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PutAHelmetOn

Recovering Quokka

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joined 2022 September 06 21:20:34 UTC

				

User ID: 890

PutAHelmetOn

Recovering Quokka

0 followers   follows 0 users   joined 2022 September 06 21:20:34 UTC

					

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User ID: 890

This goes the other way, too: I've seen LGBTQ friends complain about conservative signs that say, "we support all sexes, races, religions" for not "mentioning anything LGBTQ" and "even said sex instead of gender."

That is to say, it is simply tribal signaling. The reason I am annoyed by white-bashing isn't because I identify with my racial coalition. As you mention, much of my outgroup is literally caucasian.

The white people that support her simply see a neon sign that says "ingroup." You see a neon sign that says "outgroup" but is it really because they call out straight white men (ironically by not calling them out), or because calling out straight white men is the kind of things your outgroup does?

There is a certain beauty to some definitions of Rectangle. The one I am singling out is

a parallelogram containing a right angle

Why? this was the definition listed in my high school Geometry textbook. I remember it because the wording was a little peculiar. But, later I came to enjoy it. This is the kind of subtlety only a math nerd could appreciate.

I began to appreciate it once I learned how feminist theory defined patriarchy. The wording (doubtless there are many) I recall is, "a system of gender roles which is harmful to men and women" or some such. Some might say that this definition smuggles in a claim: that gender roles are harmful. That's not quite correct. You see, a non-harmful system of gender roles would simply not be Patriarchy as a matter of definition.

The reason I wrote this post was because of the earlier discussion that "Rape is about power, not sex." I was reminded of many past times I've heard rape defined this way. You might say that this definition smuggles in a claim: that men are motivated by power (or some such). But that is not quite correct. You see, a man who is motivated by sex is simply not committing rape as a matter of definition.

My textbook used the phrase, "at least one right angle," like Wikipedia uses a right angle. This is critical to leave the reader mentally itching, to leave him thinking that maybe a rectangle contains a mix of angles -- some right, and some not.

If a parallelogram has one right angle then it has four right angles

Behold! The full force of a theorem (not a definition)! So there is no doubt in the mind that there could ever be a parallelogram with mixed angles. This relation between the angles cannot be expressed with mere definitions.

Much later, I learned a name for this: The virtue of precision. Definitions should be as small as necessary.

What other imprecise definitions smuggle unproven claims?

What gets you fiercely activated, beyond what you can rationally justify?

Anything about incels, low-status men, or nerds. Especially in regards to life development, dating, or gender relations. (In exactly the direction as expected from a Motteposter/SSC reader)

Some tests are meant to distinguish object-level ability. Take for instance, becoming a fireman or infantryman. It would be sexist to deny a qualified woman these positions because she's a woman. Furthermore, mumbling something about oppression or double standards is stupid, because you want your positions staffed by qualified applicants.

Whether or not something should be test or a competition can be contentious. For example, those college orientations where they say, "look to your left and to your right. One/two of you won't pass." Those always angered me because I figured a certification should be a test and not a competition.

Competitions are a little different than tests because it's not really about object-level ability. If it was, you would never have weight classes in boxing. After all, being heavy is simply part of the ability in boxing. And I think this is the primary argument for sex-segregating sports. But it's unclear what to do about a female (XX) who happens to somehow be naturally stronger. Why reward her, because she was born stronger than her peers? (I'm trying to sidestep any trans issues, that's a different issue).

As far as I can tell, the entire idea of rewarding winners in a competition has to do with spiritual merit, like determination, or how hard someone practiced.

Or something else I had issue with is how a lot of online games use "time played" as a kind of bonus, and let players grind up more powerful equipment to offset differences in mechanical ability.

Do people construct competitions that they'd be good at in a bid to win status for being good at them? Does TheMotte try to push "effortposting" as a spirtual virtue so that society rewards us?

I googled "positive claim" and one of the first relevant things that came up was Burden of Proof, which speaks as if positive claim means existential qualifier, For example, "there exists a teapot orbiting the Sun somewhere in the solar system." It contrasts that with a negative claim, which asserts the non-existence of something. Certainly, it is easier to prove a positive claim than a negative one.

The issue you're talking about seems to be more like "null hypothesis," which is definitely just cultural consensus and is essentially a rhetorical trick, and not very rigorous. When I took statistics class in school, I never liked null hypothesis as a concept, as I noticed that it didn't seem mathematical to me (although it was intuitive).

Science is not immune to this at least according to Yudkowsky. I've read attempts to formalize what burden of proof ought to be, and the ones that seem aesthetic to me are just having proof "in proportion to how complex the hypothesis is," which is in line with Occam (buzzword dump). This has the added benefit of ignoring the order that evidence is encountered.

How would the test misclassify you? Your role in this community seems completely consistent with a wokeness score of 0%.

Someone who infers "anti-woke" somehow means republican or right-wing in any way is wrong, but that's not a problem with the test.

There's a lot of talk in online dissident right about how terrible public schools are, and how they are all gonna home school their children. (Usually tradcath types, too). They talk all the time about how daycare is awful and the wives all talk about how she and her friends love being stay at home moms and how they have way higher happiness levels than single in-debt professional women.

A common theme they point out seems to be the opposite of what you are pointing out, in a way. Whereas you mention that there are few role models for children nowadays, the trad-right-winger always bangs the drum saying that the centralized public schooling pipeline is a faux-family, the government trying to raise your children. That is, he is saying that children are being taught to follow the wrong role models.

This is not a new idea; I've seen people say all sorts of things like, "family is the most important bond, so any authoritarian institution needs to break it, something something communism." The idea of school, for example, brainwashing "educating children to be tolerant in order to function in an inclusive democratic society" is something I've read actual educators write and I cringed a little reading it.

Who benefits from children being deprived of traditional role models, as you mention, as illegible knowledge is being removed from the pool? If children today are primarily learning from school, maybe they do? It's very tinfoil hat, but if "the long march through the institutions" is real, I wouldn't discard the theory that the role model crisis is an intentional plan.

It's thus not a shock that random people slip up and say "we don't use pronouns" instead of "we don't use preferred pronouns"

Is it really a slip-up? If that is a slip up then so is "please use our pronouns" or "what are your pronouns?". The reason that is never corrected to "preferred pronoun" is because everybody knows that "pronoun" can refer to the progressive idea.

Qualifying "pronoun" with "preferred" would be a tactical error by gender-believers. The way they say it now is a rhetorical technique to obscure the fact that the mainstream idea and progressive idea are different. Rather than framing the discussion as "should we change how pronouns work?" it is "please use my pronouns." It's not much different than the "basic human decency" rhetorical technique.

What's worse is, "What percent of a thing is environmentally/genetically determined" is itself environmentally determined. In an environment where not everyone is well-fed, height isn't completely genetic, because there are people who are short because they've been malnourished. Once you feed everyone, the environment is no longer determining who is short, it's just genetics.

(Unless I've made a mistake here) This paradox is pretty contentious though because it seemingly undermines many revolutionaries. If something is even a little bit genetic, the revolutionary seems to be steering the future where it becomes more and more genetic. Since revolutionaries aren't out there measuring how genetic and meritocratic society is, I suspect "there is some nurture to it!" is basically said in bad faith, by people who are salty.

That is to say, being short sucks whether its because of your genetics or because you're not well-fed. The Short Revolution uses the nature/nurture argument to justify the guillotine.

The honest blank slatist is then resigned to argue that genetics and biology is unfair. Is he even wrong?

"Human rights instead of politics" is not a particularly remarkable redefinition.

The entire point of mere politics to me, looks plainly like the ability to get along with people you disagree with. That link contains a quote by the pope-at-the-time (is there a word for "contemporary relative to a historical source"?) saying that homosexually is not a political battle, but a "destructive pretension against the plan of God." Both this and "human rights" are vague concepts and are mostly applause lights anyways.

Even the podcaster knows "political" is a Motte-and-Bailey. At this timestamp she describes how "the personal is political" is a good rhetorical device but is not accurate when taken out of context. That is to say, it is using "political" the normal way, to mean "controversial."

Redefinitions of this kind, be it using Human Rights or God's Plan, or even Something Else, are simply rhetorical techniques to say "you can't disagree with me." Well-behaved thiests will often debate biblical interpretations, even though they agree that God's Plan is paramount. Likewise, if you asked an honest progressive, "How do you know Roe v Wade is a human rights issue?" you could get a few different responses:

  1. You will have blown her mind, as she did not really consider that. The situation is now up for debate. That's what those pro-lifers were saying the whole time?

  2. She will provide an argument.

I predict that most "human rights issue, not a political issue" types would just stare at you and say "wow I can't even."

In 2014 or so I saw a silly Facebook video from some low-tier rag (I think it was called NowThis -- I think they're still around but they no longer put out low effort CW) praising the "hella diverse" cast of some sports team or something -- it was all black women. That was probably the first time I noticed "Diversity" was one of one of those words.

If the legacy of slavery etc. really is as damaging as claimed, then the focus on the blacks over the browns, reds, and yellows makes sense. It doesn't explain the focus on women, gays, and trans though.

For the longest time in Early Access (see this video) the "Identity" slider was simply called "Appearance." It apparently didn't use the term man, or male. People on the forums gave feedback during early access that it should be more woke, although I don't remember what the exact verbiage in the requests were: It could have been to use the words man or woman, or it could have been to add a pronoun slider, or it could have been to add a gender option.

When I booted the game up for the first time at launch, I did chuckle a little at the appearance slider being renamed "identity." It seemed like the least-development cost to satisfy an argument over words, that has no substance. Upon further reflection, BG's implementation of identity is probably the most woke-respecting it could be. Your, and my, initial response most likely reflects an inability to empathize with our opponents.

If I was given the task of changing the Early Access iteration to satisfy the feedback, I probably would have added a separate slider for identity or pronouns, because it fits (1) my model of reality and what I think is true, and (2) my model of gender ideology and what it thinks is true.

  1. I think biology is real, and pervasive. I would have kept a slider that determines physical aspects of the character, because in real life, things like bone structure, voice, muscles, and height tend to cluster.
  2. I think wokeness talks about a gendered soul. I would have added a pronoun slider or something. It would be an additional fact about a person to appease the feedback.

In my character creator, it would be feasible to create the woman from a post I made awhile back (A post I don't think many people understood?).

On the other hand, BG's character creator is pretty woke-respecting. All features of a person are uncorrelated with their identity: you can mix and match voices, looks, and genitals. If anything, the genital slider, being at the bottom of the appearance section, serves as a biological sex slider, an "additional fact" about a person that is basically inconsequential save for the intimate cutscenes.

To be honest though, one of the most woke things I hate in modern videogame character design is what I'll call the "boring and conformist way of creating exciting and nonconformist characters." This could probably warrant its own top-level post. Like Admiral Holdo from Star Wars, almost the entire cast of hero-shooters like Overwatch, Apex Legends, and Valorant feature quirky appearances that look straight out of well, the 2020s. There is an overuse of dyed hair and modern body jewelry. I suspect this is because the person who used to dress that way in high school - or whose theatre-kid friends did - became a journalist that complains about representation.

If 5e was actually transhuman escapism like some posters here claim, shouldn't there be some options like charmed limb prosthetics held together by magic?

Expanding on how incels are progressive near-group, with anecdotes: Most progressive women I know have been bitching about incels (while not calling them incels) since before the term incel became mainstream. I think another poster probably hit the nail on the head, that incels are a certain kind of failure-mode of trying to internalize the numale role. The exact details I'm unsure about. It's possible incels have some combination of bad looks, poor social skills or risk-aversion that sets them up for failure. Or they're just not getting the joke.

I challenge that incels are unique in applying woke ideas to romantic relationships. I think the trans movement is already leaning that way. For more anecdotes, some of my friends who are most seeped in trans-apologetics unironically say things like, "not dating a trans person is transphobic," and "trans people are some of the most transphobic groups out there." See also: canceling of Super Straight.

I think the simplest explanation is that incel beliefs come out to reducing the status of women and increasing the status of men. Textbook anti-feminism.

Other commenters here have already pointed out the angle that epithets can be what you say to someone when you just want to hurt them, and that shouldn't be considered racism proper.

There seems to be some slight disagreement over that. It appears some won't settle for stamping out prejudice, and want a world where racial epithets are a line that can't be crossed.

The differing perspectives over this point lend evidence to an idea I've expressed before, which is a fundamental disagreement over the sacredness of race and racism. This also explains other social rules, like why certain off-color jokes about racism are wrong, even if the joke itself is not prejudicial and actually mocks racists. Racism is Not a Laughing Matter.

What does it mean for them to succeed? People say that a lot of the draw of twitter is that it lets the common person talk with celebrities. If enough of a coordinated media effort happened like, the kayfabe will definitely look as if Buzz Buzz won, and there will be a bunch of the usual suspects declaring victory over racism.

Even if Buzzbuzz amassed only one-tenth the users of twitter (in real people, not bots), who's won? Keep in mind that knowing the true statistics and trying to publish them would probably be hatefacts. How would normies learn the user statistics? There are a lot of people who think /r/The_Donald's subscriber and active user counts were throttled and generally subreddit population numbers were astroturfed back then. These people also anticipate that Buzzbuzz's user counts would be inflated.

In short, wouldn't a world where barely anyone migrated to BuzzBuzz look very similar to a world where most people did?

Maybe I'm just a cynical biased culture warrior, but Elon's acquisition doesn't seem like it changes any culture- or Truth- producing institutions, so does it really matter which social media sites have more active users?

So I looked through the thread and I can't really find what's so crazy about this.

They took a creepy image and combined it with all sorts of random stuff, and then out come more creepy images? That doesn't sound noteworthy.

The twitter OP emphasizes in the replies that the noteworthy thing is that the derivative images seem to conjure gore and body horror. The original creepy image is merely creepy and doesn't have any gore or body horror. This isn't that noteworthy if the training associates gore and body horror with the generally demonic looking eyes and the raw wounded-looking skin that are already in the source Loab.

Since Loab was discovered using negative prompt weights, her gestalt is made from a collection of traits that are equally far away from something. But her combined traits are still a cohesive concept for the AI, and almost all descendent images contain a recognizable Loab.

It seems the researchers did negative(negative("Brando")) to get the original creepy image. I would be more impressed if negative(negative(X)) generated a Loab for many X, including things not anthropomorphic. Or am I misunderstanding something?

As others have said, vaping is a gateway drug. Which is to say, it has drug vibes, or is a drug-thing to do. So naturally most parents want to keep their children and teens away from that as much as possible. Arguments from cost, smell, or health issues seem like rationalizations to me.

Speaking as someone who (I think) feels similarly as OP, it's purely about principle. Family should be beyond reproach, as he wrote. In a hypothetical universe where I didn't get vaccinated, it should still be beyond reproach. I hope I'd have the courage to spew this kind of bile in real life if the old, tired topic of covid ever comes up in meatspace. I'd know my success when my friends reply to my rant: "wait, aren't you vaccinated though?"

Yes, and?

The reason rape is worse than murder is because a women's value in society is her body. When feminists say, "a woman is worth more than her body" they are speaking normatively, or more accurately, saying "a woman ought to be worth more than her body." Undoubtedly, feminists will deny this, and say that no, they really mean a descriptive to be. "Rape is about power" therefore asserts the worth women.

When opponents of sexual redistribution say "sex is not a commodity" they are also speaking normatively. They will deny this, but prostitution's position as the oldest profession implies that descriptively speaking, sex simply is a commodity. Women intuitively understand the value of their sex appeal, as any cursory glance at social media reveals. I also have funny anecdotes of female friends volunteering egregious details of their sex lives (apparently women talk to each other about this) and once she figured out I wasn't gay, she was imminently disgusted at me. The implication here is that since I enjoyed hearing it, I was being a free-rider.

"Men undergo some experience and feel raped" is just about the most pathetic anecdote ever, so I might as well go all in and give an example of that, too. One time I gave money to a panhandler and I felt unsafe. It's unclear to me if feeling unsafe was important to my overall vibe, but it bared remarkable correspondence to a drunk college girl:

  • he didn't use force

  • I regretted my actions afterwards

  • I felt like a chump

I think the last bullet point here is very important to "the feeling of being raped." What's extra funny is already having crystalized these beliefs, I came across this clip (Did you know Chris Hansen had another show about catching a different kind of criminal?), so clearly jaded men like me aren't the only ones trivializing rape. (To those not aware of the context: the woman was a victim of identity theft and lost a lot of money).

To recap, if rape is about sex then an uncomfortable truth would come to light: that a woman's value is her body.

You're missing a key piece of the puzzle, which is that people who complain about and criticize women online are called incels. This includes well-adjusted, married conservative men on twitter. "Incel" does not really mean something about being alone, it really does mean immoral anti-feminist.

Based on my anecdotal experience of people wanting to learn programming from me, the only reason a person can't code is because they aren't motivated. I know lots of people who like the idea of coding, or like the salary of it, but they don't like coding. Most good programmers I know like it. There are things I like the idea of, or like the rewards of, but I don't like the activity of it (social games/PUA), so I stay bad at them.

I think that's way more important than the choice between games or formal whatever theory.

In the past, if these hobbies were niche enough then the reviewers were hobbyists. Now, reviewers are journalists. A journalist's hobby is more like writing, and less about the domain one is writing about. (Compare: a programmer who wants to program something, but doesn't have enough domain knowledge to make a useful program). You can tell from all the articles that are vaguely game-related but the game is a backdrop for the article's actual thesis. Or, lots of "game reviews" that have flowery language that you can tell it's written by a communications major.

On the other hand, the game journalism I consume the most is for one game, by some guy, who actually plays the game. The content is brief, detailed, and the interpretation and analysis passes all smell tests. It's clear that they aren't just trying to fill some word quota for money.

long and pernicious history as a signal of impending violence

While tiki torches don't have a long history at all of being associated with the altright, I am pretty sure Charlottesville started that association. I've met people in real life mention tiki torches as if they automatically imply someone is altright, and have heard someone say, "now I can't use tiki torches anymore."

If tiki torches are a shibboleth for the outgroup, and the law is just a tool to beat them, then who's to say the tiki torch doesn't have a long pernicious history of a signal for violence? Was there any principle behind the "cross burning has a long history" here? Wasn't it just, "cross-burning is a low-status racist thing, so sure let's punish them."

I doubt someone went through various occupations. I think the occupation being journalists is definitely part of the rage. If the statistic was over an increase in number of woman welders who died, that wouldn't spark the same response in the intended audience.

The tweet is a little confusing though, because these small percents really highlight how many of the killed journalists were men, so I'm not sure most people who see this will feel outraged at the dead journalists.

E: cursory glance at comments shows yes most people are a little annoyed it is about women, as opposed to just journalists. If this was crafted bait, it specifically was crafted to have a very slanted gender ratio. If nothing else, this is an effective way to talk about the number of journalists killed.

I immediately thought it was fake because it's structured way too closely to a female experience, which is to become hot and suddenly get a lot more matches - too many to manage. This is probably bait to get people thinking about double standards. Of course, there is no believable male analog to that experience.