Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
No bio...
User ID: 265
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr 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
9mo 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
9mo 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
7mo 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
1yr 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
1yr 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
1yr 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
1mo 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
4mo 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
9mo 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
6mo 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
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
7mo ago
Do you know why IV fluids fail to hydrate? I am only going off wikipedia here, and maybe errantly...
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
7mo ago
the BAP sphere, which openly celebrates murder, rape and death.
Citations needed. I highly doubt they are celebrating Hamas style barbarism, or else we are nutpicking.
While I'm willing to concede for the sake of argument that "statutory hate crime" is carefully defined to avoid constitutional issues, I am talking about "hate crime" in the colloquial sense, as gets reported on in the news etc as demonstrated by my several links.
Briefly:
- Swastika: agreed, it can be a small piece of evidence but is insufficient on its own
- Typical rape: agreed, the statutes appear to require evidence (nearly impossible to obtain in most cases) that the victim was selected as a representative of the larger group. Typical rape wouldn't meet this.
- Jussie: I think shouting "nigger" or "faggot" during the underlying crime is insufficient. I think we're going to need Mississippi Burning style evidence.
- ADL: Prior agreement that they are not the arbiter of "statutory hate crime", but they very well represent colloquial "hate crime"
- Oberlin: Like the ADL, they are using "hate crime" in the colloquial sense, not necessarily the statutory sense. It's hard to imagine they are recommending students make a legal determination of a hate crime.
- Baltimore: It's amazing they were charged at all. I agree the case did not meet the statutory burden, obviously so, yet it's strange that the article was so credulous.
I think these illustrate that the colloquial sense of "hate crime" dominates the "statutory hate crime" in human discourse. I also believe that without the constitutional protections in the US, hate crime statutes in Europe adhere more to the colloquial sense. Note further that the FBI (not necessarily a statutory authority) was quoted in one of the linked pieces:
A hate crime is a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias.
T H O U G H T C R I M E
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
That's not a relevant distinction. It would still fall under the definition I am giving of it just being warfare. The term 'cancel culture' is obfuscatory and redundant. It's just cultural warfare.
I guess we'll have to leave this one here. Agree to disagree.
I still don't understand why you would say that it's risible for 'ordinary people' to engage in warfare when all warfare is enacted by ordinary people.
The most charitable I can be here is that this seems facile. Yes, I agree, all organizations are composed of individuals. But those responsible for the greatest losses of human life and dignity in warfare were very much not "ordinary people". Mostly, I mean ordinary people who are not instrumental to a large and powerful organization. I don't imagine this conversation bearing much more fruit, either. Cheers.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
1yr ago
The audio clip, which was posted on Tuesday but gained wide circulation on Thursday, appears to show the official, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, weighing in on the make-up of the next Ukrainian government.
Nuland is heard telling U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt that she doesn’t think Vitaly Klitschko, the boxer-turned-politician who is a main opposition leader, should be in a new government.
“So I don’t think Klitsch (Klitschko) should go into the government,” she said in the recording, which appeared to describe events that occurred in late January. “I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Separately on Thursday, a senior Kremlin aide accused the United States of arming Ukrainian “rebels” and warned Russia could intervene to maintain the security of its neighbour.
I’m having trouble understanding your point, with a lot of what seem to me like unsubstantiated yet controversial assertions.
I think Scott's title is actually wrong. People do want a purely biological apolitical taxonomy of mental disorders - they just also want the world to be just, so there wouldn't be any conflict. That what is true and what we want to be true do, in the end, coincide; that the truth would never be inconvenient to those with the correct values.
I read Scott as saying “No, you don’t want to eat that tub of ice cream, even though you are tempted. It comes with consequences, laid out here, that you are not actually willing to accept”. Is that your read in this paragraph? I don’t think so, but I’m not sure what you’re getting at either.
To take a very different example: Todd Akin's claim that "legitimate rape" could not cause pregnancy: often considered an example of rank misogyny, but even if so, I would say it's much more importantly clear just-world thinking.
I’m not familiar with this person or claim. I’m struggling to understand how pregnancy can be ruled out, given PIV intercourse, whether coerced or not.
EDIT: Akin said “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy, because because their bodies prevent them from doing so. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
I have no idea of the biology there. Maybe stress hormones in a traumatic situation somehow prevent conception? Does this still comport with your point?
I’m struggling with the rest, likely because of the above.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
2mo ago
Because there won't be anyone trying to "wokify" your little hobby once the Woke have been crushed utterly.
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Let's gameplan it. If you could wave your magic wand and get masses of people to follow your guidelines. What kind of scchedule / timeline / milestones are we looking at?
Is there killing? Brainwashing? New laws? Revoking of old laws? What institutions are torn down and which remain?
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
4mo ago
the most dramatic of which was supporting Patrick Stevedores to fire their entire union workforce.
Is this some form of nominative determinism? The Wire Season 3 (?) revolved around the Stevedores Union, dockside in Bawlmer.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
4mo ago
I have a prior against the accuracy of the surveys, as there is definitely a "narrative" to uphold, and I have to imagine the survey takers are themselves homeless advocates and activists, more interested accumulating and distributing resources than hardheaded analysis. Still, taking these numbers at face value:
Of 100 homeless people:
- 30 were homeless elsewhere and moved to SF
- 4 became homeless within a year of moving to SF
- 28 were living housed in SF for between 1 and 10 years
- 38 were living housed in SF for more than 10 years
How does one randomly sample homeless people? Is this a representative sample? I would survey most egregious cases first -- the zombies milling about the UN plaza in the open air drug market. The shitters, shooters, hitters, harassers, yellers. Maybe the ones with the most encounters with police. I can imagine the sampling in this survey was done via more "official" means, like those contacting advocacy orgs, shelters, case workers, etc. There are very real methodological difficulties here. I haven't yet dug into the details of the survey, but maybe you are familiar with it?
/r/credibledefense daily megathreads mostly. Also /r/combatfootage has a megathread
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