RenOS
something is wrong
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User ID: 2051
RenOS
something is wrong
6mo ago
To be fair, women just generally avoid compliments on male looks unless they're already very much into the guy. It's just too risky. What you need to look out for is staring when they think you're not looking, giggling/sheepish smile when you look at them, etc. It's probably also mediated by cultural factors I can't judge too well for India, but in general I'd say being complimented on your looks as guy would require one to be a rather extreme outlier, and a specific kind of hotness to boot (basically bishounen).
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
I didn't mind books 1-2 dystopian dark comedy style at all - quite the opposite, that is one of my favorite settings. I think that all ultra-large/monopolist organizations can easily go down terrible paths, and that obviously includes megacorps. Even in book 3, it started to become obvious to me that the author really hates capitalism in general, but it was still somewhat easy to ignore. But in book 5 the core plot itself is very much about how amazing the feminist environmentalist communist etc. preservation alliance is, how everything bad in the world is because of evil profit-maximizing companies, and how SecUnit just has to join the Klassenkampf to bring forward the great revolution and everything will be great. Also, I'd say that SecUnit is if anything somewhat constrained, it's the humans from the alliance who are worst.
Also, the author herself is openly very far left and has in interviews quite clearly talked about the anti-capitalist messages in the murderbot series.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
I agree - but to them, the situation in Gaza was sufficiently bad that it doesn't count. It's just a fairly simplistic moralistic view that doesn't really account for agency on the alleged victims side or pragmatic solutions.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
The place where safetyist paperwork requirements have driven out the volunteers is youth activities. Lots of adults want to coach youth sports/lead Scout troops. Not that many want to fill out forms to prove they are not a paedophile.
Can confirm this. Though here it's more like a race to the safetyist bottom where everyone tries to be slightly more safetyist than everyone else on the logic that, if an injury happens (even if it the clearly was the kid's own damn fault, and it wasn't even that young), they can avoid blame by pointing to the fact that they've done everything they could. It's not helped by the fact that there have been some really silly lawsuit settlements the last few years.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
Reddit is certainly crazier, but among my university educated friends it's not rare at all to claim that the murderous hatred will vanish once the oppression is lifted and besides, it's exaggerated anyway. I usually don't prod further, but when I confronted a friend who is unusually tolerant of different opinions with well, imagine yourself to be an Israeli: What if you're wrong? What if you let them in, and the murderous hatred does not immediately vanish? He just retreated to the motte that Israels' behaviour is immoral either way. At least I could get him to agree that maybe a slower process that doesn't have catastrophical fail states is better.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
Didn't you get tired of the politics? The first two stories or so were okay, but at some point it became abundantly clear to me that it isn't just a dark satirical setting, the author genuinely just thinks that capitalism is that terrible, and that everything would be better in communist feminist utopia.
You look at pro-natalism from the PoV of an aristocrat (edit: not implying whether you yourself are one or not). I'm not an aristocrat; I want a pro-natalist vision for the general public. I'm already trying to live it, to some degree, and plan to carry on. Caplan's book gives off the impression that he does so, too, but in reality, he lives it in a way that is not generally attainable. He is not a good role model for such a vision. That is fine, I don't begrudge him his privilege in itself and I'm not at all against rich people having nannies. But it also means I have to look elsewhere, and I do dislike the wrong impression he gives.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
It seems this wasn't my best post. A lot of people concentrate on my negative sentiment towards Scott, which isn't that strong. It's particularly Caplan who comes off poorly, since he literally wrote a book on it. But it's my fault, I clearly wrote as if I judge them equally. And I don't really begrudge either their privilege in particular; That has never much been my thing.
But it's still fine, because it made me think again about what I am unhappy about. And that is the (lack of a) positive vision of a secular, sustainable, fertile future for the general public. I grew up conservative religious, and while it's still among the most fertile regions in germany, even there is now below replacement. And besides - no offense - while I'd love to be capable of believing, pretty much all spirituality strikes me as deeply silly at worst, and obvious motivated reasoning at best. If that is what is needed to get people to have kids, that's how it'll be. But I'd like for us to at least try.
Any social movement needs someone showing the way, not just pointing out the theory, but actually living it. In physics, "you haven't done any experimental verification" is a valid criticism, so it should be the same here.
And Caplan is not that. Yes he at least has kids, but the broader population can't just "hire more nannies". The greater family, or a teenager occasionally, or older siblings or a cleaning lady once a week. But it's striking that this isn't what comes to mind for Caplan; It's nannies, because he can easily afford them. And the family also isn't always regularly available in the modern mobile world. So we need a vision that can make do with the "nuclear family" + occasional minor helpers. Without ruining your work prospects. So who does this leave us with? @ProfQuirrell ? Certainly not Elon, as much as I respect his business sense, he seems like an awful father. Not me, at least not yet, I only have two so far. The Collins don't seem to have official nannies, though renting out an apartment for free in exchange for childcare doesn't strike me as very generalizable, either.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
Having 4 people with 1/4 of your genome is objectively better than just being one person because of the risk dilution (Nevermind that I don't plan to have so few grandkids).
On the second, my experience has been the opposite. A few big actors - often rather general memes than really the particular mouthpieces making the actual statements - are imo the winners on the cultural influence market. By far one of the worst places to invest in unless you're extremely confident.
Let’s assume you’re a car mechanic. You love your job, even though it is dirty, hot and physically straining. You go through a bookshop, and stumble over one book in particular: “Why being a car mechanic is great”. It explains the importance of the job for society, it talks about the perks, and so on. You look up the guy who wrote it and yep, he runs a car shop. You buy the book and recommend it to many of your friends, maybe even some teens who might consider the path.
Fast forward, the writer is on some talkshow. Somebody asks him how he handles all the grease. He reacts, uh no, of course he doesn’t get greasy, that’s his staff. He just really likes talking with customers. Maybe he does one car once in a while, if the work isn’t too hard and the car is really nice.
I can’t help but think this after reading Scott’s latest book review of “Selfish reasons to have more kids”. No, we don’t have nannies and housekeepers. In fact, almost nobody we know has them. Some have a cleaning lady coming … once per week, for an hour or so. Tbh, this significantly lowered my opinion of both Scott and Caplan. If you want a vision of a more fertile, sustainable future for the general population, it should not involve having your own personal staff. Two hours is nothing.
And I find this especially frustrating since I think it’s really not necessary; Yes having small kids is really exhausting - after putting the kids to bed around 8-9, my personal routine is to clean the house for two hours until 10-11 every day, and then directly go to bed with maybe an audiobook on (but often I’m too tired for even that, and enjoy falling to sleep directly) - but it’s doable, and the older the kids are, the less work they are, at least in terms of man-hours. The worst is usually over after around 3 yo. And the time before that in the afternoon can be a lot of fun.
At least for me, one of the biggest draws of kids is that it’s, to use poetic terms, “a glimpse of the infinite” that is available for everyone. Everyone wants to leave something behind, political activism is sold on making a change, careers are sold on becoming a (girl-)boss managing others. Yet, the perceptive (or, less charitably, those capable of basic arithmetic) will notice that only a tiny sliver of the population can ever cause the kind of innovation that really changes culture, or who can come into positions of substantial power over others.
Kids, however, everyone can have them. And they really are their own little person (especially my stubborn little bastards). And they will have kids as well, who will also carry forward some part of yourself. I’m not just talking genetics here, though that is a large part, the same will go for how you raise them. Unless you leave that to the nannies, I guess, but that’s your own fault.
I wouldn’t have written this since it’s mostly venting tbh, but I’ve seen some here mentioning wanting to discuss it, so I thought may as well start. What do you think?
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
Lack of political will sounds like cope. If one can do it and it is beneficial, there would be a will.
I have to admit, this sounds completely wrong to me. The connection between capability, benefit and political will is tenuous at best. There is plenty of will for the impossible, or for the harmful.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
I basically agree, though I'd prefer an exponential function with a half-life of 25. But I guess that will be too complicated.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
And even if you, for the sake of argument, assume Erbschuld is a thing, you're still a long way from actually establishing a connection to the current countries. As far as I know, my ancestry is entirely lowborn small-scale local farmers and workers, with a small admixture of lowborn inter-european wage immigrants. Let alone me, wtf do my ancestors have to do with what some aristocrats got up to? Why do we have to pay penance & higher taxes now to assuage your guilt?
Quite revelant is his official position for mental illness. I don't even entirely disagree with it - I think some people definitely actually just prefer some really odd things - but as someone who does struggle with addictive behaviour somewhat, I think he is missing a large part of the picture. The mind imo should not be modelled as a singular thing, and just because one part of you wants to compel you to do specific things, that does not mean that the rest really wants that. For a trivial example, if you have some malfunction that makes your stomach constantly sent extreme, starving hunger signals, so that you can't think straight unless you eat constantly in a way that is very unhealthy, it is not at all unlike being forced to do someones bidding through painful beatings. Your consciousness is certainly very strongly influenced, but not identical, with your body and it turns out your own body can violate the NAP if it wants to.
On immigration, he is probably right in aggregate for the US, especially since you don't have such a generous welfare system. But the situation is quite different in the EU, and my experience is that furthermore there is often a pick and choose attitude for academics on immigration - it's easy for them to insulate themselves from negative externalities in a way that is not possible for the average citizen, while enjoying the benefits.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
People do know that this stuff will often get taken by the employees if it isn't collected, or even donated, right? So even on consequentialist grounds she is quite likely to be stealing from someone poorer than her for small immediate gratification. It's pretty minor as things go, but I agree with others that I wouldn't perceive this as positive. Also, if everyone was like this, lost and founds would literally not exist.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
Afaik aztek human sacrifice tradition also held many of the victims in high regard.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
I'm all for further subdividing groups to get a better understanding, and it always should be kept in mind that different countries will have somewhat different problem immigrant groups due to geographical and political realities, but it doesn't really change my point. Somalis are very common here in germany nowadays, one of the most problematic groups and usually grouped as sub-saharan african.
FWIW, before the recent asylum waves that especially the Somalis, but not only them, took advantage off, sub-saharan black immigrants in germany also were somewhat of a model-minority, though also extremely rare. As a child, the only black girl I personally knew was an adopted, extremely bookish nerd, and otherwise would occasionally see a black priest from some mission.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
My impression is more that there is a somewhat indirect, but stable link between these two: If you're part of the elite, you usually already consider yourself more a cosmopolitan who just happens to life in this particular country. You have lots of elite friends from other countries, you have lived yourself in other countries. You profit from lower-class immigrant workers suppressing salaries. You should be able to live in the good part of wherever you are insulating yourself from most problems. All this together means is that you have a very strong positive disposition towards ethnic diversity. Any negative mention of any ethnic group except your own is frowned up on to such a degree that it is near-impossible to publicly acknowledge even obviously problematic minorities, it's always just specific people or at most this particular clan. Not being able to acknowledge a problem leads to that problem proliferating.
There is also the problem that some groups are simultaneously supplying useful cheap work, but are also high-crime. Some of this is even systematic, such as using legal low margin work companies as a front to do illegal side work which can range from merely supplemental to being the actual income stream. I think that's as usual a spectrum, with extreme cases such as east asian immigration at "great work, no crime, high willingness to fit in", the middle is something like east europeans "low-value work, often significant illegal side work, medium willingness to fit in" and the extreme other would be something like sub-saharan "very little work, income almost entirely illegal or from state support, no willingness to fit in". The middle groups are here for work, but still cause issues and some loss of trust, but just not as much.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
+1 We were told the same (Applied Math in North Germany). That culture seems to be changing though.
Kind of. As I understand it, Timmy is more about "dumb" big flashy stuff, Johnny more about "brainy" subtle off-meta strategies. Similar to Spikes, Johnnies still play for a challenge, but the challenge is about making some weird game mechanic work, not straightforward winning. In my experience, Timmy is the most derogatory term in practice, basically saying someone plays like a five year old or at best "just for fun" with no effort whatsoever, Spike is in the middle, sometimes used negatively for tryhards, sometimes positively for straightforward good playing, and Johnny is the most positively connotated, the kind of person who doesn't "netdeck" but still wins often enough due to their good deck building & playing.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
A question back: How much spam calls do you get for this to be a significant issue? I get one every few weeks, if not months. It's nothing like mail.
This is just simply not in the realm of things answerable by simple slogans. It's all about the details (alwayshasbeen.jpg).
I can't help but always circle back to the relatively uncontroversial example of the car salesman. If he tells you a car is "a great bargain", you don't just take him by his word; You look at the technical details of the car model, you take a look at the actual car right in front of you whether it shows signs of deterioration, repair or even manipulation, you ask around for the reputation of the salesman or the greater dealership he is part of. And you only buy if it looks like at least an OK deal based on the totality of the evidence.
You ought to do the same for any claim. "Temporary migrants" are only that if there is a mechanism to get rid of them, otherwise they're just migrants, likewise with asylum. "Developmental aid for [country/location]" is often, in practice, mostly free money for whoever is currently in power of that country. And more on topic, for the police and the DA, they absolutely love the justification of just protecting the innocent and helpless, a baby being about as archetypical as it gets. Do they do that? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
That said, I actually mostly like the training exercise, at least as a very first test of character. It's clearly contrived (IANAL though), who uses a wicker basket for fishing? In the middle of the night? And it's just about looking into the basket, not a full-on house search or anything other more private. If you can't even muster the bravery for this, you're not fit for the job. It's about mindset; Police and DA should have thinking that is directed towards catching criminals while infringing on rights as little as possible, but not necessarily zero. Just looking into a basket is about as minor as it gets, compared to the severity of the possible crime and in consideration of the sketchy circumstances.
But you shouldn't consider this training a good reflection of real cases you're going to work on. They're probably going to be much more complicated, which I hope gets reflected in some later training.
RenOS
something is wrong
7mo ago
Tbh I'm primarily familiar with the catholic vs protestant split in germany, but here that distinction is very much real. I know several (university-educated) women holding official positions of power within protestant church offices who have explicitly told me that in reality they do not believe except for some undefined spirituality. One even hired a non-christian into the church office, despite a christian denomination being a requirement to be hired. Worse, I don't even have the impression she is worried about being caught, there seems to be a widely shared culture of just not caring. Not coincidentally, these are among the wokest people I know.
I'd have to take you on faith that liberation theology is different, but at least some of the more explicitly communist/marxist-aligned seem to me like the same type.
It's a copypasta.
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