Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
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User ID: 265
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
10mo ago
Is an artist allowed to paint a picture of Mickey Mouse murdering Hillary Clinton in negligee with the soles of her feet showing? Should the paint manufacturers limit the scope of output?
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
Foreign policy is a thing, and Israel is one of the US' most steadfast allies outside of the Anglosphere and the #1 ally in the Middle East, modulo oil and weapons deals with the Saudis.
There is also the question of shared values. Liberal democracies are natural allies, unlike the rest of the Middle East.
It has very little to do with religion or ethnicity, IMHO.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
While I can imagine how Hamas was able to get multiple vehicles across the border to Israel, it baffles me that they could take hostages and somehow just drive back. When a sensitive border like that is penetrated, shouldn't there be a 3 alarm fire type of response?
Like, if I was a Hamas gunman, I wouldn't expect to be returning home. Perhaps there is a special strategy for the hostage takers? How are we characterizing the border breach, and for how long did it remain unsecured?
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
In the US, at any rate, hate speech is not illegal.
But it sure is punished. The test is not illegality but punishment.
And "hate crimes" are crimes in which the victim is chosen because of his group membership (real or perceived). No hatred or other ideas need be shown.
I am rather certain I can find examples in the US in which someone was charged with a hate crime, possibly convicted, where it is simply not possible to know why the victim was chosen. By your standard, any typical rape of a woman is now a hate crime, as the female victim was chosen because of her membership in the group of women. I believe the intent and wording of hate crime statutes go beyond your standard and presume to read the mind of the perpetrator, mostly as inference from actual acts (speech or otherwise) committed.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
2yr ago
/r/credibledefense daily megathreads mostly. Also /r/combatfootage has a megathread
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
2yr ago
Let me attempt some kind of steelman here. First, like you, I am extremely skeptical of grievance study courses, and particularly CRT. Second, while I think it’s fine to study these phenomena at arm’s length, often high school students assume they are being taught the truth, not merely one perverse angle on it. In 99% of my high school classes, it was obvious I was meant to internalize and adopt the teachings presented. Only the most careful of teachers could approach truly controversial topics. I have little confidence this can be maintained across our public high school education system.
Nonetheless. The course description describes what to expect at college. This is an AP class after all. I can’t argue with the course description, which certainly covers a great deal of CRT, even if seemingly out of proportion with its influence and impact on ordinary African Americans.
Now, Florida DOE is faced with a course description that it has significant disagreement with. They could design a curriculum that sideskirts all the CRT stuff, but then its students will fare poorly on the AP test. Which failure is a greater disservice to its students? Failing to prepare them for a very important test, or breaking the ban on CRT?
It would be nice if the College Board could separate the most controversial, politically charged aspects of their African American History into a seperate module, perhaps Advanced African American History. It seems we are forced to throw the baby out for the bathwater.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
a “bunker / shelter” that would be used for “some event where 50%-99.99% of people die [to] ensure that most EAs [effective altruists] survive”
This is especially galling coming from the guy who will flip a 50.1% coin forever at double or nothing on civilization's behalf. We might all be lucky he blew up "early".
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
Maybe Jennifer Lawrence is actually worth $25 million dollars, but I don't think so. A more sustainable model for Hollywood would be to pay more actors a more moderate sum, creating more things on a smaller budget to appeal to more groups and sub-genres.
A movie without a big star is risky, making it very difficult to get the right mix of stakeholders on board (director, financing, producers, executive producers, studio execs).
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
11mo ago
From the B&R subreddit, it appears the boxer is male intersex with internalized testes that produce typical male levels of testosterone. Similar to Caster Semenya and likewise raised as a girl.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
I just re-learned about rabies, in the last 10 days:
- if you're symptomatic, you're a dead man walking
- symptoms take weeks to months to present
- symptoms include hydrophobia, which is an intense thirst combined with your musculoskeletal system refusing to accept water (via the nervous system)
- IV fluids for some reason do not ameliorate
- "foaming at the mouth" is related to increased saliva production combined with an inability to swallow said fluids
- zombie-like symptoms including an instinct to bite others
- transmitted primarily via saliva
- zoonotic reservoirs are mostly bats and rodents, with dogs as the bridge to humans
- very few canine or human cases in countries like USA
- a really shit way to go
- less prevalent but more scary than I thought
I suspect there is a bit of motte and bailey going on, where there is lots of activity in the bailey that I find concerning, but your position is wrapped up tight in the motte.
For example, two women were charged with a hate crime for burning a Trump sign. Arson is the underlying crime, with apparent hatred (towards what protected group?) adding an additional hate crime: http://web.archive.org/web/20210624142206/https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-trump-sign-charges-20170418-story.html
Princess Anne police have charged D'Asia R. Perry, of Baltimore, and Joy M. Shuford, of Owings Mills, both 19, with multiple offenses, including second-degree arson and committing a hate crime, the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office said.
"The intentional burning of these political signs, along with the beliefs, religious views and race of this political affiliation, directly coincides with the victim," a Princess Anne police officer wrote in charging documents to support the hate crime charge.
By committing arson, "in doing so, with discrimination or malice toward a particular group, or someone's belief," was the reasoning for charging the women with a hate crime offense as well, said Caryn L. McMahon, deputy chief fire marshal.
Here is another take on hate crimes in the US: https://mises.org/wire/how-much-problem-hate-crime
However, one major problem with this is how hate crime is defined. According to the FBI, “A hate crime is a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias.” The underlying problem with this definition is it elevates non-criminal activity to the level of a crime. Spray painting a phallus on the side of a building is vandalism. Spray painting a swastika on the side of a building is a hate crime. To get a true understanding of hate crime, the underlying action must be fully understood.
This reads more like the bailey I am familiar with. Is it possible that the bolded section is true? Can painting a swastika on the side of a building be considered a hate crime? Not in the motte. What about in the real world?
Here is the state of NJ, according to the ADL (Anti Discrimination League, Jewish): https://www.adl.org/resources/media-watch/hate-crime-laws-cover-everyone
Hate-crime laws protect everyone, not just Jews, as the letter writer incorrectly claims. New Jersey’s hate-crime law defends all citizens from any crime committed because of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
Bolding mine. It looks like the typical rape is a hate crime in NJ. Obviously this is not an accurate summary of the statute, and the ADL does not have the definitive take. Take the Jussie Smollett hoax. Widely described as a hate crime, but without any of the necessary evidence like "watching a racially charged movie beforehand, then discussing hey let's beat up that black Empire faggot".
One more clarification: Hate-crime laws only apply when there is an underlying crime to prosecute. The First Amendment protects speech — even bigoted and ignorant speech like the letter writer’s — and ADL staunchly defends this vital democratic freedom.
Biased language must be combated with positive speech from community members and leaders. But when someone goes beyond speech and commits a crime inspired by hate, then hate-crime laws have a vital role to play in ensuring justice and protecting the entire community.
Note ADL says the crime must be inspired by hate. That's not in the motte. Again, non-definitive, but still, there is a concept of a hate crime which is largely thought crime.
Here's Oberlin College: https://www.oberlin.edu/campus-resources/bulletins/condemnation-anti-asian-violence
Tips from Stop AAPI Hate on what to do if you experience hate and how to safely intervene when you see harassment or a hate crime taking place. (SMART Program, San Francisco, CA)
So Joe Random Blogger is going to somehow witness a "hate crime", including the watching of a racially charged movie beforehand and then the witnessed discussion to target someone because of their protected category, and be able to rightfully intervene?
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
2yr ago
What the allies did to the nazis wasn't 'cancel culture'. It was just warfare. The enemy was the nazis and they hunted the enemy down and murdered them.
I'm talking about the de-nazification policies after the war. Not so much the end of war massacres and war crimes tribunals. Nazis got canceled.
What I don't understand is why you would say it's risible for 'ordinary people' to try and give other people the nazi treatment. It was always ordinary people who did these things. From the soldier and his rifle to the largest institutions in the world. It's all individual people.
I'm talking about social media accounts versus powerful organizations like US government. Twitter accounts that contact Justine Saccho's employer. That's cancel culture rather than realpolitik amongst Great Powers. Which yes, are all composed of individual people.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
2yr ago
And to be honest we never really had a Ukraine policy before the war. They couldn’t join NATO with territorial disputes. They had some trade deals.
Wasn’t the US heavily involved in the leadup to and aftermath from the 2014 revolution? With a strong policy interest in removing Yanukovich?
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
2yr ago
I think that Wokeism and Marxism are both branches of Progressivism, which is the ideology of the Enlightenment.
Wokism, Marxism, and Progressivism are all collectivist ideologies. The Enlightenment was very much individualist in contrast. Perhaps if Progressivism’s collectivism were replaced with individualism, we might have something resembling Enlightenment. But without this substitution, I reject the descendent relation.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
11mo ago
Anyway, looking him up, I found a recent article he wrote entitled It All Comes Down to Race. I read it carefully, twice, and I'd like to engage this community because I don't know any other place where this can be critically discussed.
You aren't aware of anywhere else on the internet that allows criticism of white nationalism? Seems fishy...
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
There is an undying faction of TMA (traditional martial arts) which refers to BJJ as blowjob jujitsu or similar, as though some rhetorical win can possibly reverse the steamroller that modern MMA represents. Reassuringly, this faction gets smaller every year as the evidence rolls in.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
Hell, the biggest predictor of homelessness rates in an area is housing prices.
Is this correlation or causation? What do you think it's like being homeless in small town Indiana? Way shittier than San Francisco or Seattle, I guarantee, both in terms of support for subsistence as well as entertainment and amusement.
The chronic, problematic homeless have very little incentive to stick around where they grew up, their families, local support networks, because they have already lost or devalued them. The people shitting or shooting on sidewalks in SF have already exhausted the patience of those who once cared about them.
People want to deny this for some reason, and say that the vast majority of SF homeless are former SF residents, implying that maybe they've never left.
The question I would ask any homeless in SF:
Did you once rent or own here? Have you ever lived anywhere else?
As for why they might choose SF over Indiana, I hope it's obvious.
Or you need 100 boats with 1000 person capacity if each one takes 10 trips.
Multiple trips are not realistic. I'm happy to explain why, but that shouldn't be necessary.
As I see it, Israel + USA.
Good luck with gaining access to Iranian ports.
Yes, Iran certainly does have the ability to shoot guns at boats full of Palestinian refugees while the cameras broadcast videos of innocent women and children dying to the world.
Refusing port does not imply shooting guns.
Getting from the Meditterranean to the Persian Gulf is a far simpler logistical problem than Persian Gulf to America
The destination is rhetorical. Iran can perform the same maneuver at any port of their choosing.
Your reply here is mostly fantasy.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
after Mexico demanded the federal government make Texas remove them
What, exactly, is the argument for removing border barriers? Can we analyze the tradeoffs and incentives? Why are Mexico and USA seemingly interested in more illegal border crossings while Texas is not? What are the costs and benefits? What are the tradeoffs? It seems to me that if foreigners are penetrating a border, the recipient country is justified to install disincentives and defenses.
Only a decade ago the "multiple personality" thing was recognized as larping social contagion, and now it's back to being treated seriously?
Scott Alexander has written about this, I feel pretty certain. Tulpas (intentional creation of additional personality) and victims (unintentional multiple personalities) seem to be real phenomena, if rarer than claimed.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
4mo ago
Very interesting, but Russia seems much weaker now than in 2022. Heavily sanctioned, big stagflation, and fielding laughable armor deployments and infantry tactics. Quads, donkeys, motorcycles, and "camels". We've been assured that the 3 day Special Military Operation is still going according to plan. They've evacuated Syria, Wagner is a shadow of its former self, and are they still conscripting and fielding prisoners or is that well too running dry?
If Russia was going to roll into Poland, what do you think that force composition looks like?
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
11mo ago
Why calling Trump ‘weird’ is freaking Republicans out
Democrats have started pointing out just how strange the former president and his ilk really are. Ryan Coogan explains why this could be the thing that finally gets under his skin – and might help win Kamala Harris the White House
Pure cope and seethe
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
I wish your first link was something other than a google search result, which will of course change drastically over time, complicating any analysis or discussion.
It looks like Israel bombed a neighboring residence (I would expect an apartment building but the current results refer to a "house"). It seems strange that the Israelis would bomb a single family residence (aka "house"). And the damage extended, presumably unintentionally, to the church.
I suppose we'll see if there is a characteristic Israeli crater or not. And at this point, maybe Israel can drop the equivalent of small barrel bombs as a false flag to implicate Hamas, etc.
I doubt Israel intentionally bombed a church unless it was a legitimate military target, which is entirely possible given the defensive strategy of Hamas, etc. I tend to defer to Arnold Kling's reasoning for this type of situation: https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-gaza-hospital-tragedy
I'm sure you've heard of "sideshows" or "slideshows" where groups of mostly Dodge Challengers and Chargers do donuts in the middle of an urban intersection or freeway or bridge, creating an informal yet spectacularly dangerous block party. Also the roving gangs of plateless dirt bikes and quads, presumably mostly stolen anyway. Oakland, Baltimore, Atlanta, etc
And the police are literally completely incapable of shutting these down. We've heard the official explanations about manpower and escalation, but I would love to know how those internal deliberations really go. You've gotta have some gung-ho sergeants putting together gameplans and orchestration, but the top brass shut it down? For woke / squishy / PR reasons? Anyone have real insight?
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