JulianRota
1yr ago
Eh maybe. But then still, why an opioid epidemic now? Opium and derivatives have also been around for a very long time. Is it just that much more appealing in pill form and prescribed by your doctor than in smokeable or snortable form?
JulianRota
1yr ago
I've heard from people in the medical industry that the effect of prescription opioids is roughly split in thirds - about a third get basically no effect at all or strictly bad effects, another third get effective pain relief but no desire to do more once the pain is gone, and the final third feel dangerous addictive desires in addition to pain relief and are prone to addiction and all the resulting issues if other factors in their life line up right/wrong.
Meanwhile, it seems really weird that there is suddenly a "chronic pain epidemic". Why should there be such a thing now? Humans have been doing lots of strenuous manual labor for all of recorded history - especially before the industrial revolution. Have we all suddenly got worse somehow? Is it maybe related to signs that the modern diet is mostly terrible?
JulianRota
1yr ago
I think we'd have to be concerned with the likely motives of such actors.
I think Russia and China etc don't have much reason to care whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge - the outcomes on things they actually care about are probably within a standard deviation of outcomes regardless of which party is in charge of what. What they are likely to care about more is the overall levels of tribal division and conflict.
Low internal conflict means that anything we do or intervene in overseas is likely to be broadly supported, consistent over the long term, decently well-planned and robust against setbacks. High internal conflict means that anything either party does will be opposed by the other for tribalistic reasons if nothing else. Interventions will tend to be the opposite - inconsistent, weak, poorly-supported, poorly-planned, likely to be canceled at minor setbacks.
As such, they probably don't really care about actually hacking voting machines, except in as much as half-assed and ineffective attempts to do so reduce everyone's confidence that whoever gets elected won legitimately. They are probably much more interested in backing extreme activist groups on both sides to amp up the overall level of division. Which IIRC is pretty much all they've been credibly accused of doing.
JulianRota
1yr ago
A few notes, but mostly marking to think and read more and maybe write more about later:
I have a feeling that like 70% of the privacy ultra-activist stuff is counter-productive in that it mostly serves to draw more attention onto you than would be paid if you acted more like a "perfectly ordinary sheep" type. Like the guy trying to be covert with the obvious trench coat just making sure everyone in the diner is staring at him versus nobody giving him a second glance if he was wearing business casual.
Google gets beat up a lot for non-responsiveness to user inquiries and supposed privacy violations. I actually agree with your point in that I continue to use Google for most things because I trust their security better than just about anyone else. Their Advanced Protection stuff is probably best of breed, and at least I can be sure that no hacker or activist will ever be able to socially engineer their way into my accounts. I accept that they might delete it someday because some wrongthink I posted somewhere gets caught in the wrong filter. And they might give everything they have to the Government some day, but meh, I doubt it's much safer anywhere else.
I do still use Google's location tracking, partly because it is sometimes convenient. I also have a feeling, or at least would not be surprised if it is some day revealed, that the phone UI checkboxes to turn it off actually only turn off the visibility to you, not the collection and storage. If they're gonna collect and store it either way, I might as well get some use from it too. If I ever need to really be covert, I guess I'll have to leave it at home. Though even that might not help much, since it's such an unusual and rare thing to do, if anybody was actually watching that closely, they'd probably have reason to think that, whatever I was actually doing then, I was up to no good.
And yeah, running your own servers and storage has its own risks as well. I doubt I'm a particularly great sysadmin, but as far as I know, I haven't lost any servers yet, so maybe it's not quite that hard, or maybe nobody cares that much about my stuff.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I'm pretty sure it's 100% outgroup-hatred along standard culture war lines. Executing convicted murderers is a red tribe value, therefore to all blue tribe civilized society, it's savage, uncivilized, and wrong no matter how it's done, and every weapon in the culture war will be brought to bear to oppose it. That explains why a genuine attempt to do it in a more "humane" way has absolutely no effect on the media position. It was never about that, it was about crushing red tribe.
Meanwhile, if somebody wanted to execute Jan 6 convicts, even in the most pointlessly brutal way you could possibly imagine, the same sources would likely cheer on how they were getting exactly what they deserved and lament that the punishment wasn't harsh enough.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I'm skeptical, but curious. I wonder exactly what "common" means here. Exactly how many are we talking about, who had them, how much money was invested in slaves in England overall, what kind of work were they doing, etc. The details could easily confirm or refute my presumption that it was relatively low friction to abolish in the places it was abolished early.
The elite class now sure doesn't seem to like farmers and ranchers, even though that's where their food comes from. It seems pretty plausible that a bunch of trend-following elites were willing to ban something that only hurt people they didn't care much about anyway.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I think it works okay if you view things in a more fuzzy way. The idea of abolitionism didn't just magically appear at the time of the Industrial Revolution, just like the IR itself wasn't a single thing at a single time but a gradual progression over hundreds of years. Going from an idea written about by a few privileged elites to a movement endorsed by nation-sized populations and that nation-states are prepared to wage full-scale wars over is not an instant or automatic process. It seems very plausible to me that the IR powered the growth of abolitionism from something that they were willing to pass in places that didn't really have any slaves anyways to something that they were prepared to enact and enforce by force of arms in places where the entire economy was built on slave labor and the controlling imperial power was getting a fat chunk of the profits.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Why wouldn't there be a second chance? Everyone I know who preferred Trump liked DeSantis too, just thought it wasn't his time to be President yet.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Do you have a source for this? There's video of him still breathing after he was released. I'm not aware of any witnesses or video that reliably puts the chokehold time at 6-15 minutes. Exactly who made that "estimate" and based on what?
Considering the normal timing of NYC subways, usually 1 to 2 minutes between stops, it would be extremely strange for someone to be in a chokehold for "6-15 minutes".
JulianRota
1yr ago
A question that sounds snarky and rhetorical, but is actually serious: Why don't you guys just argue with each other privately?
Why indeed? If you move to DMs over any of a hundred systems, you can sling as much crap as you want at each other, and nobody will judge you or mod you or ban you for doing so. So why not? The only reason that makes sense IMO is that the audience matters. Everybody here has to see it, or at least be able to see it.
But what of the effect that has on the place? I see that you don't feel offended or put off by the argument. What of the audience though? They're important - they must be, or you wouldn't be interested in posting it publicly. I've come to think that, to use another Wire quote, all the pieces matter.
Regardless of whether you or BC are super offended by the debate, when everybody sees it, and sees it not being modded, it changes the tone of the whole place. It becomes just that little bit more acceptable to trash your debate partner rather than discuss civilly. People who love that are more likely to come and stay, and people who don't will disengage and drift away. Even more importantly, it changes peoples behavior just a bit. Nobody is perfectly combative or perfectly civilized. It's a signal to turn off the civilized part and dial up the combat part. And that does in fact matter, even if we'd rather it didn't or it isn't immediately obvious.
The same points can be made perfectly well without the personal attacks. Perhaps even better. Even if I think User X is a great big jerk, it's not conducive to a reasonable conversation to just call them a jerk. It's perfectly possible for me to be the calm and reasonable one and make my points without the insults. If I do it right, and I'm right that they're a jerk, then they will show themselves to be one to the audience in short order. The audience is a lot more likely to believe it when they see it for themselves over just me telling them.
JulianRota
1yr ago
You probably noticed after that unfortunate subway incident that left-wing reddit was quick to say "We failed Jordan Neely", and if you understand that statement, you understand the Blue Tribe. To the Blue Tribe, Jordan Neely acted the way he did because the group failed to include and empathize with him. Penny is a murderer not because he killed Neely, but because he acted without the consent and validation of the group. Tutto nello feelz, niente al di fuori dello feelz, nulla contro lo feelz
I understand that they think this way, but I think that it represents a hole in the Blue Tribe thinking. They, or rather this segment of them, believe with a religious fervor that they have the solution to all societal ills. They believe that their ideology covers all cases of everything, so nobody will ever feel compelled to do anything bad once everything they want is implemented.
I call it the Theory Of Nice. It's the belief that Niceness Fixes Everything. The root cause of all hostility and meanness is that somebody else at some other time was not sufficiently Nice to that person. If anyone is being mean, we can cure them by being exclusively nice to them for a sufficiently long time. We can construct a world where nobody is ever mean to anybody, therefore there's no source for meanness to start from, and everybody will just be nice to everybody else all the time. Any time somebody of the Ingroup is mean to other people in a manner severe enough to require some form of suppression, the real meaning is that we failed that person by not being sufficiently nice to them earlier, because if we had done so, obviously they would never have done that. They're our Ingroup after all, so it's not possible that they're just inherently bad.
Meanwhile, everyone in our Outgroup, i.e. Red Team, or people who don't just accept our assertions that our ideology will fix everything, is just incorrigibly evil. They're brainwashed monsters, all hatred against them is justified, any measure against them, no matter how harsh or mean, is acceptable. Obviously doing any of those things doesn't make us mean or corrupt us in any way. Don't you understand, they're the Outgroup? It's different for them! It's just different, that's all!
I think any ideology that purports to fix the world and be the one solution to everything must account for everything and everyone everywhere, and do so provably. You can't just hand-wave away that this person wouldn't act bad if we did things my way. You'd have to demonstrate in practice that it actually does handle every single case in the promised way, no exceptions. And you can't dismiss some other group that is clearly your Outgroup as unfixably evil. If you do those things, you don't actually have a glorious new ideology that fixes the world, you just have plain old Ingroup-bias, the exact same stuff that's been in our hindbrains for millennia and powered countless atrocities around the world.
JulianRota
1yr ago
getting killed seems a bit of a reach
Shortening the description of what happened like this IMO really does a disservice to understanding the incident. At no point did anybody, Penny included, set out to kill Neely. No weapons that were not appropriate to the situation were deployed. No physical techniques that were not reasonable considering what was happening were used. He was merely physically restrained for a brief period to make him stop doing whatever it exactly was that he was doing. This was highly likely to have been reasonable and appropriate. That he died from it is an unintended consequence, most likely due to him being in comprehensively terrible health.
The class of people that Neely represents has wildly different health than anything most regular people can conceive of. Which touches back to the giant hole concept that HlynkaCG was talking about. These people start out severely mentally ill, the type that would likely be institutionalized for life in another era. They do lots of illegal drugs, not checked at all for purity or cleanliness. Possibly including injected with dirty needles. They probably sleep on the streets somewhere most of the time. Constantly in and out of jail and hospitals. You can bet they never follow up on any health or legal suggestions offered in those places. Eating whatever comes to hand, no thought to it being clean or healthy.
I know there are legal doctrines covering this sort of thing, which I'm not meaning to debate right now. But morally speaking, exactly what responsibility do we have to this sort of person? If you're both so crazy that you're antagonizing and scaring people on a train, and also so unhealthy and fragile that a brief period of mild restraint is at risk of killing you, then what exactly do we do with you? I have a hard time feeling like society has any responsibility towards such a person.
JulianRota
1yr ago
One of the things about having existed in a world outside liberal society is that you cant help but recognize that there is a world outside liberal society.
Agreed. I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, and in doing so have met and worked with a lot of people who think very differently from the norms expected in "liberal society". It seems to me that there's something of a cult, of people who have only ever been in "liberal society" places and can't begin to even conceive that there are people out there who really do think very differently. They speak of "multicultralism", but all they really know is that those other people sure dress in some cool costumes and have fancy dances and tasty exotic food. The idea that these people also have very different values from them is unthinkable.
The type of person I have described is of course not every single "blue team" person. They're probably a minority in most places. But they definitely do exist, and I've met a number of people like that. I get the impression that their numbers are growing, spreading into more places, and becoming even more strident in their beliefs. I don't know how this ends, but I can't help but think something ugly is going to happen eventually. And along those lines,
Thing is that for all the talk of "fighting the power" one gets the impression that a liberal does not really understand the implications of those words because the've never been in a position to to actually do so.
It seems rather funny in current year. Especially back in the 70s or so, there was such a culture of "revolution" and "overthrowing the system" and other such things being cool. They're still in love with the idea of protests and riots. Look how they cheered on the BLM protests of 2020! But then, Jan 6 happens, and oh, it's the most terrible horrible thing ever! Well, when you were talking about protests and riots and revolutions and overthrowing things being totally super cool, exactly what did you think it meant? It's hard for me to see it as anything but, oh all that stuff is great only when we do it, but if they do it, then it's terrible and unacceptable.
JulianRota
1yr ago
The details in the story are even wilder
admitted to failing to make a $3.75 million quarterly licensing payment
Is it just me, or is that kind of not that much money? If you have over 100 full-time employees and the infrastructure to print a news magazine and distribute it nationwide, that ought to be a pretty small part of your budget. You've got to be hurting pretty bad to have to miss something like that.
Oh, and they had already cut back to monthly publication in 2020.
The linked article on publishing AI-generated content under the bylines of fake reporters is really something else.
JulianRota
1yr ago
No doubt. I've had an account there since 2013. Under a different username though.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I don't suppose anyone noticed that we got our first link from the orange site?
I think the moderation is just fine. The Kulak example you gave is actually one of the most wholesome things I've ever seen while debating on the internet. Seriously, I've been writing and debating on various internet forums for decades now. I don't think I've ever before seen a heated argument get started, the mods say "knock it off you two", followed by both posters apologizing for overreacting and restating reasonable points in a calm and civilized manner. Fucking magic!
I actually still remember to this day, one time like 10 or 15 years ago, I got in an argument/discussion with somebody on some forum, I think it was Slashdot. They were very hostile and insulting and I remained calm and reasonable. After 2 or 3 exchanges, I asked him why he was being so hostile and insulting when I hadn't insulted him once and he actually calmed down some and apologized. Not mentioning that to make myself sound awesome or anything, but to say that it's really remarkable and rare to actually move conversations from hostility back to calm and reasonable discussion.
Burdensomcount is the only one on your list who got a harsh-ish punishment. But the explanation from FCfromSSC seems quite reasonable. I don't have access to mod notes and I don't follow everything that goes on here in enough detail to know stuff like that, but I have no reason to disbelieve the explanation.
In every listed case, the mods have calmly and patiently explained their position, even restating it multiple times in multiple places for the benefit of people who could plausibly be claimed to be behaving disingenuously. 99% of the internet that's moderated gets "Fuck off, troll! ::clicks permaban button::" to that behavior.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I'd agree that it's political. The political situation is either A) You know the Feds will stop you, so you be a good boy and do nothing. Your meek compliance gets you zero enthusiasm from the right, and whispers start that you're an open-borders sympathizer, or B) You do something like this, stick to it as long as possible, make the Feds physically stop you. It'll help for a little while with the actual situation, and being seen to try to do something is good for his political support. Forcing the Feds to actually physically stop it and showing video of them doing that will help his political situation, making the case that he's on their side and is a fighter, and it's the Feds' fault that it isn't working.
JulianRota
1yr ago
There appear to be two paths to US citizenship. A legal route, which is nearly impossible for most people, and an illegal route which gets easier and easier.
I am given to understand the situation is more an abuse of the asylum system. Somebody comes in, gets caught, and requests asylum, with a halfway-plausible story. It gets provisionally accepted, but the backlog for formal evaluation is like a decade long, so they get to stay in the US until that happens. Even if the formal hearing results in them getting booted out immediately, they still had a decade in the country, and can do it all again the next day.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Whether "mostly military-age men" it is or isn't true, it would be astronomically unlikely there wouldn't be at least one adorable family among the body count. All one has to do then is find them, take a bunch of pictures of the bodies, and distribute them widely, while completely ignoring the rest, and your work is done.
Even if there are literally zero adorable families naturally coming over, the cartels running the operation on the other side aren't stupid. Surely they would be willing to ensure there are a few like that and make sure they get covered.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I'm sympathetic, but "The judiciary is captured" is a little too broad for me. There's a lot of Federal judges out there, do we mean all of them? I'm perfectly willing to believe a substantial number of Federal judges are extremely biased against the right and will bend over backwards to ensure harsh outcomes for anyone deemed too right-wing, but I don't think we can reliably say all of them.
Of course, if as least some of them are and you know who they are, it's quite powerful to be able to ensure all appropriate cases get heard by one of them. As far as I know, most of the most frivolous cases against Trump have been filed New York, which probably holds some of the most biased judges and jury pool.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Perhaps that was a bit over-stated. I think it has a little truth, but more qualified, like that something that vaguely resembles that may happen to like a single-digit number of people, not anywhere near even a whole number percentage of everyone who's ever possessed such content. And "coming to the attention" would look more like far-left activists being majorly annoyed at you for some reason and digging up things you've wrote or sold somewhere to make a case about how bad you are. It may not be super common, but such things occasionally do end up becoming prosecutions, often including an extra step passing through a "mainstream" activist group.
If you're looking for an actual case, the best example that comes to my mind is Paul Miller. His prosecution was on weapons charges, for laws that are pretty commonly flouted and rarely prosecuted on their own, reportedly at least partly thanks to the prompting of the ADL (though he wasn't exactly doing himself any favors either). None of the documentation mentions any particular radical literature, though it would be a little surprising if he didn't actually possess any.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Oh yes, that reminds me - if I tab away from a Substack page, when I go back, the page hangs on a blank display for a second or so before appearing again. Including if I'm nowhere near the comments, which I mostly don't read anyways. No idea what they're doing there, but it can't be good.
JulianRota
1yr ago
The thing is, they don't have any ads though. So I guess all of the engagement-hacking is aimed at trying to get readers to purchase paid subscriptions to more creators? I guess that's a strategy, seems pretty weird and annoying to me though.
Maybe it is true that they're financially underwater from paying and promising too much to their initial set of authors. Which could make them desperate enough to try any number of things.
I don't expect they're listening to me or anything, but it'd be great IMO if they worked more like Nebula - you don't directly pay for individual publishers, you instead pay Substack itself $5 or $10 a month or whatever. Most of that minus a cut gets paid out to authors based on how much time you spend reading them. Then Substack doesn't care how much you engage because they get paid either way. But it's now further in every author's interest to keep putting out content that keeps people reading, since the friction for the money slipping away if they let up is much smoother. But they don't have the ability to do much except put out more high-quality content.
Maybe that could even apply to anybody who writes on the platform. I don't expect I'd ever make enough to live on from people paying to read what I write, but it would probably feel cool if I earned a few bucks a month from such an arrangement. That's about the price I'm suggesting though, so maybe it's also an incentive that your paid subscription is essentially free if you manage to publish stuff on there that gets at least a little bit of engagement. Maybe it would be just a simplification - say my account is -$10/month for a subscription. If I get $2/month from people reading me, then they just bill me a little less that month. If I get $15/month from that, then my account goes positive, and maybe they only actually cut me a check if I'm over $50 positive. So there'd be a big cloud of unpaid readers (or maybe they're paywalled off?), a smaller cloud of paid readers, a smaller one yet of people who mostly read but also write some stuff that only gets read a little, and the smallest one yet of the people who write things that gets millions of reads and make significant money from it.
Well, he said that at one point, but he also threatened to bomb Moscow if they attacked Ukraine. Whatever any of us might believe, it's pretty clear that Putin started planning his invasion of Ukraine right around when Biden was sworn in. Not exactly a sign that they thought Biden and the Democrats would be much more effectively tough on him. Seems more like American chaos is what they really want.
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