JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
All fraud relies on people trusting without good reason, or more specifically: not distrusting enough. This is no exception.
That's a useless statement, it's like saying all deaths are caused by not living long enough and presenting it as some ultimate discovery in medicine. Of course fraud relies on trust, that's by definition, and of course in the hindsight, that trust was misplaced. But one absolutely can not function in a society without trusting somebody with something. Even low-trust societies have some trust. You go to a store and you trust the owner not to murder you, feed your body to the pigs and take your money. You put your money in the bank and you trust the bank not to refuse to give it back, or the society to be on your side if they do. You get employed and you trust your employer to pay you and not to sell your data to the identity thieves and ghost you, etc. (Sidenote: before you say "I actually never trust anybody, I grow my own food on the top of remote mountain and never speak to another human being unless I see them through the sights of my rifle, and only to procure ammunition for the said rifle, and I demand it upfront" - good for you, it's not how human society works, please understand "you" as collective pronoun here). We trust somebody many times a day if we live in a society, and in the most of these cases the trust is reciprocated with cooperation. Sometimes, though, there are defectors. We recognize the pattern of defection and avoid trusting them - if somebody comes to you on the street and offers to sell you genuine Rolex watch for $5, you rightfully mistrust them - because you have prior experience that says in this context, trust is not warranted. However, absent such context, the cases of misplaced trust would always exist, because it is not possible to perfectly calibrate one's trust without decent knowledge of the matter at hand.
Indeed, but it doesn't have to be proven because the hallmark of having a solid epistemology is not believing things without evidence,
Again, this is a banality which on closer consideration comes apart as useless. You can not evaluate the quality of evidence without experience in evaluating the particular kind of evidence, and not many have experience with evaluating evidence in this particular area.
in order to fall for the fraud you have to believe things without evidence
No you don't. You just would believe the evidence that in the hindsight proves wrong or low quality. In most topics, you can not evaluate evidence by yourself - nobody can. Most people rely on authority of some sort for that - we're back to trust. The modern newspaper fashion of sanctifying "evidence" is a meaningless ritual - anything can be "evidence" or "not evidence", depending on how you evaluate it and relate it to the question at hand. How you know if some investment is good or a fraud? You check its description, its references, the opinion of other people, the data about similar investments, your knowledge about how financial system works, you knowledge about who particular person is - all this relies on myriads of sources which you can not check empirically - it's trust all the way down. There's no procedure that can guarantee you absence of possibility of being deceived here - only methods to reduce this possibility to the level you would find tolerable, but even these calculations again rely on some data which you'd have to take on trust. Sometimes the whole house of cards fails, and you find yourself defrauded. It may be because you personally misjudged the evidence, it may be because somebody who you trusted made a mistake, it may be because somebody somewhere in the web of trust defected. There's no "solid epistemology" that would provide you a guarantee against that. If you think there is - you are the one that is believing things without evidence.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
If you had different names on the doors of Russian offices, it would probably be on par the US,
That's the whole point, it wouldn't. Not in the Russia as it is today. It's not 140 millions of people under the magic spell of a single Volde-Putin. It's a country whose moral fiber is by now profoundly rotten and corrupt. That's what allows Putin and his henchmen to thrive. Changing the names wouldn't help anymore (maybe if it happened 20 years ago, it could, but not today).
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Are Americans as a group to blame for war in Iraq and should be hated for it because majority of them once supported it?
Hated by whom? By Saddam Hussein? Probably. But why would I care what Saddam Hussein would think, if he wasn't hanged and dead?
And I don't think that majority of Russians will support SMO in the next 10 years.
So all we need is to wait 10 more years or terror, murders, war crimes and atrocities, and then it all be ok. Or at least some guy on the internet says so. That really makes one confident, thanks.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Apparently I'm not the most men, as I find her very attractive. That said, the point about makeup in other comment applies. I think it's something that is supposed to be "oriental" and "exotic" and I don't like that part too much.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
aimed at benefiting the working class
aimed at benefitting union members, which constitute part of the working class, at the expense of the rest (including non-union working class)
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
I'm 98.45730468302835030019% certain.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
increased costs such as healthcare of dealing with people who take too many drugs
That'd be a valid argument if those people didn't do exactly the same right now. It's not like it's completely impossible to get drugs - any major city, like San Francisco, has open and well-known drug markets operating, and the authorities pretty much has long ago given up on doing something about it. They still can arbitrarily arrest people for it, but nobody is under an illusion that anything will make any dent into the availability of any drugs.
JarJarJedi
2yr ago
Can they articulate why selling marijuana is worse than selling vodka?
this is not actually how it works in most of the non-US West
Well, yes, I can admit that as Europe is concerned, they are moving quite fast to the oppressive, and sometimes approaching totalitarian, direction, and there a person who is persecuted for disagreeing with the government - which is not at all limited to Nazis now - could be justly called "dissident". I haven't read anything the person in question posted, is he European?
JarJarJedi
11d ago
Do you think this is the lived experience of South Korean normies, for example?
Yes. It is the living experience of the normies of virtually every Westernized country, I don't see why SK would be an exception.
People who cannot even reproduce themselves?
Viruses reproduce themselves excellently, and they aren't even alive. I think you need a better criteria. And as far as I know, Koreans are capable of reproduction no less than any other human.
represents an overall outcome that is clearly preferable
Preferable to whom? Again, migration patterns show a lot of people prefer the horrors of "late stage capitalism" to the paradise of "mostly functioning". The only exception maybe are wealthy retirees that prefer being rich in a poor country. But the "being rich" part is rarely achieved outside of the capitalist hell. If Vietnam and USA declared that citizens of each country could freely move and remain in the other country indefinitely, without any impediment, how do you think migration patterns would change? Would the oppressed people of capitalist cyberpunk hell rush to escape it into the mostly well-functioning paradise?
JarJarJedi
18d ago
The goal is not to overthrow the regime (though it'd be nice) but to set back the nuclear program (and ballistic missile capabilities while we're at it) significantly. Israel is well on its way to achieve that. Whether or not that would eventually lead to the regime collapse it's up to Iranians.
JarJarJedi
24d ago
Thanks, Atlas Obscura sounds interesting, though sometimes outdated - noticed some place there are actually closed or inactive. But certainly helpful as a starting point.
JarJarJedi
26d ago
No, the revenue was higher - around $40bn. Moderna also got a lot of public money for vaccine project. I am not sure what cash has to do with it. Profit and cash are completely different things - you can make a profit on X and then invest it in Y and have no cash at all or negative cash flow. In fact, a lot of R&D-heavy companies operate in exactly that manner. Or you could just distribute all the profits as dividends and have no cash on hand at all. I am not saying these things aren't related at all - if you have a lot of profits, you'd usually have some cash, but there's no direct relation between how much the company makes in profits on specific project and how much it has on hand in cash at any given moment.
As for market cap, it used to have 180bn market cap in 2021 at its peak. I'm sure there were some events happening in 2021 that are much less happening now that could explain that, but I am having hard time remembering what could it be...
I admit some of these figures may be inaccurate, there aren't official number of how much profit they made specifically from COVID, so I had to assemble the information from pieces lying around, and make some assumptions (like about what exactly generated their profits in 2020-2021 and doesn't in 2025 anymore) but I am pretty sure even if I was wrong it's not by an order of magnitude. So the original point still stands - they have enough money to do what they want to do. Of course, if they can get money of my pocket for free (with the taxman serving as the delivery boy) and then pocket all the profit, it's much more lucrative. But I don't see how comes I owe them that.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Tea (green/black or dozens of other varieties that exist), coffee, water (including flavored ones if you're into that), juices if you can find a good fresh one. If you want something more fun, beer. In a restaurant, I usually drink water or iced tea (unsweetened) unless it's a social event where I'd get some beer or wine if it's fancy. Sometimes carbonated water (in Europe they love it, I occasionally get some though not a huge fan).
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
You seem to be confusing different historical periods. When USSR took over Poland, there wasn't even the Cold War - in fact, most of it happened while US and USSR had been allies and fought together against Hitler. Opening that question back then would hardly be possible. However, things were much different years later, when the Cold War was in full swing.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
If they don't believe those things, they should shut their mouths about them.
Oh but they never would. Just as "socialist" and "oligarchy fighter" Bernie Sanders would never give up his third house and be left with only two, to help the poor. Just as various rich "eco warriors" would never give up their personal jets. And they wouldn't need to - their followers, as it is evident, are fine with that.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Interestingly enough, in the movie they also felt the decision processes are not specified at all so they felt it's necessary to introduce a scene where Dr. Mensah essentially tells everybody what to do and then they stand in a circle, hold hands and hum (literally). Given that the show makers can be assumed to be extremely woke by default, it's interesting how they decided to present this. First, they obviously see the need to make decisions, and they go for the natural authoritarian approach (not even a vote!) but then they insert some kind of obscure ritual to woke-wash it and resolve the natural question of "how other people who have no decision power tolerate it?". Simply - they hum.
JarJarJedi
1mo ago
Well, if you target the cultural elites, the narrative "racists tried to ethnically cleanse my people" gets you lots of sympathy, but the narrative "commies murdered 5 millions of my people while trying to establish the worker's paradise" gets you shrugs and "well, you can't build worker's paradise without breaking some eggs...". So it's hard to fault them for playing with the deck they've been dealt.
JarJarJedi
3mo ago
Oh this is precious. Who even thought giving the LCU option is a great idea? I mean, what is the intended use of this option at all?
JarJarJedi
3mo ago
I can't honestly sign for it as I'm already a Jew, but if such a deal would be made available to me on the condition that I will have to surrender all my Jew privileges, whatever they might be, excepting ones that concern The World To Come (not willing to bargain on those), in exchange for myself and my family living in the Jew Paradise - I'd sign up. I'd try to sign up for the full Jew deal if possible, I'm not stupid - but if the Goy deal is the only one left, I'd go for that too.
JarJarJedi
3mo ago
actual passable (sometimes) routes through the Arctic
That can change if things get warmer though. Also, Greenland is near the Western (US/Canada adjacent) route, though it's the less usable now, but again could change in the future.
JarJarJedi
3mo ago
That's my point - if you have a strong presence of the people with non-"standard American" tastes, then you can sustain authentic cuisine. If you're just in a random place without large fresh immigrant population, you probably won't find a lot of authentic.
JarJarJedi
3mo ago
But it does. If we send X dollars to Ukraine to fight Russians, and only 0.1X actually gets to the goal, it's fundamentally different situation than if the whole X were used as intended. Note I am not claiming this exact number is correct, but the question of corruption is highly relevant - moreover, I have a suspicion the corruption contributed a lot to the reasons why Ukraine lost so much territory already in this war and why it's losing more. Not the only factor, but a contributing one.
True, but the secret documents don't have to be laying around, ready to be photographed, when they do it. There are such things as safes.
Don't see how it follows. Getting physical access to where the safe stands and getting inside the safe is two different things. That's kinda the whole point of the concept of the safe.
More options
Context Copy link