QuinoaHawkDude
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User ID: 1789
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
I know good, pro-social, well-regulated people. I know crappy, anti-social, disordered people. I know devout religious people (mainly Christian), and I know totally secular atheists. I have yet to notice a strong correlation on the scatterplot of those two axes.
I would add that it's not like secular atheists don't have external regulatory systems, it's just more "I'm not going to do this thing that I might want to do otherwise because all of the people I know and like will think I'm a bad person for doing it" than "God will send me to hell if I do this thing".
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
If the protester was predominantly agreed to be righteous, the protest would be unnecessary; the contra-factual target(s) and/or their society(s) would already be trying to carry out the protester's desires.
In general, I can agree that somebody is right about an issue without approving of their tactics in trying to convince others.
More specifically, I can agree that my wife is correct that we need to replace the carpets, and still be annoyed if she slashes my car's tires every morning before I leave for work until I agree to call the carpet store immediately.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
I took care of my parents' cat at my house once and he basically did the same thing for the first week. He eventually came out of hiding. I'd say give it time.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
Before I moved to a state with universal vote-by-mail, I pretty much only ever voted in Presidential and (maybe) midterm elections. Since moving, I've voted in every single election I get a ballot for. Being able to vote by mail, without having to ask for the privilege, removes a lot of friction from the voting process. You might say it's not that big of a deal to go vote in person, but where I was living, even if I did early voting it was going to mean about an hour standing in line (either because I got there way before the polling location opened to be first in line, or because I didn't do that and had to queue behind everybody else who did).
For those concerned about fraud, it's perhaps worth noting that I was kind of casual about my signature on a recent ballot, and my ballot got challenged because the signature didn't match my driver's license signature, and I had to go re-sign in person.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
I've heard an alternative take, which is: "Democracy is how we get different groups of people with widely-varying value systems to live in the same place without violent conflict." It's like, every N years, we have a mini civil war, except instead of actually shooting/stabbing/punching each other, we just line up everybody's troops on opposite sides of the battlefield, and whoever brings the biggest army wins, and we all agree to go home without bloodshed until the next regularly-scheduled civil war.
One can argue that there's no point in including people who are indifferent to politics in this process, because they're not the ones likely to start an actual war over anything.
On the other hand, one can argue that if we did make everybody show up, the issues being discussed would be more mainstream and less fringe. Wedge issues like trans rights, gun control, and abortion might be much less salient.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
I recently saw a comment on a video going over the latest scary "any amount of alcohol is bad for you" research that said "it's funny how alcohol is the only drug that people have to justify NOT using". Not that I think that's what you're trying to do here, as you said, you're just curious. At the end of the day, however, I'd just take the win and be happy that you don't enjoy something that's bad for you, no matter how many other people love it.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
48 hours to destroy your career.
Both West and Adams were already skating on thin ice with large targets painted on their backs, to mix metaphors, before the final incidents which completed their "cancellation". I work in tech and it's been at least five years since anybody felt comfortable sharing a Dilbert cartoon due to his outspoken support for Trump. Ye has been saying controversial shit for about as long.
I'm pretty sure every newspaper and publisher that was still carrying Dilbert or other Adams products were just waiting for him to say something bad enough to give them an ironclad excuse to drop him.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
Yet our society does treat these behaviors as being "choices" and hold the people carrying these out as agents responsible for the consequences of these "choices."
Actually, I've recently noticed that whenever a mass shooting occurs, very little time is spent blaming the shooter, and much more ink and airtime is spent on blaming guns, gun stores, gun manufacturers, toxic masculinity, racism, sexism, inadequate mental health care, inadequate school security, cowardly cops that refuse to attempt to intervene, etc., etc., etc.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
but then the median viewer's going to be muttering at her TV something along the lines of "Oi wot's all this shite made outta rattlesnake meat, I 'fort it's Mexican week? Where's the bloody tacos?"
I really don't know what GBBO viewership demographics are like in the UK. However, the way you phrased and spelled your imaginary median viewer's quote implies that they would be lower class British, the equivalent of a southern/hick/redneck accent in the US. And as a American fan of The Great British Baking Show, I can confidently say that the American fanbase is solidly Blue Tribe, educated, urban, PMC, etc. And I certainly don't react that way ("Yo, I thought this was supposed to be British, where's the steak and kidney pie?") whenever they pull out some obscure European cake or bread or pudding I've never heard of for a technical challenge. I Google it and go "huh, that's interesting". I agree that GBBO/S doesn't have a requirement to teach anybody anything, but one of the reasons I do enjoy it is the opportunity to learn about baked goods I'm unfamiliar with.
For what it's worth, the only commentary I've seen on Mexican week online was a bunch of TikTok videos making fun of Brits inability to pronounce "avocado" and "guacamole".
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
Consider this analogy: laws mandating wearing of seatbelts in cars don't prevent 100% of automotive fatalities. Sometimes this is because people aren't wearing their seatbelts properly. Sometimes this is because people just ignore the law and don't wear them. Sometimes this is because the specific type of accident caused trauma that seatbelts can't mitigate.
Would you therefore conclude "seatbelt mandates don't work"? Would you think it reasonable for the highway department (or whomever) to stop encouraging the wearing of seatbelts because they're not 100% effective?
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
While the orgasm gap definitely goes a long way to explaining why women are less radically DTF than men, I think that male sexual desire is also more complicated than "I am having sex and sex is awesome." Yassine put it well in the latest Bailey podcast when he said that the straight male desire for sex is mostly about status. Men want to have sex with the most physically attractive woman they can find willing to have sex with them, because of the status/ego boost. "She's so hot, she could bang literally any guy she wants, and she chose to bang ME!" This explains the disconnect in some of the other discussions in this thread around "incels should stop complaining about how hard it is to get laid, it's really not that hard, all you have to do is X" where X is a list of things like going to bars all the time, learning how to chat up women, learn how to dress better, etc. And at that point it starts to sound like a lot of work. And if you have to put a lot of work into getting laid, suddenly it's not such a status boost, is it? Now she's not banging me because she chose me out of all these other guys, she's banging me because I was the only guy who was willing to flatter her for long enough.
There's certainly an equivalent for straight women but it's the commitment after the sex that is important, not the sex itself. "He's so smart and successful, he could choose to commit to any chick he wants, and he's committing to me!" And I think "can't afford to be that profligate with their scarce reproductive resources" translates to "can't afford to hoe around too much or it will be impossible to get any high-status male to commit to me" in modern times.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
Fast forward through satanism, open findom relationships, antifa friends, trans rights and racist jokes, if you care about 'ethical consumerism' like is clearly done by Karl and friends, why should any right of center person support or tolerate someone like Karl?
Do you ever get upset when progressives refuse to tolerate somebody because they expressed right-of-center views that aren't central to what that person is primarily known for? Do you ever feel like, you know, it's kind of unfair for somebody who's really good at something like acting or writing or programming or making cool YouTube videos to suddenly have no platform to do those things because they said something completely unrelated to any of those things that progressives happened to disagree with? If so, then why would you think it's okay to do that when the shoe is on the other foot?
FWIW, I have enjoyed owning, shooting and maintaining guns for years, but I find it increasingly hard to enjoy the hobby as somebody who's culturally blue tribe because of exactly the attitude you just expressed, and the fear that in order to be a "gun guy" you also have to hate non-whites and LGBTQ people or you won't fit in.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
This isn't a response to urquan, but to the commenter they were replying to. I took particular issue with this line:
God has a plan for you, and you don't get to duck out of that plan just because you're feeling wretched.
If that's the answer a Christian would give in your friend's case, my response would be "then your God is an asshole, since his plan is apparently to cause a human being, and everybody who knows and loves them and has to watch, immense suffering as they waste away, for no good reason whatsoever."
I live with somebody who is slowly dying from a degenerative neurological condition. It is heartbreaking to see their life gradually, painfully and inevitably reduced to nothing. What's God's purpose in doing this? To teach me patience and compassion? Surely an omnipotent God could do that without destroying another human being in the process.
I know none of this is any new insight to the faithful, they've had to deal with arguments from unbelievers about why a just God would allow suffering to exists for as long as religion has existed.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
For what it's worth, I'm in my 40s and I'm just now becoming aware, sometimes, that the reason I think a woman is really pretty is because she's done a really good job with her makeup. Lot of obvious makeup is unattractive to me, but probably because I associate it with lower-class women. But no makeup is definitely less attractive than well-done subtle makeup. I think the same thing happens in reverse with more educated, higher-class women finding jacked guys in muscle shirts less attractive than a man who manages to signal strength/fitness and masculinity more subtly, but also don't find completely unfit, weak men attractive at all.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
If Twitter dies, it will simply leave a Twitter-shaped hole in the world, which will be quickly filled in by something else.
It's not like getting rid of Twitter will get rid of progressives that want to proselytize their values on the rest of the world, any more than getting rid of 4Chan or KiwiFarms magically causes edgy right-wingers to evaporate.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
Companies, brands and individuals can face substantial PR backlash when they charge a true market price for something in exceptionally high demand. For example, in your airline-and-hotel-prices-around-the-holidays example, it's possible that the airlines could charge even more of a premium for that Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving ticket than they do, but they figure the extra profit for one day isn't worth the negative publicity.
In Taylor Swift's case, I'm assuming that it's easier to let her fans be pissed off at scalpers than at her, if she was the one charging $20k or whatever for a ticket to one of her shows. She's already rich as Croesus and will make plenty of bank of this tour as it is. She probably craves public adoration more than money at this point.
As far as "why does much of the public feel strongly entitled to below-market pricing for certain luxury goods and services" goes, another commenter already pointed out that it's as simple as "I want this thing I can't afford so badly that I've convinced myself it's somehow an injustice that I'm not getting it". It's the same vibe you get from certain self-described incels when they're in "bailey" mode ("oh, why won't that beautiful girl who works out every day and spends an hour a night on her skin care routine date me even though I don't put any effort into my own physical appearance because that's for losers").
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
They need to withdraw active support and solidarity from the portions of their community that have adopted an unrepentant criminal lifestyle, the same way whites have done.
This is the key. I believe America will only be "post-racial" when we get to the point where, when a chronically disordered individual who happens to be black "fucks about and finds out" with the cops, the majority of black Americans who have jobs and no criminal record shrug and say "play stupid games, win stupid prizes", like I do when the same thing happens to some toothless, tatted up white meth addict. The fact that so many intelligent and educated black Americans continue to feel identification and kinship with thugs and knuckleheads simply because they share a skin color is baffling to me.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
Attempting to point out the hypocrisy of a social justice movement that simultaneously argues that a) it's horribly racist for white people to be frightened by black people on account of the actions of a very small subset of black people and b) it makes perfect sense for people to be frightened by guns on account of the actions of a very small subset of gun owners.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
Michael Malice's assertion seems to be true, that answering "are some people better than others" is the most precise way to distinguish right-wing from left-wing.
This is ironic given that it is mostly progressives that I see unironically declaring that so-and-so is a "terrible person" for having right-wing opinions, or is a "certified Good Person" (no shit, I saw somebody use that exact phrase and capitalization on social media recently) because they support LGBTQ folks.
What's probably more at the heart of right-wing vs. left-wing is the extent to which you think somebody's status as a better or worse person can be changed with the right (re)education.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
Sorry to bump an old thread; got here from the Quality Contributions roundup.
There was a discussion in the comments on this ACX post a few months back: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/why-is-the-central-valley-so-bad, or rather in the comments on the "Highlights from the comments on" followup post: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-the-3b1
The gist of the comment was that whenever you hear somebody talking about how they want to live in a city because of museums, or a symphony orchestra, or lots of rock concerts, etc., what they're really saying is "I want to live next to other smart, cultured, cool people like me". And what they hate about the suburbs isn't so much the lack of those cultural touchstones, as much as it is having to live next to people who are perfectly happy with just a house that has a yard and a garage and a grocery store and a few chain restaurants within an easy drive.
So, no, the "desirable amenities of cities" can't be had in small chunks, if the main desirable amenity you're looking for is to have neighbors you like, and if you're the kind of person who hates suburban normies.
By analogue: I (and my parents) overpaid for my college education, from a pure ROI perspective - I probably would be doing just as well in life if I went to a cheap state school instead of a fancy private college - but after the hell that was K-12 public education, I was desperate and determined to go to a college where I would be surrounded by other nerds, and willing to pay the freight. It wouldn't have been the same if I'd gone to a public university in the same city and occasionally took a bus over to the campus of the fancy private college to attend some free lectures.
So, I can be sympathetic to people who love living in cities (even if I don't understand them at all) but can't afford to. To a point. Prices are still the most efficient way we have of distributing scarce goods, and there is more demand to live in cities right now that there is available housing in those cities. If you can figure out a way to afford it, move to NYC or SFO and have fun. If you can't...well, I really want a Porsche Taycan, but I can't afford one, so....
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
How do you square this theory with the fact that many European countries have gone further with their progressive reforms along all of these dimensions (at least, that is my general impression - I'm not willing to claim expertise in every single EU member state's social policies and what it's like to live there, but I am willing to claim that most Americans perceive that European countries are both more progressive and less disordered than the US).
So, do European countries not have no-fault divorce? Do they not have lax drug policies or housing projects? Are the cops in London going around cracking rough sleepers over the head with their billy clubs and shipping them off to institutions? (I mention London specifically because the UK is the only European (kind of?) country I have any experience traveling in, and it's generally amazing to me how few "street people" you see in the cities. Most people I've talked to about this cite the stronger social safety net as being the reason.
As much as I instinctively would like more aggressive policing of vagrancy, vandalism, and property crime in American cities, I'm not sure it will solve the fundamental problem of too many people without jobs or other economic support. Given what it costs to actually arrest, jail, bring to trial, convict, and imprison somebody, it's simply not worth prosecuting most low-level property crime, even if it makes living in cities hell. Low-crime times and places seem more correlated with "enough jobs and housing to go around" than with "enough cops, courts and jails".
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
Not all (American) Christians are pro-life, but nearly all (American) pro-lifers are Christian. And if you're pro-choice, this gives you a reason to dislike Christianity. So while we can agree that Rationalism != EA, if EA starts getting bad press because of the FTX implosion, it will start giving non-Rationalists a reason to distrust Rationalism.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
From the stolen-election perspective, the end goal (thus the bailey) is "the election results do not represent a fair vote or a small-d democratic mandate."
If that's the bailey for "stolen elections" then every US presidental election ever has been stolen due to the electoral college.
QuinoaHawkDude
1yr ago
I do find it quite fascinating how the class-status-marker associations of outdoor sports like fishing and hunting, and rural living in general, are completely reversed in the UK compared to the USA.
I mean, just look at how different these two very similarly-named magazines are:
Country Life - UK-based lifestyle magazine for people who can afford two million pounds for a manor house, and vacation in the Maldives and Seychelles.
Country Living - USA-based lifestyle magazine for fans of Kelly Clarkson and decorating one's porch with gourds in the fall.
It's impossible to know for sure, but I think if President Kennedy hadn't been assassinated, the US would not have put men on the moon in the 1960s. Or 1970s. Perhaps not ever (so far).
Kennedy's martyrdom made the Apollo program a political third rail, so pretty much anybody with the potential power to cut its funding kept their mouth shut until the first successful landing. But nobody spends hundreds of billions of federal tax dollars without a lot of people wanting that money to be spent on something else that they think is more important.
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