a goal? Why not cast a black actor if you thought they were the best, was race ever a factor in the original fairytale?
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Well that first part is a pretty crucial leg to the argument that you didn't mention. So in fact, we needn't necessarily see more failed sons is genetics had little to do with IQ, that's only true if one further concedes that there is such a thing as 'natural' IQ and that it is the dominant factor in success.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Defamation is not the same thing as just bad reporting/false information. What possible legal action could the NYT face for their Iraq coverage, and coming from whom? Same goes for the Holodomor; a terrible failure in journalism, of course, but bad journalism is not a crime.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Just not in my neighborhood
Well, that's the problem, no-one wants new apartments in their single-family neighbourhood. If you live in a genuinely rural area, then that's more reasonable, but you can't expect to live within striking distance of a major city and demand that no new housing is built.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
I just wish the same would apply to the NYT
Any examples of NYT defamation that went unpunished?
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
If you adopt this kind of attitude, I don't know how you can do any sort of policymaking. At some level if you don't look at policies directly on the merits and start suspecting that everything is a secret plot by your culture war opponents, you would never be able to actually govern.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Yeah, certainly the fitness gains will keep increasing, but my point is that beyond a certain level fitness isn't necessarily making you that much 'healthier', at that point the goals are fairly arbitrary. Which is fine, even good, but no different to the goal of completing a good stamp collection or finishing restoring an old car.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
A total mischaracterisation of my position. In general I think 'race-swapping' is fine unless race played an important part in the story etc. So, I'd have absolutely no problem if they cast a white actor to play a role in an ancient African fairy tale or whatever. And conversely, I think it would be silly to cast a black actor to play Lyndon B. Johnson or Harold Macmillan.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
I don't think there's evidence that there was a decision that 'we must have a black Ariel', it's merely that the role was casted without reference to race and the best actor happened to be black.
HaroldWilson
3yr ago
You're more dependent on the government
This is such a silly thing to say in the modern day - everyone is dependent on government. In fact, the very existence of single-family neighbourhoods is dependent on government regulation and the banning of other types of housing.
They have to rely on others
As if you don't. Who maintains the suburban roads without which you wouldn't be able to get anywhere?
But those living with yards can be independent by growing their own food.
Growing vegetables in your garden is a hobby. A very pleasant one to be sure, but not a means of subsistence.
HaroldWilson
3yr ago
Not everything is about culture wars. People can, in fact, has opinions on health policy without having some hidden agenda.
HaroldWilson
3yr ago
single family homes, meat, cars
No-one wants to get rid of single-family homes. The goal is only to make it so that building other types of homes isn't restricted. If you want to buy a single-family home, no-one wants to stop you; the problem is when people start demanding everyone in their neighbourhood must not live any other way.
It's a similar story with cars. Drivers have been favoured for so long at the expense of transit, pedestrians and cyclists levelling the playing field a bit is now an unconscionable attack on cars. Again, if you want to drive a car that's fine but don't design cities such that the car is the only viable means of transportation.
HaroldWilson
3yr ago
?
Well, there's historical form for this kind of misstep. The Confederate burning of the cotton crop appears as a perfect analogy here. The idea was that once the Confederacy starved Britain of cotton, they would realise how important they were and intervene. But it was a total failure, obviously, since Britain just started getting cotton from elsewhere and the move only antagonised them. The Russians could have been attempting something similar. If they stopped gas supplies by sabotage, they could have intended to so cripple the central European economies that they stop support for Ukraine once the tap turned back on, lest they face another stoppage. A stupid idea, perhaps, but I don't suppose Jefferson Davis was any more stupid than Putin is.
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