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Iconochasm

2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.

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joined 2022 September 05 00:44:49 UTC 

				
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Iconochasm


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

					follows 10 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 00:44:49 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Fair, anecdotes and all that.  But arrests != charges, much less jail time.  As a more general proxy point, Biden's recent pardoning of all federal marijuana possession charges did not release a single prisoner.


You're a defense attorney - have you ever seen a person get jail time for just possession?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
When I think of examples, my go-to isn't an award-winner.  It's niche genre fiction.  But the "abuse of art" is just so outlandish it's hilarious.  In book 3 of a terrible series, take three characters.  A living weapon from a past age of a foreign continent.  A dragon who has never met a person aside from her father before last week.  And a failed hero from another dimension.  The author takes incredible, awkward pains to make sure you, reader, cannot possibly miss that all three of them coincidentally have the same views on gender, sexuality and consent as an uninspired 2018 Tumblr post.


This is still a step-up from the author's effort to Tackle Neurodivergence and inelegant Less Wrong fanfic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What felony?  Just fill the ballot out right now, it'll just take a second, here, I have a pencil, you can keep it.  You're going to vote for Our Guy, who cares about us and our community right?  Go to another room?  Why?  That's weird.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wonder if anyone is prepping an enormous bribe for Joe Manchin.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've known a handful of people who have been arrested for marijuana possession, and not a single one has spent more than a few hours in a cell.  The one guy in college who had "distribution" amounts got some community service and a few years of probation, for everyone else it was a fine.




how many had a clean record (why is this relevant?




I have heard many times that drugs are an easy way to get someone to plea, instead of having to go with some harder to prove charge.  Similarly, I've known a dealer who was released with some fines/probation repeatedly, paired with escalating threats that he was running out of chances and needed to turn his life around.  Basically, I think many of us assume the courts treat "normal taxpayer who smokes weed sometimes" differently than a known public nuisance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's wild.  NJ is normally $200 for the lowest level volunteers for the day.  The two times I did it during Covid, they paid extra, for $400 and $325.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Maybe Google just wasn't showing me paywalled results, or my phrasing was selecting for outlets like Rawstory.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'd be thrilled with a few years of gridlock.  For legislation, "better than nothing" is a high standard.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I actually did find that NYT article, but it's paywalled and thus memory-holed.  The plan probably deserves it's own discussion thread, but at a glance, it looks like a ACA style "reform", which makes all the rhetoric fucking hilarious.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This situation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Alien vs Predator 3: No Matter Who Wins, We Lose.


Some final thoughts and commentary on this race, focusing mostly on the campaign ads.  I had wanted to link the ads I'm seeing as I discuss them, but there does not seem to be any easy repository.  Some of the Oz ads, or similar clips, are available on his website and Youtube channel.  Fetterman has a much more expansive listing of clips on his Youtube channel, but they don't seem very similar to the ads I'm actually seeing FIVE TIMES EVERY COMMERCIAL BREAK.  Note that this is all in the Philly market.


Let's start with this Fetterman ad which is not one I've ever seen on TV, though there are some similar themes, and some glaring omissions.  The ads I see do hit that note about wanting to "cut taxes for working families", but I have never seen a Fetterman ad say one word about the minimum wage.  His ads talk about how Oz has 10 mansions, but Fetterman wants to cut taxes and make sure no community gets left behind and he definitely wants to fight crime and get more stuff made in Pennsylvania.


He still plays this like he's an anti-establishment Republican; you could be forgiven for thinking he was a moderate Tea Partier.  Zero references to progressive or left-wing causes, he is nativist, vague on actual policies, but he is definitely One Of Us, not like that Turk.


On a related note, Josh Shapiro has a spot running where is also in favor of cutting taxes, and promises to put parents on the state education board.  Taking in the tenor of these campaign pitches, I would be very morose if I were a leftist.


Fetterman does also have another ad running a lot, with a very positive, uplifting tone, where he doesn't say anything negative and ends by "respectfully asking for your vote".


Oz has a parallel one (unfortunately, it evades my Google-fu).  In it, Oz expresses gratitude on behalf of himself and his family for "your kindness, and your grace".  Just a strong positive note from both of them to end on, only mostly ruined by the shitflinging from the last few months... and their other ads... and all the ads being run by affiliated groups.


Oz has this ad, or one very similar running all the time.  Oz stresses that he is like, amazingly super compassionate, and that the real problem is extremism on both sides.  His ads position him as a moderate, who just want solutions gosh-darnit by listening and working together and building a reality-warping engine from a condensed singularity of generic moderation.


Both men have allies running harsh attack ads.  CRAZY JOHN FETTERMAN WANTS CRIMINALS TO RUN WILD.  He also, I hear, MOOCHES OFF HIS PARENTS.  It must be nice to actually work for a year, and be so upset about it that you have daddy buy you a political office that is supposed to be extremely part time instead.  There is another pair of ads featuring black people ripping into Fetterman for the whole situation where he heard gunfire, grabbed a shotgun, and held up the first black jogger he saw.  Obviously a brutally negative ad aimed directly at the black community in Philly.


The other side has ads running against Oz, but almost more at Republicans in general.  Republicans want to BAN ALL ABORTION even in cases of RAPE AND INCEST.  Look at this 10 YEAR OLD GIRL who could be FORCED TO CARRY HER RAPISTS BABY.  Republicans apparently also are going to DESTROY SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE.  These ads focus less on attacking Oz directly, and more on the logic that as a Republican vote, he'll enable the other more extreme Republicans, which is an interesting bit of raw tribalism/game theory.  They make a bit of hay out of Oz's statement at the debate that abortion should be between "a woman and her doctor and local politicians", but not as much as is made of Fetterman's performance.  One ad just runs this clip, almost without commentary.  Another has a bunch of Very Concerned People discussing how much Fetterman's debate failure changed their opinions, because he clearly can't do the job.  One line effectively pings off a previous Fetterman ad where he bizarrely talks about how grateful he was to get to spent time with his family while recovering, by saying that he looks like he should be resting with his family instead of running for Senate.  Oz is also going to RAISE YOUR TAXES (lolwut?), including one little snippet that should win an award for dishonesty, where the name "OZ" is pasted above a newspaper headline style snippet reading "CUT MEDICARE" and "RAISED YOUR TAXES", clearly implying that he has already done so, in spite of his never having held office before.


So, I want to talk about the REPUBLICAN PLAN TO DESTROY SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE.  I went to look and see if this is something that anyone is actually talking about, but what I'm mostly finding is onion links in partisan outlets that link to stories that link to stories that link to stories that have that one time in 2010 that Mike Lee said we were going to have to do something about SS going insolvent.  Are there any actual, current plans by actual Republicans to do anything that could reasonably be called "gutting SS/Medicare"?  My impression is of desperate, disingenuous fearmongering, but I only have so much tolerance for digging through Dark Hinting from the outgroup, and I'm not entirely discounting the possibility that there is something serious in there.


Finally, some Kabbalah.  I find it delightful that his support for releasing criminals has been an albatross around the neck of a candidate named Fetter-man.  Unfortunately, the surname apparently has no linguistic connection to fetters, it's actually an old Germanic nickname/insult for "the fat guy", which again is odd because John looks like he has lost a bunch of weight, all of which went to his hideous neck goiter.  "Mehmet Oz", OTOH, apparently just means "praiseworthy courage", which is so bland and boring and inappropriate I can't even make fun of it.


"John Fetterman" has a gematria of 1065, which is the Return of Partnership Income Tax form.  "Mehmet Oz" has a gematria of 728, and Luke 7:28 reads "I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”  The Khabbalistic implications of this are obvious, but I cannot find anything saying if Oz was a C-section or not.  If Fetterman wins, this should be a critical attribute of the next Republican challenger in 2028.


If there is some hidden message in their names that will reveal the winner, it eludes me.  But I can say with confidence and joy that 48 hours from now I will be 5+ years away from seeing a single ad for either of these fuckheads again.  May God have mercy on us all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That is completely backwards.  Our tests do a great job of noticing the smart kids with unexceptional grades, and inspiring despair in the dilligent-but-unexceptional.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why would that be the defining feature?  Culture alone could carry on for generations after explicit religious attendence stops.  My ex-wife was one of those secular Jews, but she still grew up in a Jewish community in Brooklyn; she used to criticize the in-group solidarity she saw, even as she was heavily acculturated into it.  There is a very noticible difference compared to our children who are being raised in an almost entirely gentile community.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think abortion just ultimately doesn’t weigh all that much.  It's not a hard, critical line for many people either way, and almost all of them are dedicated partisans to begin with.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Blue tribe and red tribe" are different from "leftist and non-leftist".  I would not be surprised if a supermajority of the 200ish people there were acculturated Blue Tribe types who had gotten themselves black-pilled over some forbidden knowledge.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Tuition revenue.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The issue is whether teaching that, in lieu of teaching substantive material, is in the best interests of students. It certainly is in the best interests of administrators, which is why it was pushed. And it is why,as I discussed re #2, it was valuable to students that rules making it hard to fire me were a good thing,as they allowed me to continue to teach substantive material.




This is all kind of silly.  First, it's remarkable to hang your hat on "best interest of the students" in the immediate wake of the teacher's unions utterly fucking their students for their own benefit over covid.  Second, if this problem of "teachers not being allowed to teach substantiative material" is a general structural problem, then that's a damning indictment of the entire public school system, and we should be moving to the "burn it all down" part of the discussion, which would still involve abolishing the existing union as a part of the corrupt status quo.




I am talking about teaching how to game the test.




Curious as to what this means.  It takes like 5 minutes to explain, e.g., the logic of when to guess on the SATs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Agreed.  I keep seeing people try to buttress AA by crying "What about legacy admits?  If we're banning AA, why not that first/too?!", and I'm just like "Your terms are acceptable even better."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not sure exactly which reply in this chain sparked this thought, so I'm putting it here.


There's a thing I notice myself doing, where I sort of expand my sense of identity in a solidarity with Republicans, because they are the enemies of my enemies.  By a decade of common ground in the culture wars and politics, I have come to kind of think of them as my ingroup.  I cheer the successes.  I lament and fear their failures.  But that identification can easily fall apart when stressed in the right place.  Bring up abortion, or Iraq, or the drug war, and suddenly I remember Actually, I'm A Libertarian.  I've never been a member of the Republican party.  I've voted for roughly equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats for significant offices, and more third party than either.  To the extent that "Republican" is an identity, it is one I can detach like a lizard tail, when I need to do so to protect my ego.


When I see right-wingers complain about Jews, the usual context is pointing out that an ostensibly white writer talking about how America, or white people, or western civilization is terrible is actually Jewish.




"You're saying I can tell just by looking at the Early Life section on Wikipedia?"






"No, Neo.  I'm saying that when you're ready, you won't have to."




As a demonstration and calibration, I quickly looked up I can Tolerate Anything But the Outgroup.  There's a section where Scott quickly lists 10 different articles purportedly showing intense, loathing criticisms of white people coming from white people.  Two of the links seem dead, and 2-3 seem almost certainly gentile, but in less than 10 minutes of lazily Googling people who mostly don't have Wiki articles, I was able to find that Rebecca Schoenkopf and Jacob Weisberg are Jewish.  Amusingly, Jacob is the only one with a Wikipedia article, and it doesn't have an early life section.  It does mention his parents, and his mother is apparently a famous Jewish socialite from Chicago.  So, minimum 25% Jewish rate.


I think a lot of what they're seeing is a phenomenon of Jewish people getting caught up in utopian purity spirals like wokeness, but having that ego-saving escape hatch allows them to go all-in harder.  They're basically Motte-and-Bailey-ing their own identity, getting the kudos for vicious, scathing self-criticism while not actually taking any of that criticism to heart because it doesn't really apply to them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I occasionally look at "events in my local area" type lists, and there are a surprising number of drag events included in those lists.  Clearly they have an audience.  And every single one of them that I have ever seen was flagged as "adults only 18+".  Sure, you can dress in drag and just do normal stuff, but it doesn’t seem wrong to note that drag is usually heavily sexualized in the specific way Americans think of as inappropriate for children.


If people were putting on Strip Club Story Hour, where the clubs served Capri Sun and virgin daiquiris in the afternoons while reasonably dressed strippers read books to kids, we would probably think this was pretty fucked up and suspicious, even if the kids are too ignorant to figure out the context.  If there were multiple videos of kids being encouraged to tip the strippers with dollar bills tucked into their pants, doubly so.  And if creepy strip club managers used to opportunity to try to convince little girls to come get a job as soon as they turned 18, I don’t think anyone would be surprised.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Juno seemed like they wanted to do a teen pregnancy movie but had to figure out a reason why she wouldn't do the "obvious" thing and just get an abortion.  The solution was that scene where the weirdly pro-life Asian classmate stumbles onto the cheat code to manipulate the quirky art chick, "Your baby has fingernails!"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


experiencing less than a second of pain to avoid harming my family




FWIW, both Covid shots resulted in 8-12 hours of moderately severe flu symptoms, and this seems very common among my friends and family.  For those of us who had already had Covid at that point, it's more like 5-10% of a "call out sick for a week" infection for a negligible reduction to our transmission risk.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I didn't read that comment as suggesting that you do that, merely that you clearly have sufficient subject matter expertise that you could.  In a community like this, where many of us have an amateur interest in complicated legal matters, it is very noticeable which of us are actual practicing lawyers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean, yes?  A key difference is parental involvement, and those indoctrinations being time-tested for not being wildly destructive for most people.  But I would be similarly dismayed if there were some small but visible on social media movement of conservative youth pastors to infiltrate the school system and use their position to convince teen girls to immediately marry an older man and birth a quiverful of babies.  This happened an ocean away, and it was still considered worthy of the news bringing it to my attention a few months ago; I am comfortable suggesting that girl was groomed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was thinking of teachers and other school employees.  "Trans activists" are a whole other, extremely unusual mess, but the pertinent point is that I have no idea what their rates of offense are.