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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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User ID: 314


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I criticized the “Handmaiden’s Tale” chicken little-ing on “my team” for years, because unlike the MAGA cult, I don’t feel any compulsion to twist myself into defending whatever insane bullshit “my team” decides to push any given week.




Well, you didn't do it here under that name.  If you can link a single example elsewhere, I'll be thrilled to be wrong.




Nobody is crying about an alien simply being improperly deported, don’t be disingenuous. Administrative errors happen, I get it. The problem is that he was sent indefinitely to a torture-prison without due process, while the the government is arguing at the same time that 1: they want to send citizens to the same place, and 2: if they fuck up, there is literally no remedy.




Sorry, just need to stop to clarify here.  The prison you're talking about is the one that turned El Salvador from a murder capitol of the world to safer than Sweden, right?


Do you hate the El Salvadoran people?  Do you want them to be tortured and murdered en masse by rapacious warlords and banditos?  Victimized and preyed upon in even greater amounts?  Or is this just the meme?


If not, then maybe that stark difference ought to be taken into account.


And even then, I still don't buy your take.  Let's establish some facts.  He was deported to his home country, and his own government imprisoned him, as they do with everyone affiliated with the rapacious warlords who murdered and terrorized a fuckton of their people.  He already had multiple days in court before judges, and had a deportation order.


Imagine if the US government had caught the "not to El Savador" clause in time, then had a quick hearing where it was determined that his asylum claim was obviously false, and the grounds for the "not to El Salvador" clause were obviously voided by the changed facts on the ground (e.g. his mother no longer owned the business, and the gang he claimed would harm him no longer exists).


Would you suddenly be OK with him being deported?


If we deported him somewhere else, and that country then deported him back to El Salvador, would you be OK with that?


Because your actual logic looks a lot like "We can't deport this criminal, because his native country will do normal things they do to criminals to him", and that might be literally the most perverse logic I've ever heard.  Again, it comes back to endless empathy for offenders, and none at all for the people they hurt.  It's so fucked up I'm not even appalled.  I hit some overflow error and ended up reluctantly impressed at the evil clown logic.


And again, NONE OF THIS justifies being worried about citizens being deported.




I’d just like you to imagine if Biden or Obama were advocating this sort of thing. The people on this website would be calling for armed rebellion.




Per our prior correspondence, which you ignored, Obama did things many times worse (e.g. assassinating a minor citizen for fun) and I never heard anyone call for armed rebellion over it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ok, ES tries a different, more humane method, BUT, for every gang murder above the current base rate, one Humane Prisons Advocate gets executed.  You first.


Would you accept this deal?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A catastrophe like straight up murdering a minor citizen?  Should I follow the other side's MO and just ignore inconvenient events like my augmented reality censors them away?  Or an abhorrent catastrophe like deporting an illegal alien with a deportation order... to the wrong place?


You guys have been breathlessly, hysterically screaming about endless catastrophes, a new one every week, for literally every week the man has been in office.  Remember when he was going to put all the gays in camps and legalize rape and Handmaiden's Tale and kill all the Muslims and start WW3 and start WW3 and start WW3?  Of course not.  Because remembering all the failed hysterical catastrophizing might offer some perspective.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It is if you can find a prosecutor with half the flexibility of a progressive district judge.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You know what's poison to discourse?  Being expected to take every bit of speculative, hysterical catastrophizing with more deadly seriousness than actual things that literally happened.  Member when the president had a 16 year old US citizen murdered by flying robot assassin?  I member.  How does that compare to an off-hand comment that was immediately followed with caveats about legality?  Is it a thousand times worse?  A million?  Are you going to take those caveats as deadly serious evidence of Trump's deadly serious concern for the law?  Of course not.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For having broken what laws?




Conspiracy to human trafficking.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Trump has dropped plenty of hints that he is thinking about sending American citizens to El Salvador prisons.




Until he makes any kind of effort at doing so, this seems much more likely to be a cruel taunt.  Trump is much more understandable once you grasp that he's essentially a right-wing John Oliver type, but less stupid.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Bringing him back, so that ICE could follow the correct process to re-deport him would be embarrassing to ICE




Seems more embarrassing to your faction.  "Look at this pointless waste of time and resources that we had to do because Other Team only cares about abusing the rules to help illegal alien gang members."


Do you really think this would generally serve to increase respect for norms around due process?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Even the government concedes Abrego Garcia's deportation was entirely unlawful.




Do they?  AIUI, there was a hold on deporting him to El Salvador specifically, and for specific reasons, and that the law granting that authority had a clause allowing it to be waived for a significant change in circumstances.  And his specific pitch was "You can't send me back there because this specific gang will torture me to apply pressure to my mother's business", and his mother no longer owns the business and Bukele deleted the gang.


It seemed more like "There was a paperwork mixup, but we can justify it if we have to".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was very good friends with a girl who was a die hard, life-long Democrat.  Like, door-to-door campaigning in middle school, joking about how much she'd like to be Bill Clinton's intern in the mid-00s, etc.  I went to college with her and she spent her days preparing to be Leslie Knope and tangling with [famous conservative firebrand].  Her first real job in politics was somehow as an intern for a red state Republican senator, and she came back absolutely gushing about him.  They had fun chats and he gave her a cute pet name and everything!


I was just flabbergasted.  "Senator [recognizable name]?  Neocon, evangelical fundamentalist, anti-gay, anti-abortion, Iraq War-supporting Senator [recognizable name]?  I'm not mixing him up with some other Senator [recognizable name]?"


And she'd just cheerfully go "Yeah, him!  Great guy."


Voice of Saurman is a solid analogy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Medicare fraud is extremely common.  There are entire companies that just ship wildly expensive, random "medical equipment" (which is usually some kind of actual equipment, like a back brace or something) to old people and charge it to Medicare on their behalf, and then just see if the octogenarians can figure out how to file a return through their Byzantine phone trees or website.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Absent from this article: literally any quotes from Kamala Harris.  "Advisors" say that she believes her role in certifying is ceremonial, and that she would certify even if she lost.  Has she ever taken a question (and given a direct answer) about if she would meaningfully accept the results of the election in a timely manner, even if there were minor or moderate oddities?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh, boo.  Remember, you are the alpha.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is there any way to read the 40k books aside from buying them each individually?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Do you have any interests that you could find very niche old school style forum communities for? A lot of the idle internet browsing attention I used to have pointed toward social media with has been redirected toward very specific small communities with very specific expertise banks and, on average, for the good ones, usually majority older members.




I was kind of hoping to get some recommendations...


But if you want to feel old, apparently Taylor Swift is releasing new songs tonight.  My teen daughter was excitedly telling me all the rumors she has been following, and I asked her where she finds them.  "Are you reading Taylor Swift forums?" "No...?"  "Do you know what a forum is?" "I... think... so?"


Thank you for the well wishes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Luck to you, too.


What's wrong with the Wednesday threads?




Do you play an instrument?




I would say that I can't carry a tune in a bucket, but it's possible that an AI could possible attain true agency, and upon hearing my attempts at music, decide the human species was irredeemable.




For that I can only suggest fanfiction. I'd shill /r/rational, but I'm pretty sure I've seen you around there before.




Yeah, though that place lost a lot of my attention naturally.  Anything worth checking out in the last couple years?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I actually agree with everything you said here, and I've been pondering the parallels to the Cold War (I have a family history of hippiness on my mother's side).  I see this as very similar to deciding that worrying about it was too much, so you just stop reading the paper, and instead read novels.


Intellectually, I really thought I'd met and defeated existentialism decades ago.  But Aurelius has a bit early in Meditations where he says that all men know they'll eventually die, but the situation is actually worse than that because you'll probably go feeble and senile first, so your effective time is actually less than the span of your life.  This is hitting me like an early dementia diagnosis.  The degree of anxiety is not terribly rational, but it's also proving resistant to rational counter-argument, like the one you offered.  There is probably a great deal of ape status anxiety involved as well.


And on a random tangent because there will probably not be a better time, you once showed up in a dream.  I was on some sort of a stone quay, looking for some random dream nonsense thing, and something in my brain said about a figure standing near the water "Hey, that's 2rafa".  I offered a polite acknowledgement, literally "Oh hey, how's it going?"  "Good, you?"  "Good, gotta run, have a good one."  "You too."  And then took off chasing a boat or something.  It was just very funny to me, because I have fairly severe aphantasia and sometimes joke that I live in a world of words and numbers, and apparently my subconscious doesn't even bat an eye about visually "recognizing" someone I've never seen in any format whatsoever.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have been reading your story, and enjoying it quite a bit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That vibe is sort of the opposite of what I'm looking for.  But if any of you folks are ever in the hinterlands betwixt The City of Brotherly Love and America's Playground, feel free to DM on reddit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Via con dios, compadre.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Alright, folks, I'm out.


Consider me the first Motte casualty to AI.  No, I'm not planning on any self-harm.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  But reading about this shit is so depressing and anxiety-inducing that it's giving me a premature mid-life crisis, so I'm going to do the reasonable thing and take the grill pill.


As part of that reevaluation of how I've been spending my time, I've taken a look at the 15ish years I've been "Very Online And Politically Aware".  Since the financial crisis in 2008, really.  And I have to conclude that the investment of 10's of thousands of hours of my life has been basically a wash.  I don't think I can point to a single tangible benefit to my life, it's all just sunk opportunity cost.  Maybe a few memes pushed out, but thinking I inspired them is probably just arrogance.  My lazy, slacktivist involvement almost certainly didn't matter for anything at all.  Being Politically Aware is arguably the worst thing I've done with my life; I would rather have played more video games.


Even the insight porn is getting stale.


So combining these two epiphanies, I'm going to block TheMotte and SSC, and ACT and Instapundit, and unsub from any remotely political or AI-interested subreddit and block /all.  Anything else I can think of or that comes up, I'm just gonna dip.  (I would like some advice on how to block websites on chrome mobile for Android.  The recommended apps seem to not really work the way they're presented.)


Because if this is the beginning of the end, of us becoming either obsolete or all dying, I would rather go out in a eudaemonic frenzy than wasting my time whining and worrying.  I would rather double-down on being an amazing dad, and son and brother.  I'll double-down at the gym, and run the best D&D campaign my friends have ever seen.  I've had fantasy novels fermenting in my head for decades, I'd like to write a couple before GPT-X makes human creativity obsolete (and then I can have GPT-X churn out countless sequels!)  Maybe I'll even try dating again.


And if and when the nanite disassembler swarms come for me, I'll go down on my feet knowing that I was a pretty kick-ass human, back when that mattered.


If anyone has suggestions for other things worth doing or being, or that satisfy that "check my phone while waiting in the line to pickup the kids" nudge that avoids my new no-nos, I'm all ears.


I've enjoyed this community a great deal, and think fondly of many of you.  Thank you for contributing to making this a place where I felt at home.  Maybe we'll have a grand meetup if humanity wins, and spend a subjective eternity having AI-moderated arguments about who was right.


And if any of you are in a position to do anything about the future - godspeed.  We're all counting on you.


Thank you again.  <3


Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take this empty propane tank to ACE for a refill.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Maybe if 100% of all matter is converted into computronium-based Awareness, all of these problems will finally solve themselves.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And "achieve world peace" may include "kill all humans", so the AI obediently does that as the quickest, easiest way to the goal.




My big hope is that the AIs will reliably notice that the actual quickest, easiest way to achieve a goal is to redefine success such that the job is done, in which case woke postmodernists may be the ideal AI aligners.  Failing that, that they become even more crippled with ennui and existential horror than humans.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This makes me think of my college roommate's girlfriend.  She seemed torn between religious tradwife and empowered modern woman, and it did ruinous things to her mental health.


On one more tradwife-y occasion, she invited him and a few of our guy friends over, and just served us each a plate of steak and potatoes and a beer.  And my blue-tribe acclimated ass reacted with wild-eyed panic,  exactly because it felt like doing something terribly retrograde.


That memeplex is powerful and merciless. And I think it contributes mightily to modern human unhappiness.  Which isn’t necessarily me advocating for trad roles, but for being being more relaxed about it all around (and accepting that most people will thus prefer something a little more trad than not).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think many of us view crying as being emotionally overwhelmed.  In this view, it's not about openeness, it's about self-control and emotional maturity.