JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I did, and that's why I used this example - because there are multiple examples like this which, especially when combined from different languages, kind of make "strong S-W" seem utterly ridiculous.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I suspect Armenians realized that they have no hope, Russia, to which they wanted to align, has zero interest in them, and they are fresh out of friends. On the other hand, Aliev is being smart and content with taking the win and not pissing off the West unnecessarily, at least for now. They wanted Karabakh back for years, now they have it and will likely have enough to do for now to absorb it. So for now it probably will quiet down for a while.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
while not actually seeming to know much of anything about the place
I think you are seeing it in too black and white. Israel knows a lot about the place. But counting million-sized populations which have a hostile government with a little interest in the welfare of the citizens, and people living in semi-legal arrangements best described as "middle ages with iphones" does not really make the task easy. It's not an on-off switch - either you know all, or you know nothing. It's you may know a lot, but there's even more of it that you don't know. If anything, the amount of knowledge served Israel intelligence very badly - they knew so much they severely overestimated just how much they know, and thought they know exactly how the enemy thinks. That led to a chain of decisions - in the hindsight proven to be spectacularly bad - that enabled the current catastrophe. It wasn't the problem of knowing nothing, it was a problem of becoming arrogant and complacent.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
What evidence have you seen that makes this a matter of "fact" to you? From my understanding, the studies that show this are about as high a quality as studies on trans-youth medicine, relying on parental-reports of well-being and slanted samples.
I wouldn't be too surprised, tbh, if adopted children to gay couples showed better outcomes than an average child over the whole population. The reason is very simple - adoption is a selective process. Any adoption agency that isn't completely dissolved in wokeness and just melts with "awwww gays!" seeing any same sex couple, would require people to have stable relationship, clean home, decent income, etc. It's not that such people can't be abusive or just bad parents - it's just that the incidence in this cohort would likely be lower than over the whole population, where any couple with functioning plumbing can have as many kids as they feel like.
More interesting study would be comparing outcomes to adoptions of the similar social and financial stature, between same sex and hetero couples. But this may require a sample size that may be difficult to collect. We have less than 10 years when same-sex adoption has been fully legal, way too early to measure the outcomes.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
Why would it be a full-time job? If you're a person that doesn't do committed relationships, and given an active sex life of ~30 years, having just one partner a month - which doesn't sound like a full time job at all - would already take you to 360 partners. Of course, that's over the (active) lifetime, so median would be half of that? Still 180. All you need is a culture that allows you to hook up with a new partner at least once a month and of course the availability of the new partners. I think currently, grindr or other ways, that isn't much of a problem? Of course, that assumes a person absolutely averse to long-term relationships (which btw is the opposite of almost every homosexual person I've ever met, but I don't pretend my sample is in any way representative) and if you look at all the population the key metric would be how many are actually long-term and short-term people. But by itself, "it's a full-time job" doesn't seem to hold water here.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
Of course, it's old and true trick, which the US system uses much more extensively than Russia. I' just saying on the whole, it still makes Russian system look much less broken - which in general would be a weird thing for me to say, but I must admit the truth when I see it.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
Hard is that your linguistics fully determines your thought processes, and if in your language "tomorrow" and "yesterday" are the same word, you view time in a fundamentally different way than somebody who grew up with different words. The best book exploring hard S-W that I read is "Babel-17" by Delany. Softer versions are that linguistics may not be the ultimate determinant, but has certain influence - obviously, the strength of influence determines the "softness" of a particular position.
As I said, framing is real (or at least appears so) and confirmed by reproducible studies, and widely used in marketing industry, for example. So that part I think still alive. But something like "people that have same word for wavelengths X and Y actually perceive them differently than those that have different words" is already rather suspect, and even harder claims that go deeper into thought patterns become even more unlikely.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
Well they can join the pro-homo commune if that's a central value to them.
That's the point, it's almost never is a central value either way. Shaming homoes into the closet is not something most people would put any serious effort into, and specifically making the community as welcome to homoes as humanly possible would not be a valuable effort for most either. "I DNGAF" would be the most common position by now, I suspect. 2 centuries ago it might be different, but by now it'd be no more interesting either way than, say, dudes that jerk off to tentacle porn. Not something worth the effort either way.
None of the things that you characterize as 'insanities' would exist if their perpetrators were shamed into the 'closet', or better, if they were not able to propagate the very idea of them.
This may be true, but in a useless way. There are a lot of hypothetical worlds where it wouldn't happen. If Al Qaeda took over the US, it wouldn't happen. If Soviet Union took over the world, it wouldn't happen. If we didn't have democracy or free speech, it wouldn't happen. Etc. etc. The problem here is not to find one hypothetical world where it wouldn't happen, that's easy. The problem is to find one where it didn't happen but some other things that we still want to happen happened. And that's a much more complex question.
Again, nobody will choose to isolate themselves into enclaves or move to less-technologically-advanced countries if they did not feel strongly about any of these issues.
Well, Amish do exist, and they seem to have mostly sustainable model of existence, given two things are true: a) they don't want to have absolutely any influence at all with the outside world and no contact with it as much as possible and b) the outside world is fine with them existing. You don't really need to move anywhere for the former - there are enough remote places in the US where nobody would care much what's going on in there if it stays in there - but for the latter, especially if you're dealing with globalist totalitarian ideology and you let it win, you'd have to move very, very far.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
so regions are dependent on federal financial support
That's a feature for The Vertical of Power, I am sure.
Social security payments are strongly regressive and are paid by the employer
The same is true for the US on the regressive part, but "paid by the employer" I feel is mostly a trick since it all figures in total cost per employee, and I'm pretty sure business owners can do that calculation (which is also true for the US, of course). Still, it is not exactly a "problem" as I see - it doesn't make anything different, it just looks different.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
Interesting question: how many people actually live in Gaza Strip?
I mean yes, I know how to use Wikipedia. Or Google. Or CNN or whatever. But all these numbers ultimately rely on either UN or Gaza government (read: Hamas) numbers. UN obviously has budgets relying on the number of "refugees" etc. so it is interested in inflating and overcounting the numbers. Hamas are serial fabulists and also are interested in inflating the numbers since they rely heavily on outside financing, and more people means more financing - moreover, while help for real people must be at least partially shared, since those need to eat, 100% of "help" for fake people goes directly into Hamas coffers. Israel has had opposite motivations, so the numbers between UN and Israel likely could be closer to correct, but since 2005 Israel does not have any capacity to count populations in Gaza. Last estimate I heard was around 700-800k (back then, not now). Now, due to the continuing genocide and ethnic cleansing, it's claimed to be almost triple that. Are there any other sources or estimates that are not hopelessly contaminated about how many people are actually living in Gaza Strip?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
The stuff that I previously described as subject to political football - all kinds of deductions or special taxes meant to subsidize or hurt certain categories of people, for political reasons. Taxes in the US is very actively used in politics.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
Nobody can stop White Flight.
Don't confuse people who want to escape a shithole, ruined by woke policies, with people who want to found a rebirth of Pureblood Aryan Nation. There are a lot of the former that won't want anything to do with the latter. Even wider - a lot of people who object to child transitions, kid drag shows and other insanities don't actually mind if two adult dudes fuck each other, if they'd like so. The interests of these groups can be aligned while the environment is so insanely skewed that their differences are immaterial, but that doesn't mean they share the same core values with regard to aryan stuff.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
the average gay man doesn't have anywhere near 100 sexual partners in his life
What's the right number? I suspect the distribution is bimodal, with one peak around where hetero males are, and another peak way out there - maybe over 100, if tales told on the internet to be believed (yes, I know, but these tales are way different from hetero men tales, by orders of magnitude).
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
US tax code is huge, byzantine and confusing. It's on purpose, because taxation is used as political football, and taxing or de-taxing various things (depending on whether enemies or friends do the things in question) is a favorite pastime among Congressmen.
Employer does usually deduct your taxes, but it's not where it ends, unless you are either rather poor or live very simple life. At the end of the year, you are supposed to check how much you owe, either by reading IRS instructions purposefully made as confusing as possible without rendering them in ancient Egyptian, or pay somebody to do it for you (most people choose the latter). Then you include various additions (e.g. if you own savings account, stock, had side income, etc.) and deductions (charity donations, secondary taxes - property, state, etc., and the football stuff). Then you send them a special form to the IRS, and if you owe the man, you must pay, if the man owes you, they'll eventually send you the money. Not submitting the taxes is a crime, especially if you owe the man (I am not sure they'd aggressively go after you if they owe you).
The whole system has some nice ideas in it (e.g. charity deductions make the US citizens one of the most prolific charity givers in the world) but, as a lot of other systems in the US, with time it grew into unholy monstrosity, and since so many political interests are baked into it, nobody can do any reasonable change, but only add more and more monstrous tentacles to it.
Russia has a lucky chance to reset its system pretty recently, and as far as I remember, banking/taxation were one of very small number of areas in Russia taken over by professionals who were listened to by the Powers That Be. I am genuinely surprised they ended up with the system that actually makes sense.
Let's say I am offered a salary of $100k, what's the rule of thumb to estimate my take-home pay?
There are multiple calculators online, but: a) take home pay doesn't mean you don't owe more on the tax day b) it depends on your state of residence (US is a federal republic, remeber?) and sometimes also city c) it also depends on whether you are married and how much your spouse makes, and how many kids you've got d) it also depends on crapton of other things. So the online calculators will only give you the ballpark figure, if you want something better, you pay an accountant or learn IRS's version of ancient Egyptian.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
In the US, unlike almost every other developed country, taxes aren’t (edit: universally) deducted by employers.
That's not accurate - most employers certainly deduct taxes, and at least some legally obligated to do so. Well, at least each one I have been employed with did. But, if they under-deduct or over-deduct, it's not their or taxman's problem - it's yours.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I always thought hard S-W has been long recognized as bunk, while soft S-W is kinda wishy-washy area depending on definitions of "influencing" and "changing". Sure, framing is a thing. Pretty big thing actually, even if you discount non-reproducible studies. But it's not an ironclad barrier, it's just a hue in the big palette of things.
A while ago I read this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18579574-the-language-hoax which is very anti-SW. I liked it. I'm not sure I am qualified to judge whether the arguments expressed there are the scientific truth (actually I am pretty sure I am not) but it's surely was illuminating for me.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
This article is huge and longwinded, and the design of the page (at least as my browser shows it) is really hostile to reading long texts. Can someone TLDR what views it is expressing? Doesn't need to fit into a tweet, but maybe more of a short story than Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I'm probably too far away to see minor differences, but I don't think I have seen/heard/read a lot of "progressive democrats" criticizing leftist dictators and their approach to elections. I mean, when did I have the last opportunity to see a leftist protest demanding to hold free elections in Cuba? Venezuela? North Korea? China? Anywhere where a leftist or islamist dictator holds power? I mean, a lot of Americans have opinions, as we recently found out, about how Israel's democracy must be managed, but none have any opinions on any of those? Doesn't it look a little bit weird?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I'm not sure how the second part follows from the first. It's like saying "we desperately need the cure for common cold, so I am using charmed bracelets and pyramid power". The proposition that something is sorely lacking does not imply logically acceptance of something that is clearly inadequate for that purpose.
I mean, one can hope "he's clearly a grifter but may be he will fool some of the most stupid of Dems" but one can't rely on this as a plan for anything?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
The reason why Democratic views used to be more pro-Israel, is because the Israeli population used to reflect a more liberal view of the conflict, and now it really doesn't
Erm, what? What timeframe are you talking about? Israel has been moving towards more conciliatory and liberal view of the conflict for decades now. It evacuated Gaza in 2005 (forcibly uprooting many Jewish communities) and tolerates Hamas shelling the southern cities for 18 years since, with only sporadic limited response carefully calculated to punish Hamas, but not endanger their rule. One of the main reason of the current catastrophe is that Israel got so immersed in the liberal concept of "peace is inevitable, Hamas is just representing the last throes of retrogrades that can not tolerate the inevitable coming of peace, but they are weak and dying off" - that's why such thing as "peace festival" on the border with Gaza with virtually no protection beyond token security guards meant to handle people who got over their norm of mind-altering substances - became possible. That's why most of the smaller towns and villages had no armed guards and had weapons locked up - something one couldn't imagine in the vicinity of Gaza some years ago, before "peace process". Israel has been moving to the liberal side since early 90s, at least, and the more they moved there, the more the Left hated them. It's just American Jews and Israeli Left made titanic effort not to notice it, but now it became a bit hard not to notice.
we believe even terrible have the right to vote, and self-government
Do you really? The left never seems to have any problem with leftist dictatorships (too long to list here). Sure, they may recognize Kim is taking it too far, and maybe Pol Pot made a goofie or two, but otherwise dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't seem to represent any serious problem. If there are some staged "elections" where the ruling junta always wins, then everything is completely perfect. The treatment of the Islamic dictatorships seems to be very situational - while some Islamic dictatorship get some critique, most of them are silently ignored (especially the rich ones donating amply to Left's Places of Power) and surely absolutely none of them gets as much hate as Israel does.
Now, if said Palestinian government passes anti-LGBT laws or whatever
If??? If??? Are we talking about real Palestinians under Hamas (or Fatah) rule or some Celestial Palestinians existing only in Harvard classrooms? Of course, since most Palestinians that are discernibly gay are either dead or fled to Israel years ago, this is more of a theoretical question. Hamas does not "pass laws" - it just throws you off a building.
then we'll treat them like we do other countries with no leverage on us - sanctions and such until they embrace the loving arms of deviancy, or whatever
Not only this is a lie, you know this is a lie. Many Muslim countries have such laws, and there are no sanctions.
In the long run, if this is all old news by Election Day 2024, it'll likely be forgotten
I'm not sure how it matters if it isn't. I see no group on the Left that even theoretically could switch their vote or stay home (in significant numbers) except one - American Jews. For some of them, it has been really shocking how much their parteigenossen hate them. But, unfortunately, I do not see any way that would move them to vote for Trump. It's just not something decent people do. Maybe some of them will stay home, but given that most of them live in deep blue areas anyway, it won't change anything. So, some Democrat will be elected with 70% of votes instead of the usual 89% - who cares. So, my prediction - absolutely nothing will change in 2024.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I've been reading a lot about "humanitarian aid" sent into Gaza (by now hundreds of trucks). Does anybody know any source that lists what exactly is being sent? Like this amount of flour, this amount of insulin, this amount of water, etc.? The corporate press is being its usual useless self, resorting to facts only when they absolutely have no other choice, but maybe somebody knows some more obscure, but useful publication, that track what and how many is being sent?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
That Egypt scenario is a complete nonsense. Egypt doesn't want the war no more than Israel wants the war, especially a war for Hamas which Egypt has very little use of, besides the obvious joy of making Israel suffer. It wants Israel to have all the troubles in the world, but so that it ends on the Egyptian border. The time where Egypt sponsored the Fedayin was 70 years ago.
And this turn of phrase:
As of writing Drone strikes have just exploded in Egyptian Taba by the red sea. Israel claims to have shot down the drones and blames Iran Aligned Houthi rebels in the region, claiming they were targeted towards Israel’s southernmost towns near Elat
Implying like it's just "Israel claim" which is super suspect, all while the Houthis themselves admitted they did it, and bragged about it profusely. Really, this can't be serious.
you think this is bad, Israel funded Hamas in its early days
People really should stop mentioning this in 2020s as something that is highly relevant to what happens today. It was a very brief episode in the 1980s, and treating this as - which is clearly implied here - that Israel created Hamas from the ground up and there wouldn't be any Hamas if not Israel - is just stupid and counter-factual. Yes, Israel briefly considered using (then younger and weaker) Hamas to fight Fatah, that was 40 years ago, and that idea didn't last long and was soon abandoned. Treating it as it was definitive episode in the history of Hamas and Israel is like saying "US created the USSR" because they were allies for a while in the fight with the Nazis. Even order of magnitude sillier because the ties between Hamas and Israel were never even order of magnitude that close as between US and USSR.
The Jordan angle is bullshit too, unless there's a complete collapse of Jordanian government (not mere "instability") - which they are very determined not to let happen, and are willing to kill a lot of Palestinian Arabs for that, as they amply proved in the past, exactly nothing would happen there. And to achieve such a collapse would take a direct military action from somebody like Iran. Which would a) require them to somehow cross Iraq without Saudis noticing and doing anything, not to mention Iraqis, and b) do that all right under the nose of US air carrier group stationed next door, and also them not doing anything. I don't see how it's a possibility.
The problems of fighting the tunnels are real, and the fact Hamas has been building it for 16 years is real too. But Israel also knew about them for all these years, and they consider it doable. The main problem would be time - the more Israel stays in Gaza with boots on the ground, the more pressure there will be from the Kind People of the World. And if they can easily afford to tell Europe to take a long hike off a short peer, that wouldn't fly with the US, especially not with Dems in power who has their own sizeable pro-Hamas wing to placate. That would be the main problem for Israel for the middle term.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
he could still be impeached under the theory that his actions didn't help
Technically, he could be impeached for having a bad haircut. There's no requirement of legal court conviction, only the vote of Congress, so whatever Congress votes for is the grounds enough. Well, the Constitution says "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors", but you can always declare a bad haircut "disturbing the peace" and count it as a misdemeanor. As we were reminded many times, it's not a legal process. But, it has always been understood before that the requirement is to be serious crimes, not mere "didn't help" (which isn't a crime at all). But if we pretend it's still the case, then this destroys the "crowd can't be manipulated" proposition.
Who "caused" what will remain a philosophical question wherever you're dealing with this many variables.
The impeachers didn't consider it philosophical, they squarely put blame on Trump. So either we declare them utter clowns for blaming Trump for something no man can be blamed for (which btw I don't object because they are clowns, for many reasons), or we have to admit the "inherent violence" argument is destroyed. I think it's a nice irony when blue-tribe actions serve as a basis for red-tribe conspiracy theories.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
- Does it? Not if you ask any real conspiracy theorist worth his tinfoil hat at least
- Dem. party has been corbynizing itself for over a decade now, starting with Obama at least. You don't need Mossad to explain that. Moreover, if Mossad had dirt on people via Epstein, and used it for influence, wouldn't that dirt still be dirty? It didn't become less dirty because Epstein is dead. I mean if you know, say, certain senator was a client of Epstein, revealing it now would be as bad for him as it was 5 years ago. Maybe they don't get the new dirt, but given how few new faces are there at the top, it shouldn't matter much. I don't think this stands even within its own framework.
Anybody has a good take on what just happened with OpenAI / Sam Altman (and also immediately after another board member and founder, Greg Brockman)? It was pretty much out of the blue and formulations - such as "board no longer has confidence" - are pretty harsh for a regular business disagreement. Something big seems to have happened, and it happened fast. Suggestions?
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