RenOS
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User ID: 2051
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
Based on reviews I've seen Good Fortune is also very tired anti-capitalist drivel, and I'd wager the kind of person still going to movies is not exactly receptive to that. But simultaneously that is a tried & trusted approach to rehabilitation in leftist circles, so even a bomb might still be worth it for him.
I mostly agree in theory, but as far as I can see, this being applied in a rather one-sided manner has serious real-world consequences that can't be overlooked. In many parliamentary democracies, the moderate right refuses to work with the far-right, while the moderate left happily works together with the far-left, which means there is a strong bias in favor of the far-left of getting their way. Germany is the most extreme example here, as the moderate right has boxed itself into a corner of now only being able to coalition with left-wing parties. Only a fool would think this has no practical impact on politics, and indeed, the CDU was forced to put extremely stupid far-left green current-day demands into the german constitution just to avoid working together with the far-right.
The same happens with violent protests ; Several dozen organized, masked left-wing extremists can storm a moderate right (CDU) office, threaten staff and trash furniture and it will not even go into political violence stats since it gets recorded as a "protest". The moderate politician has to fear violent altercations with the left if he speaks or votes the wrong way. Again, this has practical impacts on political outcomes.
The same, again, in science, my own field of employment; Far-left activist-scholars (their own moniker!) get to openly admit that they consider their political views as more important than there scientific integrity, can openly involve themselves in blatant witch hunts, and there will be not only no repercussions, but they will be, if anything, rewarded with government money. On the other hand, a politically unaffiliated researcher who gets unfortunate results (by left-wing views, that is) in a study but stands by them due to the methodological strength of the design risks his whole career, and other moderate scientists around him are pressured to denounce him as far-right lest they get the same fate. That this is possible is a direct result of genuine right-wingers having been stringently excluded much earlier - not only would they have the moderate's back on this topic, it also means that the demand for right-wing extremism exceeds supply, so you have to start to cancel moderates to keep the far-left happy.
And I can only repeat it, I don't even consider myself right-wing. All I want is being able to do independent research(in my employment) or common-sense governance (in politics), and the far-left is fucking scary, has actual positions of power and can openly do what it wants with little fear of reprisal. The far-right is a bunch of truckers or anons that have to keep their head down lest it gets chopped.
This is the reason why Trump got elected, and why the Afd in germany is literally the largest party.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
Yeah, as said it was more a random idea I had in the moment; I wouldn't expect it to work, and asked more for the purpose of finding out why it is wrong.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
Maybe healthcare just is a cursed industry.
Unfortunately, it is. High intrinsic costs, high legal costs, usually limited pool of customers. Afaik biomedical startups have the highest failure rates among all categories.
A group chat of your friends is leaked. The text:
A: I'll vote for the leftmost candidate
B: Great. I love Stalin
Would you consider calling B "a leftwing extremist praising Stalin" a fair reading?
One thought that has just now come to me - how realistic would you consider it to unify only peaceful settlements of west bank palestinians into the israeli state? I've heard relatively little about west bank terrorism during the last war, and Hamas is not nearly as strong there, so there should be a decent number.
My pro-palestinian left-wing friends/acquintances think that the only solution to the current situation is one-state, with full legal rights to all palestinians. According to them, the palestinian hatred is purely due to the oppression suffered by the Israeli, and the violence will vanish if they are granted full rights. To me, that is pure insanity - at the very least Hamas has always been very clear that at the very least they want to throw out or subjugate the jews, they enjoy broad support by the palestinian populace and obviously they are the de-facto ruling party. The most likely outcome of unification is Hamas ruling all of Israel/Palestina, with the obvious repercussion for the jews.
But this doesn't apply if you only give rights to certain communities that have been peaceful, and would send a strong signal - peace, and you can become a citizen, terrorism, and you get to live among debris. Though, I guess the left would just frame it as evil annexation, so there's that.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
My primary issue is that I have yet to see a left-leaning person espouse a position in favor of immigration restrictions that actually work, in any country. The mention of e-verify by left-leaning posters is a good example here; Going specifically after the working illegals is the stupidest option possible, and would result in not only still having the illegals in the country, but now they can't earn anything except through crime or charity. You can't imagine an approach better optimized to cause a surge in crime and welfare abuse, and I'm 100% sure that the left would have made fun of the right if they actually had done it that way around. This is pretty much the situation in germany right now, btw. I mostly consider myself in the center, and all I want is a working border enforcement and the deportation of immigrants who aren't working after several years of being here. But no matter what the right tries, the left will even make a mockery of it and blatantly work around it (like "help navigating how to get access to the german welfare system" by telling people who are currently in poland how to get past german checkpoints) and if not successful, they will complain until the right stops whatever it is that is actually working. I can see how, to a genuine right-winger, this will translate into "If the left complains, that means we are doing something right; the harder, the better". I'm still sufficiently worried about right-wing dysfunction to really be in favour, but the ICE situation seems like the logical endpoint of this game.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
He thinks he has left the faith, but he still sounds like a Witness.
I almost want to say that parents SHOULD tell their children that Santa is real. That way they learn very quickly in life that everyone will lie to them without hesitation for the most trivial of reasons.
yes_chad.jpg
I literally don't know a single kid who had the problems he had with it, and I strongly suspect his JW upbringing has to do with it (and/or autistic inclinations unsurprisingly inherited from his parents). Not saying there are none otherwise, but it's just extremely rare. The average kid play-pretends a lot naturally already, and they instinctively pick up on Santa being somewhere in the same area, but they're not sure. Then as they get older they notice further facts solidifying that impression, and maybe have a short, smug santa-isn't-real phase, but they quickly join in again on the play-acting ... because it's fun. The "santa-lie" is a great way to indirectly teach kids how to distinguish between truth and fantasy, and the fact that ultimately this is something you can only ever do yourself, for yourself.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
I'll just quote myself here:
It's called ethnic spoils for a reason. It doesn't matter much whether the different ethnicities have immigrated recently or have been there for generations.
Foreign-born is generally one of the worst categories you can possibly look at, because it mixes vastly different groups together as if they are mostly interchangeable. Ethnic spoils systems also don't depend on trust/solidarity, it's quite the opposite; Because trust is so low, nobody believes any other group to actually do merit-based allocations, and without trust, allocating by quota is usually the only kind-of-fair system that everyone can agree on.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
I've never really found this complaint really compelling. In fact, I'll top it: You can beat most parts of all DS games by summoning another (often ridiculously overlevelled) player and letting them do everything for you. You don't even need to know anything.
DS is imo very clearly, very deliberately designed to accommodate large differences in player skill without resorting to outright different difficulty levels. That's also the reason why I usually say that DS games are better grouped as high casual, but not quite hardcore.
In fact, arguably much of the games' difficulty is rooted in the fact that players don't know how the games work.
That's mostly an inversion of reality in practice; Plenty of bad players who don't know how the game works follow some online guide for an OP build to do exactly the stuff you're complaining about. Better players deliberately avoid the OP things bc they don't need it and just do a run with some weapon/spells they like. Even better players deliberately use gimmick gear (not me, sadly) or other limitations.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
I have no objections to looking at only the murder rate - but that doesn't actually change anything, just check out the demographics.
It's called ethnic spoils for a reason. It doesn't matter much whether the different ethnicities have immigrated recently or have been there for generations.
Just purview the list of US cities by crime rate, sort by total crime and check out the highest vs the lowest total violent crime rate cities. It's hard to miss the fact that the demographics are, with only a few exceptions, dramatically different. For example, among the lowest five, 4 have (asians + white) > 75%, while among the highest five, all have (asians + whites) < 50%. The difference for the black population is, of course, especially extreme. Hispanics is also quite noticable.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
In general humans have exterminated, bred & moved very many species throughout history. All to considerable benefit with virtually no ill effect for humans. Most talk about the dangers of loss of diversity are scaremongering nonsense. We could probably even wipe out all mosquitos, and as a result other insects would simply take over its niche. Nature is quite adaptive and there are many overlapping niche species.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
AFAIK the degree of warming usually expected to stop AMOC is generally on the same degree or even higher than the cooling expected to result from the stop, so it mostly comes out as a wash except for slightly more winter extremes, but which are still limited to ca -10 °C. In general also, higher co2 + higher temperatures also mean plants grow better, (which we can already see with current levels) so I don't think starving will be a particular issue.
As someone living in northern germany, I'd certainly welcome a bit more snow in winter!
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
FWIW, several of my friends who don't plan on having kids explicitly state that part of the reason is that they will have more money for retirement. From a personal view this is sensible, from a societies' view it's pure insanity, and a point in Soterologian's favor, even if it's far from the only reason people have no kids.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
While I agree with Tractatus' reply as well, I've also had a recent post on a very related topic, namely the dissolution of marriage. Social changes are rarely actually instant; They are spreading & compounding. Just because something became legal, doesn't mean that everyone is doing it. Usually it's only a small community really taking advantage of the most recent change, while the majority just mostly carries on with what they grew up with, unless they have a very good reason.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
Oh, I know, that's the joke/point : This is specifically eastern orthodox, not christianity in general. Neither the catholics nor mainline protestant churches I'm aware of would sign off that statement. If anything, they'd consider it a dramatic misunderstanding, not just a minor point of contention.
RenOS
something is wrong
1mo ago
The point of Christianity is to become like God. "God became man so that man could become God."
That sounds like a heresy, mate. Better let a specialist check it out. There are catholic priests in your vicinity.
RenOS
something is wrong
2mo ago
Sorry for what you had to go through.
First, I want to point out that you never got to see actual conservatism. I know, I know, no true scotsman and all that, but imo one of the most fundamental hallmarks of conservatism is stability and long-term connection to a local community. Your family - in particular your father - seems outright incapable of that. I've had discussions with friends who've had a similarly bad time with their allegedly conservative families, and I had to point out repeatedly to them that their families basically broke all rules you can possibly imagine for conservatives (the very basics, stuff like "don't have three kids from three fathers while being an unemployed single mom"). Conservatism is when both your parents are regularly employed, stay together and don't sleep around, have a decent number of friends (who all life a broadly conservative life), have positions in various local communities, they have a fixed lifestyle that is not substantially changed from their own parents (and their grandparents, and wider family, and so on), they also just simply know lots of people in their environment and are on amicable terms with them, etc. Not necessarily all of those, but most.
I know especially those from difficult backgrounds think this is just make-belief idealised conservatism that doesn't exist in the real world, but it's how I grew up. It exists, you just have to find it, there are whole towns like this. Ironically, this is also why I consider a large part of the mainstream left fundamentally conservative, as much as they hate that term, so YMMV. But contrariwise that also means that as long as you avoid outright woke groups, even many superficially left-wing groups will include lots of women with nice, conservative relationship views (even if they may not admit that to themselves).
So I'd say simple local connections is where you should start. Find local activities and groups that are at least roughly sex-balanced (ideally more woman then men!), intrinsically require human interaction and just do stuff. Dancing is the simplest. But there is so much more; Grow something and sell it on a farmers market (even the growing part can be done in a group). Help out in a local charity. Organize local festivals, and also, simply party there. Language/ethnic affinity groups. Maybe your work has some afternoon activities. The list is endless. You can even just start now shopping around for roommates - you have lots of time after all - and jump-start a social life from there once you've found some good people.
The important part is that you just join various stuff that exists already and try what suits you and has a nice culture. You will have to leave your comfort zone. You will find groups with an odd, toxic culture. Don't get stuck in the wrong place, and also don't let yourself be ruled by your inhibitions. Also, unless you're already very social, don't try to start things yourself.
Once you have a bit more of a social life, finding the right partner will be easier. I'd also advice you to not be particularly choosy, and DEFINITELY don't do that cheesy "oh I'm so damaged and I don't want to hurt you you're just too good for me" routine if you find a nice girl.
RenOS
something is wrong
2mo ago
I've noticed a while ago that a disproportionate number of my posts have exactly a single -1 , and then whatever number of upvotes, except a small number of posts with zero downvotes and another small number of posts with higher numbers of downvotes (which are usually noticeably more controversial). At the time, I checked out some other posts and noticed a similar pattern. It seems likely to me that there was some kind of downvoting bot/person, but just one. However, looking at posts now the distribution actually seems more natural; Lots of 0 downvotes, a few -1 downvotes, even fewer -X. So maybe it was a fluke, maybe the bot got banned, hard to tell.
RenOS
something is wrong
2mo ago
Look, science has flaws, but it works, damn it!
As another scientist, the problem is that it has been working less and less well, with ballooning costs to boot (especially including the entirety of university funding).
On the teaching side, I've been now long enough part of academia, and have seen it from both the student and the teaching side, over more than a decade now, and it's obvious that the standards just keep going down and down. Professors openly admitting that they let everyone pass in the oral exam anyway, so why even bother making the written exam hard? Students just whining until they get their way, and the administration takes their side. Entire new courses with even lower standards are created, lest the "Nursing Sciences" may feel disadvantaged by the mean old boys club of math and statistics.
On the research side, it becomes harder and harder to even try to conduct neutral investigations. Everything that can possibly be judged politically has to either directly include assurances that you're a good person with good politics, or you have to live in fear that activist-scholars will go after you. Jesse Singal has examples that are close to the platonic ideal of course, but you're extremely mistaken if you think this just limited to specific topics.
I'm working in genetics, and it often feels like almost everything about it is politisized. IVF and embryo selection have always been opposed by the conservatives of course, but nowadays the left will be much more dangerous to your work. A colleague of mine works on a certain kind of serious, inheritable and debilitating diseases. She is being pressured by left-wing activist-scholars from the humanities to drop the topic since exploring the genetic background assumes these diseases are bad - which is ablism - , the money ought to instead go straight to left-wing support structures. Nevermind that most of the patients themselves hate the disease and are thankful for any attempt of fixing, even if only available for their kids. Do you think they get in trouble for this egregious breach of scientific conduct? Of course not, they get support from the administrative and cheers from the media. One of my PhD students is an Egyptian curious about his heritage, and we are investigating what the genetic differences we found functionally do. But even here we have to walk on eggshells since implying that different groups from different places with different conditions might be genetically different in meaningful, functional ways is a big no-no. Well, only for humans, for any other animal it's perfectly obvious and only a creationist would disagree.
And apart from the science itself, the AA hiring is also madness. I personally know not just one, but two cases of a female professor getting their position with just a single publication. I haven't had to work with them myself, but everyone who did has told me that they have been wildly out of their depth and very difficult to work with. Committees that make lists by publications and other measures of competence, and end up taking number ... eight because that's the first one that fulfils whatever quota currently in need of filling.
This is not mild productivity decreasing, these are the big dangers that have been bogging down science for decades. For a different field, just look at the nuclear renaissance going on in certain countries right now; we could have had that in the 90s for the entire world, but fearmongering and green extremism has thrown us back so, so far. Instead, we ideologically wasted so much on trying to turn solar and wind into essential generators through complicated battery schemes, while they are much better suited to simply being supporting energy generators for specific times & places. Michael Magoon has a whole slew of good articles for lay audiences on the topic, but the basic economic case is currently being proven by demonstration in my own home country, germany, which has managed to utterly ruin its own energy production through ideological mismanagement. Even just keeping the old nuclear reactors would have been better than the insanity we've went through. We didn't just move more slowly; We actively moved backwards, and are now depended on the countries around us who invested correctly.
The only part I agree on is that I do not like Trump and don't think he is likely to really fix things. But I also do not trust academia to fix itself. If anything, I expect it to get worse.
The movie obviously seems bad, but I'll be devil's advocate and take the opposite position on the book.
While the politics of the plot setting may be purposefully superficially vague, it imo portrays a failure mode that only really make sense from a far-right PoV.
Basically, a theoretically ideal state, on an abstract level, does a simple thing: It sacrifices the less important things, to give everyone as much of the important things as possible. The details depend on the environment; If gangs are murdering and oppressing common people, you sacrifice significant freedom to get the situation under control so that most may be free from the gangs at least; If the murder rate and crime rate is already very low, contrariwise that's a reasonable price for greater freedom. And so on. The by far most common fail state is then simple: "Promise everyone everything without sacrifice, then blame subversion when it inevitably comes crashing down". Who is blamed again depends on the situation and the ideology of the government. The auth-left is pretty much the purest form of this failure mode, always blaming insufficient dedication to the cause and/or wreckers for absolutely everything. But there is also a rarer fail state, which is this: "The situation is so dire, we have to sacrifice everything just to survive." Historically this was even true for significant amounts of times. But it can be taken advantage of, since if even progress is sacrificed, the ruling class can stay in power indefinitely. The auth-right is the purest form of this failure mode, outright fetishizing "blood, sweat and tears". The game as described in the book fits only with the latter. The former may gleefully do something similar to alleged conspirators against the cause, but it would still frame it very differently.
This also makes sense given King's politics; He has to my knowledge never strayed far from left-wing orthodoxy in his stated politics, and I have read many of his books, and his left-leaning worldview shines through these works, even if he often attempts them to be superficially non-political.
RenOS
something is wrong
2mo ago
Born rural low/middle class. Parents are mailman and daycare worker, in a time/place when those were perfectly fine jobs to hold long-term and could afford you a house & kids. From my father's side, my ancestors all seem to be lower class employed menial workers, while my mother's side were farmers (though lost/abandoned the automation/upscaling race) and upper middle class artisanal workers owning their own store. Fittingly, one maternal uncle gifted me a book recording the lives of several generations of my maternal heritage, while my paternal side has maybe a few old fotos where my dad knows the names of most but not all people.
On paper I've moved upwards substantially - my parents didn't finish high school (and older generations barely even did elementary), while I'm a postdoc researcher at a reasonably prestigious but small university, and my wife is as well. Most would consider that upper middle class. But especially compared to my mother's ancestry, it does seem like a move downward in practice. We don't own anything (not our apartment, certainly not our work place) and nor do we even earn that well. Maybe we'll cobble together enough to buy our own house. Though yet otherwise, we personally know world-leaders in certain fields, so I guess you could say we are effectively just paying for the privilege of having a serious shot at the very top.
Sorry for the late reply. I understand where you're coming from, but I find your perspective a bit one-sided. On many of these, the DS devs (and many players) simply have a different view, and they would be less happy with the game you would design. Which is fine - imo games, like most art, should be designed first and foremost to your own vision, with as little accommodation to others as possible. But it wouldn't be, strictly speaking, an improvement.
"Increase damage inflicted at the cost of increased damage taken" is a common design choice in DS games. As you say, these actually mostly make the game harder, but they allow you to do content faster if you're good enough. It's intended as a reward for skill, as I see it.
DS already has pretty minor penalties for dying unless you're really careless. Again, rune arcs are a reward for skill.
That would be pointless, you might as well just increase player health if the potion is instant anyway. And since increasing boss hp is one of the most awful ways of increasing difficulty, the logical next step is to remove that extra player HP AND the extra boss hp to make the game more fun again.
Also, potion usage is a skill test, yes, but a fairly minor one. Generally speaking once you've passed beginner level in skill, potions are imo fairly satisfying: You get hit often enough to need them, you are good enough at timing to usually be capable of using them, but it's always risky enough to keep you on edge, and it's definitely better not getting hit in the first place. It incentives you to git (even more) gud. At the highest skill lvl, you'd just convert all flasks to mana, which can be viewed as another reward for the skill of not being hit.
Overall, imo you need everything in a good game: Some items/mechanics directly help bad players. Some are low lvl or medium lvl skill test, encouraging you to get better, but once you can reliably pass that threshold, they help you clear higher-lvl challenges. Some are just pure rewards for good play and outright require high-lvl skill to use, but allow feats not otherwise possible. Some are memes that actively gimp you, so that simply using them serves as a way of showing off your skill.
In general, I also like the DS aesthetic choice of being able to simply take a short look at another player, and I can usually tell quite reliably whether they're a complete noob, a loser, a tryhard, a "simple" good player, or a total monstrosity.
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