Jiro
6d ago
It's also demonstrably the case that Jews in camps often received high-quality medical treatment and had access to all sorts of pleasant recreational facilities,
This seems to violate "Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be."
Jiro
13d ago
I don't like how animals are treated, even on non-factory farms, and I don't like the idea of killing a conscious being for what basically amounts to taste pleasure.
How can you consistently believe this, yet not want to minmax animal suffering? Surely if you are vegan because of animal suffering, it follows that you want to reduce animal suffering as much as possible. And "utilitarian suffering min-maxing" is how you figure out what course of action reduces it as much as possible.
Jiro
12d ago
What about the atoms in your body that have gone through the food chain and been later used in someone else's body? Who gets them?``
True. So let me modify the question a bit.
He may not want to personally reduce suffering as much as possible. But not only does he not do it himself, he also seems to think that people who do do so are misguided. Why would he think that it's misguided to reduce suffering as much as possible?
(In fact, let's rephrase that again: Given that someone wants to reduce animal suffering, why does he think it's misguided to do so efficiently?)
If I told you I trapped rats to torture them because it felt good and made me laugh you'd probably remember my face and tell people to avoid me.
If you told me that you enjoy a video game where the goal is to torture fictional characters, I'd also probably remember your face and tell people to avoid you. What makes me suspicious of you is that by playing this hypothetical game you are reacting as though you want to cause suffering. It doesn't matter whether the suffering is real.
That doesn't generalize to society "wanting to torture rats" because "society" is only "torturing rats" as an instrumental goal in the process of doing something else. If it's an instrumental goal, whether the suffering is real actually matters.
(Likewise, I'd look askance at anyone committing bestiality, not because it harms the animal, which isn't a person, but because of what it says about the person doing it. First of all, humans who are attracted to animals are generally messed up anyway, and second, anyone having sex with an animal probably has false beliefs about the animal's consent, which is delusional.)
Jiro
13d ago
I don't see how that's relevant. Is someone who wants to stop the suffering of non-cute animals counting it too much?
Sure, when someone says that insect suffering counts at 15% of human suffering, he's counting it too much, but that doesn't generalize. In the more general case "tries to stop animal suffering efficiently", how exactly is he counting it too much?
Jiro
13d ago
Listen, I did not intentionally trap those Sims in their living room. The placement of the stove was an innocent mistake. That fire could have happened anywhere! A terrible tragedy.
There would be some level of getting emotionally attached to how the Sims "suffer" that I would indeed consider suspicious. I presume you are not at this level, though of course I have no proof.
Jiro
24d ago
How could that happen without massive disparate impact lawsuits? (Unless they're not really similarly situated--different cities, different professions chosen, etc.)
Jiro
18d ago
Another Stalin-related example of how political cults of personality work is a demand that you follow the personality's line even if they make complete u-turns.
"50 Stalins" uses Stalin as metonymy. It isn't about actual Stalin, and the fact that people behave in a certain way in relation to Stalin (and have to to stay alive) doesn't make that what "50 Stalins" is about.
Jiro
29d ago
Every time I read one of these pathetic tough guy screeds, my first thought is to laugh at the absolute lack of self-awareness. 'Reee, my outgroup is full of animals who would never compromise or act in good faith! This justifies me never acting in good faith either.
Cool. Tell me about some relevant instances of your outgroup acting in good faith.
Jiro
28d ago
That's low IQ by mistake theory. By conflict theory their IQ is fine, but they're being disingenuous in a way that doesn't make sense.
Jiro
4d ago
The tattoo that was in the news was plausibly a drug symbol, but it was specifically being identified as a gang symbol based on arguments that were a real stretch.
Jiro
14d ago
It would just be disingenuous for someone to caution you that your successful theft is contributing to an erosion of trust.
But that's why you're contradicting yourself by saying that the security is meant to stop fans of Lady Gaga, not people like you. If the security isn't aimed at people like you, then you can't invoke the security to say that they already don't trust people like you.
Jiro
24d ago
He would simply point out that there is no example in history, with the exception of the few brief periods in which Israel has existed as an insular sovereign political entity, in which Jewish people have had the power to openly privilege themselves as a dominant racial group at the expense of other groups. Whereas there was a period of several centuries wherein white people — conscious of their whiteness and the way it made them different/better than other people — had both the means and the willpower to travel around the world establishing states in which they were made the supreme/privileged race and others were treated as less-than as a result.
And even people who weren't white nationalists could look at that and say "motte and bailey".
He can claim that abolishing whiteness is a technical term that doesn't imply any racial hostility. But saying "I don't really mean X" when there are plenty of people in your coalition who do mean X is indistinguishable from giving them cover and encouraging them even if you pinky swear that that isn't really what you mean.
Jiro
27d ago
Minority outcomes have shifted very little in any positive directions.
I think "not being a slave" is pretty positive.
Jiro
24d ago
If they're lower in cognitive ability they aren't similarly situated. And if they have a different major they certainly aren't.
Jiro
12d ago
His arguments about drugs also include pornography, which he lumps in with drugs as causing only harm. If you don't count "people like to use it" as being good, you would oppose not only drugs and pornography but also video games, comic books, vacations, and Shakespeare (except that he probably has arbitrary categories of non-harm that would allow vacations and Shakespeare).
Jiro
19d ago
Scott originally gave as an example "There isn’t enough Stalinism in this country!" There isn't enough leftism is an obvious extension.
Jiro
26d ago
The jobs feminine women perform don't care about three year resume gaps if there's a kid involved.
Wasn't one of the big complaints of feminism when it started that such jobs did care about the gap?
Jiro
23d ago
Fuente's obsession with Israel appeared to result in what is perhaps the most accurate prediction of the series of events following Oct. 7th among anyone else.
They're still not accurate. You snuck in there "enables Israel to finally solve the Gaza Question with ethnic cleansing" as a "successful" prediction. It's actually a failed prediction.
"Knowingly" and "will give Israel an excuse to" are not successful predictions either, unless you can read minds.
A common tactic of people questioning the Holocaust is to say "I'm not questioning the Holocaust but..." followed by things that are carefully worded to cast doubt on the Holocaust without explicitly denying it. And that's what you're doing. You're not disputing it, but you think the numbers are substantially inflated? That's disputing it.
More options
Context Copy link