SSCReader
1mo ago
But I think it means that you should simply say so when you're asked about the morality of something. You should just say that there's nothing moral/immoral to it, because you think that's not a thing; you just personally like/don't like it.
But this is not my position! I think the moral intuitions we develop still have value. Just because the morality is socially constructed does not mean it isn't real or useful, it is still morality. It isn't simply because I like or don't like. Because there are things I like which I judge as immoral and things I don't like which I judge as moral. My whole point is that I don't particularly get a rational say in what my morality is, because it is an unconscious synthesis of my upbringing, my influences, my experiences, the arguments that people have made to me and so on. Morality may be constructed, and subjective, but that is not the same thing as not being real, or not being morality. When I say something is wrong, I mean just that. By my moral code (which I acknowledge is not rational), I judge it as wrong. So saying I don't believe in moral judgements would be incorrect.
As for philosophers you'll note the question they were asked is not whether they know that moral realism is true. The lean towards it or accept it. And they may be right! Just to point out I am not saying the whole of philosophy has failed, I am saying that we currently (self-obviously) have failed to both prove there is objective morality and what exactly that objective morality is. I don't have a problem with people trying to explore that, and maybe they will even prove me wrong tomorrow!
SSCReader
4mo ago
Warm fuzzy virtue feelings are a personal benefit.
That I think proves too much.
It's certainly possible for someone to do X so they feel good about it but I think that is stretching the personal benefit clause to breaking point. Otherwise any teacher at a Christian school who genuinely feels good about bringing kids into the flock of believers is also a groomer by your definition. It can't be anything to do with the fact they also actually believe the child will be better off as a Christian, or that they want the child's soul to be saved through Christ AND also feel good about it? In fact any teacher teaching anything who feels good about imparting knowledge is now a groomer? A patriotic teacher who feels good about teaching kids the national anthem and the history of standing up to colonial overlords?
At which point once more we have stretched the definition of grooming to nigh uselessness because feeling good about doing things you think are good is a pro-social human adaption. Most people feel good about doing (what they perceive to be) good even if they have other reasons for doing so (moral intuition, commandments from God, legal instructions to follow etc.)
It also suggests as long as we employ teachers who don't feel good about it, but do so because they are instructed to do so, would be A-OK? That seems a counter-intuitive take on the whole situation. "It's ok, we picked a bunch of teachers to teach the Gay/Trans/Sex Ed curriculum who really don't care about it at all, and in fact would rather teach something else, and thus will get no personal benefit whatsoever and therefore definitionally cannot be groomers" doesn't seem like it would be accepted as a counter-argument.
SSCReader
1yr ago
But does an ad targeted to a diffetent demographic do that, if said demo is already different?.
The people who would buy Bud light after seeing promoted by Mulvaney are presumably onboard with transness already no?
Society is not based on reason in the first place so I don't care what beliefs Bud light are exploiting or if they are true or not. Like i don't care if America truly is the greatest nation on earth in every third beer commercial or whatever. The truth doesn't matter. Its aimed at people who already believe it.
SSCReader
1yr ago
God didn’t create half men half women.
I am an atheist but that doesn't stop me being able to comment on the logic here. If men and women were created in God's image and God is omniscient and omnipotent then trans men and women are creations of God. They would not exist unless He wanted them to. He could have chosen there to be no trans people or gay people or non-believers etc. The seeds of being trans were contained within the image of God. Now we don't know why that is the case (God works in mysterious ways and so on, maybe created as a test, or to prove a point or some other ineffable reason) but it is the logical outcome of the Christian creation story.
SSCReader
1yr ago
would you go grab a hacksaw and fire up the gaslights? Or would you think that maybe this person shouldn't be allowed to make that kind of decision for themselves, and they need to be forced to get some regular therapy and evaluation by sane doctors?
That depends, have they started to try and hack off their own limbs with a rusty hacksaw? Then assuming we can't actually treat the mental part of the disorder, then yes surgically removing their limbs so at least they survive the procedure might be the best option. Our options aren't necessarily magical cure, let them chop limbs off, chops limbs off for them, lock them up forever. It might only be, let them chop limbs off, chops limbs off for them, lock them up forever, at which point limb lopping might be best.
For trans people who are suicidal there does not appear to be a pill that will fix it. The treatment is making the outside "match" the mental internal state because we cannot reliably change the mental internal state (and even if we could, are they the same person? or are we just killing that version of them?). I know a person with bipolar disorder who refuses to take medication for this reason, because the person they are on medication is to their natural state not them, it is some stranger who thinks sluggishly and brokenly. I don't know what the correct option is there.
So imperfect, even shoddy transitioning may be the best option actually available.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Well, I̵ ̴s̷u̸p̴p̸o̴s̶e̷ t̴̮͒ĥ̷͙a̴̦̒t̶̥́ ̴̞̓I̵̟̍ ̷̢͝c̷͜͠a̶̱͗n̷̫̽'̷͖̇ẗ̸̪.̷̢̫̂̍.̷͔̱̏̈.̴̦̳͐ ̸̡̥̪̄o̸̝̅̋́h̸̛̖̗̰̓͗ ̷̤͔̲͑͗G̵̼͒̎͝o̶̯͇͓̓ḋ̵͈̻͈͛̈́, ṋ̴̞̹͉̊̐̀ͅở̴̱̀̎̂͛!̴̖͓̟̬̊̇̓̾ P̴͕̗͚͙̘̏̿̀l̸̥͚͕̺̤̺̙͇̉̉͆̈́͗̃͘̚ë̸̟̘̟́̑̾a̸͈̗̦̟̘̱͓͊̇͋ș̷̱͚͔̤̀̇́͑͜e̶̘̿́͂̋ ̶̬̈́̒m̷͇̓͗͐̔̿̿̚͝ắ̶̲̫͖̪̺́̈͒̂́͜͠k̸͍͔̙̣̰̖̻̩͆e̴̱̤̤͎̟̐̀ ̴̹̪͇͈͚̉̾̈̚i̷̡̖̹͇̤̝͛̽̎̍t̴̻̓̾͠ ̵̭̿ş̶̧͔͖̹̣̃̂̈́͐̚̕ṱ̴̡̜̀͋̉̃̉̃͜o̶̬̹̒͌p̷͍͖̼͔̓̌͜͝!̷̛͉̎́͐̕͘̚
Can we not? Discuss the culture war not wage it is our raison d'etre. Your whole spiel would be much more fitting without the feigned Hey guys rhetorical device. State your point clearly. This might be interesting to discuss but with the partisan trappings splashed all over it why bother?
SSCReader
1mo ago
Do you think that it is possible, in principle, for moral disagreements to be rationally resolved? Do you think that moral judgments contain truth-value, and if so, in what sense?
I'll preface by saying that I don't think people are rational, so:
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Resolved as in, come to an agreement on how to practically deal with mismatched moral intuitions? Yes. We do that all the time. Resolved as in convincing someone that they should adopt your moral precepts? Yes. Resolved as in actually discovering the objective moral truth? As it stands no. Though perhaps there is an argument that would change my mind, which I just have not encountered yet.
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Yes, in the sense that someone's moral intuitions are a real and true reflection of their experiences as a person and that these intuitions govern how they act and react and therefore have a measurable impact on the world. And true in the fact that moral intuitions are reflective of the choices a society had to make to get to where it is, and of the standards and beliefs it evolved as part of that process, and of how useful those moral beliefs were to said society. But not true in some underlying sense that lies outside of humanity. Like the laws of gravity or similar.
In other words, whether there is sentient life to observe it or not, mass attracts mass, but if there is no sentient life there is no moral code to the universe. That only exists in the sense of what we project upon it. The stars look down upon us uncaring of whether we murder each other or help each other.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Why? A religion is just an ideology with a supernatural skin. Can compare it to the terrible things people have done for Communism or nazism or some other not religious ideology if you prefer, it doesn't change the point.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Every single military historically was run this way though, and yes they got results because they won. If an alternative organizational structure produced better results, we would know about it and every military would instead have been run that way.
I think you need some evidence on this. Otherwise every organization (including unions!) should follow the same logic. If there was a better organization for them we would know about it and every union would instead have been run this way. This is setting aside that many militaries do in fact lose.
For example militaries may be more efficient when divorced from civilian control. But it might not happen regardless due to other factors. We are not optimization machines. We often create and perpetuate inefficient organizations.
SSCReader
1mo ago
You say that people can come to an agreement on how to practically deal with mismatched moral intuitions or that you can convince someone that they should adopt your moral precepts; do you think that this can be done rationally, or that it's just done based on vibes?
I think when you convince someone of a change to their morality, it is not because they consciously and rationally change. So they can't just decide to either accept or reject your argument based upon a rational approach. They may protest and argue against you, only to find that over some time of it percolating in their subconscious their position has changed. I don't know if I would call it vibes as opposed to a kind of below conscious thought approach. Some of the arguments that might be used to change someone's opinion may well be rational, but the way that is integrated into their belief system is not. What we see as feelings or beliefs are complex interactions of thought processes we are not consciously aware of. But that doesn't mean it is as simple as vibes.
For an example, I can't simply choose that I will now believe that there is an objective morality. Whether I will or won't is not something I can consciously control. Maybe your argument resonates on a deeper level and next week I will have a different idea.
As for the 2nd, I think that the truth value of a society and an individual and a situation is true for their situation. Cannibalizing the dead is in my current situation and cultural context is immoral and I consider that to be true. Were I trapped on a mountain after a plane crash then eating the already dead bodies of other victims is truly moral. If I were kidnapped and taken against my will to work in a mine, then while I think killing is generally immoral, killing my kidnappers to escape is truly moral.
The only way the truth can be judged is within the context of the position (including cultural, physical and mental) that you are in. When I kill a mine overseer to escape it is neither objectively moral or immoral because I don't consider there to be an objective stick to measure it against. If he has kidnapped me, held me against my will then it is moral, if I have been found guilty of a crime which I did commit and been sentenced in accordance with my society, then killing the prison officer to escape is immoral.
So it isn't just that there is no "truth-value" because there is, it just isn't an objective truth value. I will certainly say there is no objective truth value to those positions if you like but there is still A truth value.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Sure, but the point I was countering is that its rise was incomprehensible. If people will believe everything from God-cannibalism, to equality of the masses, to child sacrifice, trans ideology is far from the most extreme thing to be believed. It's rise is entirely comprehensible. Doesn't mean it's good or positive of course, but it's entirely within the kind of belief sets that humanity previously and currently holds.
SSCReader
1yr ago
But it is precisely the media's fault that terms like "state media" are so badly received. Just as it is the media that marks certain dictators as "reformers" and others "strongmen" with "regimes" to aid its attempts to manufacture consent. They constructed this complex of Words That Hint At Things.
So, because the media doesn't want to be marked by its own taboo-words and bad branding everyone is supposed to pretend that an entity funded by a government mandated license, whose supporters claim would fail without aforementioned government mandate everyone is supposed to ignore the correct labeling?
Is it the media's fault that terms like "state media" are badly received? Or is it the fact that a lot of state run media historically and observably tends to be biased towards the state and people can recognize that? The media doesn't have to tell me that a Ukraine government run news media organization and a Russian government run news media organization are likely to both need to be taken with a huge pinch of salt when reporting on the Ukraine war/special operation. Or that the news organization run by the Saudi or Iranian governments is unlikely to be taking stances the government does not like.
The media does not create authoritarian states. It certainly will (at least in the West) tend to downplay the authoritarian nature of states that are our allies and upsell the opposite. But that doesn't mean differences don't actually exist. The fact that a state run media arm should be regarded with suspicion (on reporting to do with anything to do with the government at least) is because historically that has been a problem. Our media didn't create that idea even if they over/undersell it depending on circumstance.
Having said that the Beeb is an interesting construct. Its funding mostly comes from the public by way of a government law for the License fee. However its existence is part of a Royal Charter which mandates its independence from the government itself. So is it accurate to say it is government funded? Kind of yes, kind of no. It doesn't get its money from the government but whether people have to pay it and how much IS determined by the government. In theory its supposed to be an independent reporter on the government and not biased towards either the government of the opposition.
In practice (and in my direct experience in interacting with the Beeb) it is kind of pro-establishment generally (which makes sense), with a slight social leftward lean and a slight conservative economic lean. Though it is I think slightly more positive towards whichever party happens to be in power at any given moment overall (which again makes sense from an incentive point of view). This is from dealing with the Beeb when working for both the Conservative and Labour parties.
If the point of the tag is to point out the level of possible bias then I don't think the BBC should get the same tag as a directly operated state organization. Though it's probably fine to get some sort of tag. I'll note Musk himself says he thinks the BBC is one of the least biased outlets for whatever that is worth. The BBC is big enough and important enough in the English speaking world that you could probably give it its own unique tag.
If the point of the tag is to "own the media" then sure keep it, it's just partisan sniping with little meaning in any case.
SSCReader
4mo ago
it doesn't become even worser if the doxxed person is female/female presenting/non binary/genderfluid/anything not cis male.
Hmm, if we take as granted that doxxing increases the risk of some physical altercation taking place (even if by some tiny percent) and if we take as granted that the average woman is physically weaker than the average man, then I think it is probably true that doxxing poses more of a physical risk to women than men. Not necessarily by much of course as I imagine most doxxing doesn't actually lead to anything like being physically stalked.
I think doxxing Amouranth would probably put her at more risk then doxxing Jacksepticeye for example.
SSCReader
1yr ago
It's something that 'happened to her' and that she 'needs support'.
If she suffered a psychotic break this could indeed be correct no? There is a reason why we have insanity defenses and the like, sometimes people are not responsible for their own actions. We don't have enough information either way here it appears, but a suicide attempt might be indicative. It also may not be and she is a manipulative murderer.
It does not appear uncommon for parents under stress (and often sleep deprived) to have intrusive thoughts (there was a time period when my first 3 kids were all not sleeping that lasted about a week or 10 days, where I was very close to snapping), and it is probably important that this is talked about, so that people who do have those thoughts don't feel there is no support and the thoughts turn to actions. A Clinical psychologist says:
"Postpartum psychosis is extremely rare, comprising about 0.01 to 0.02 percent of cases of postpartum depression, Goldberg and Sukhera said.
The condition is marked by hallucinations, delusions, hearing voices and a detachment from reality, Goldberg said. Only about 5 percent of those diagnosed with postpartum psychosis will attempt to harm themselves or their children, she said.
"The numbers are very small, but the cases are very serious," she said. "If someone is having thoughts of harming themselves or their child, it should be taken very seriously."
Her husband (who knows her better than any of us) is reported to say she had some kind of condition which might support some kind of mental illness.
"He added that her “condition” had recently worsened, even though he did not specify what she was battling." and “The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring towards everyone — me, our kids, family, friends, and her patients. The very fibers of her soul are loving. All I wish for her now is that she can somehow find peace,” he added.
She should still be tried given the circumstances but if the outcome is that she needs psychiatric treatment then it may indeed have been something that happened to her, like getting cancer or schizophrenia. It's certainly possible she fooled her husband but it would seem the most likely explanation of an otherwise normal mother murdering her kids and attempting suicide who was suffering from some kind of worsening condition according to the person who knew her best is that she was mentally ill. If it is true that more support for future mothers is able to identify cases where kids would be at risk then that seems reasonable as well.
SSCReader
1mo ago
One might (and many have) say the same about scientific reasoning. "Science progresses one funeral at a time," and all that. That some people become emotionally attached to ideas rather than progressing rationally does not imply much about the underlying plausibility of rational inquiry.
Sure, but science can put you in a lab with a column with the air sucked out and drop a lead sphere and have you time it. Or show you a picture of a supernova. So far, no seeker of objective morality has come close to demonstrating the same. Now maybe objective morality is more like quantum physics than observing gravity, and it is really hard to observe/discover, and we'll have an objective morality rush at some point. I think it's fine (admirable even!) for people to try to be rational, it's one of the reasons I was drawn to the rationalist community in the first place, but I think they do often overlook the fact that most people (including themselves) are not rational agents, though their behavior can be modelled a such under certain conditions. For example looking at the prisoner's dilemma, the idea of not snitching on each other isn't reasoned out by actual prisoners. It's enforced through social conditioning (snitches get stiches) Which is incorporated into their world view, by the distributed network of agents they live in. Because criminal enterprises that do snitch on each other regularly will not last very long. The social rules are emergent from which behaviors are adaptive.
I would also point out that cancel culture could be rational. If people are doing X and X is immoral (according to your moral code) then using shame as tool to reduce the prevalence of X might be entirely rational (which doesn't mean that the people using it are actually thinking about using it rationally, just as above with our criminals). Cancel culture is just a social technology, like shunning and so on. One where it leverages the opprobrium of the community to enforce behavioral norms. Even if there were an objective morality, (say Christianity was true) it is likely cancelling and shunning people in order to disincentivize their objectively wrong behavior would be a net positive. Societies which shun, and socially shame, and cancel their members to maximize compliance thrive above others which do not. Therefore even an entirely rational agent may decide cancelling people is the correct thing to do. Especially where there is an objective morality, (unless a core part of that objective morality is that shaming people is wrong of course).
For the last, yes if Bob is from culture which believes (and he concurs with this) that eating the dead will condemn their souls to an eternity of torment then probably it would continue to be immoral for him, even while Sally is lighting up the cook fire. I think given enough information you could probably predict what Bob finds immoral, but it might depend on how much he derives from his community (probably legible) and how much he derives from his experiences (potentially less so). If he is an apostate (who thinks the eating the dead prohibition is nonsense) and has never told anyone, you are unlikely to be able to reason this out in advance.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Our country is fucked.
It really isn't. It will be ok if Biden wins and it will be ok if Trump wins and it will be ok if Haley or DeSantis wins. For the vast majority of people life will not change much in any of those cases. Taxes might rise or fall immigration might rise or fall, but the political fallout overall will be more theatre than anything else. For 95% of people in the country, the differences will be actually tiny.
SSCReader
6mo ago
Black men and women do not like or trust each other at all
You're overstating this I think (I say this as a white man married to a BWD leaning black woman), it's still a minority position and "dating out" is still very much not the norm. So saying they don't like or trust each other at all is going way too far.
What is true is that there are fractures caused by (perceived?) double standards of black men dating white women being unhappy black women date white men, and of "dusty" black men who cheat/abandon their families, which is the core of the BWD complaints. And fractures the other way about black men who feel black women date white men for money or for racial reasons ("Black men keep telling me white men are keeping them down and making excuses, if so then why should I date the servant and not the master?")
I'm pretty much the only white guy at most family functions and most of the other guests are still dating/married within their race, so don't generalize too far I think. Having said that, some of my wifes friends have apparently changed their dating preferences to include white men after seeing the success of our relationship after initially having a lot of doubts about interracial dating so there is that.
SSCReader
1yr ago
speed and spread at which they were adopted was incomprehensible?
Even that isn't incomprehensible though. It's been decades in the making. It's the push against the previous more conservative dominance which pushed many types of people to the fringes. It's not a coincidence the lefty coalition is pro-LGBT, pro-choice, pro-minority. They are explictly fighting against the previous order. That's how this works, it's how it always works. This is just the next step in that push.
It's entirely understandable, ESPECIALLY because of the prior attitudes of those who adopted it. The T part is just the next logical push on the cultural battlefield. I'm honestly surprised you're baffled! Gay people and trans people have previously been discriminated against, therefore steps should to be taken to normalize that behaviour so that it does not happen again. It's simple and straightforward. It may not be correct or good for society overall, but it's not baffling or incomprehensible.
It's not actually been fast, consider Love Boat had an episode in 1982 where they tackled basically the idea that a trans person is still the same person you knew and should be supported. That is 40 years ago on mainstream TV. It's a decades long process.
SSCReader
1yr ago
She can only assume that I carry a gun because I'm a violent man, that I put it on her coffee table as an implicit threat to her, that I went to the bar that night with the intention of finding a woman to rape or murder, that my current calm and natural friendly demeanor means that I'm not just a violent man but a total sociopath who enjoys violence, she calculates quickly that her best chance of getting out of this alive is to do whatever I want, to overperform and hope I spare her life.
This is basically just Dennis's implication process right? Only unintentional. There is an implication of danger (the gun, or being on the open ocean with no way to escape). Given that men are generally bigger and stronger than women, an interpretation would be, that the implication is always there, the nowhere to run or possession of a gun just makes it more text and less subtext, perhaps.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-yUafzOXHPE
Dennis: We’ve gotta pop by the department store, pick up the mattress. I’m gonna get a nice one too.
Mac: The what? The mattress? What do we need a mattress for?
Dennis: What do you mean what do we need a mattress for? Why in the hell do you think we just spent all that money on a boat? The whole point of buying a boat in the first place is to get the ladies nice and tipsy topside, so we can take em to a nice comfortable place below deck, and you know… they can’t refuse. Because of the implication.
Mac: Oh, uh… okay. You had me going there for the first part. The second half kind of threw me.
Dennis: Dude, dude, think about it. She’s out in the middle of nowhere with some dude she barely knows. She looks around and what does she see? Nothing but open ocean. “Ahhh, there’s nowhere for me to run. What am I going to do? Say no?”
Mac: Okay… that seems really dark.
Dennis: Nah, it’s not dark. You’re misunderstanding me bro.
Mac: I think I am.
Dennis: Yeah, you are. Because if the girl said no, then the answer is obviously no.
Mac: No. Right.
Dennis: But the thing is she’s not going to say no. She would never say no. Because of the implication.
Mac: Now… you’ve said that word, “implication” a couple of times. What implication?
Dennis: The implication that things might go wrong for her if she refuses to sleep with me. Not that things are going to go wrong for her, but she’s thinking that they will.
Mac: But it sounds like she doesn’t want to have sex.
Dennis: Why aren’t you understanding this?
Mac: I don’t…
Dennis: She doesn’t know whether she wants to have sex with me. That’s not the issue.
Mac: Are you going to hurt women?
Dennis: I’m not going to hurt these women!
Mac: Oh okay.
Dennis: Why would I ever hurt these women?
Mac: I don’t know.
Dennis: I feel like you’re not getting this at all.
Mac: I’m not getting it.
Dennis: God damn... (looks over at woman shopping nearby) well don’t you look at me like that. You certainly wouldn’t be in any danger.
Mac: So they are in danger!
Dennis: No one’s in any danger! How could I make that any more clear to you? Okay. It’s an implication of danger.
Mac: (Stares silently at Dennis in response)
SSCReader
1yr ago
I invite my fellow academics to backyard barbecues with my (self-proclaimed) gun nut Red Tribe neighbours regularly. They don't hate each other and neither side wants the other dead. If you think the majority of normal Blue Tribe Americans want you (as a stand in for the Red Tribe) dead, I think you are entirely incorrect. I am a part time academic who works in a very Blue city and lives in a very Red rural town.
If they did they wouldn't turn up at bbqs and make polite small talk while passing the potato salad with each other. Do not confuse signals boosted by the Toxoplasma of Rage for the views of the majority of ordinary Americans.
If they hated you, if they wanted you dead, then they would be taking direct actual concrete steps towards doing so. Small Red towns like my own would have a rash of car bombings and the like. It's not as if it is difficult to find Red Tribers. Trans issues overwhelmingly affect Blue tribe kids not Red Tribe ones for instance.
Humans can be ugly and people often indulge in schadenfreude when people they disagree with suffer yes. But that isn't the same thing as actively wanting them dead. People often say things they do not mean and do not act on. That's why the saying is "actions speak louder than words". If Arugula eating Prius driving death squads start rolling out into my town then your rhetoric may match reality. But you're not even at Troubles level hate let alone that.
Maybe it's an American thing. You have been the greatest at almost everything for so long that you think you are at hating your own countrymen. When to an outsider you're barely at lukewarm dislike at a population level. You're not even kneecapping people who marry across tribes let alone killing them! You're not even in the hatred game, let alone pros.
If this is what you think of as hate, then you are very lucky. You're pretty much just LARPing as far as I can tell. Performative hate is not real hate. It's what you do when you don't actually have someone to hate properly. You're the greatest most powerful nation on earth. No-one can challenge you. No-one is a real threat. You can neuter one of your biggest historical enemies by throwing a few dollars at a proxy and watch as they learn all over again that you can buy their humiliation with your pocket change, like Yeltsin in an American supermarket.
Like supporters of a football club whose deadly rivals are now three divisions below you, you have to turn that emotion somewhere. But it isn't real. It's a mirage. You're fighting over whether you would win the league by more points if you bought a new goalkeeper or subbed on that teen prodigy for more of the game. Blowing up tiny irrelevancies into fights so you can at least get a scrap in after the match. Your culture war is entertainment. You can root for your side against the other, wear the flag and the shirt and the hat. You yell and scream and jeer like Eagles fans at the Cowboys. Yet you're not even pelting Santa Claus with bottles!
You're not Eagles fans or Millwall fans, you're the country equivalent of Manchester United in the Ferguson era. The only enemy strong enough to be a challenge are yourselves. Fighting over whether you eat prawn sandwiches or a pie. The question is whether Man City or Liverpool will rebound enough for you to have to turn your gaze outward again.
Your internal hatred is but a pale shadow of what it used to be. Barely even worth the name in my opinion. If this is your nations hatred, then everything is going to be just fine. You're just not good at it. You're far too hopeful as a nation. It's one of your most endearing qualities as a foreigner. I've seen real population level hate. I've seen it in Northern Ireland and I've seen it in the Balkans and I've seen it in Rwanda. But not here. And hopefully I never will.
SSCReader
1yr ago
The mental stats in DnD have always been in this weird place. How does your 100IQ player or GM portray an INT 25 Psychic super genius? The answer is badly in my experience. All it usually comes down to is a stat that impacts your skill rolls, spells modifiers and so on most often. Do your spells key off Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma? What are you adding to your skill checks? It very rarely comes down to anything beyond that. Dumping INT as a Half-Orc Barbarian and then playing it with your own level of intelligence outside of stat modifiers is pretty common. And having an Int 20 Wizard played by someone who doesn't even themselves know what their spells do, or how many they get.
Should the player whose bard has 22 Charisma have to roleplay making a speech to convince the king to spare you or is their nigh supernatural charisma and a single die role the way to go?
SSCReader
4mo ago
less likely to be victims of violent crime, then your argument falls flat on it's face.
of random violent crime yes. But that's not the specific thing we are talking about here. Do you think that a random online woman and a random online man are equally likely to be sought out by a bad actor?
You can't use general crime statistics against a specific scenario. For obvious reasons.
My objection to the point raised was narrow for a reason, I am not commenting on general levels of violence or whether this scenario would be portrayed accurately with trans people et al. So don't read into my point more than is actually there.
SSCReader
6mo ago
Communism is intuitively not terrible to the average person, because almost certainly they will have seen it, or something like it work at very small scales. Probably within their own family. You have resources coming in and in general within your direct family, those resources are allocated to who needs them not to who brought them in. I buy my kids clothes and food and toys much in excess of the economic value they produce. I give money to my brother when he is down on his luck even if I don't think he will ever be able to do the same for me. Money I've saved could just as easily go to sending my kid to school than me using it to buy myself a sweet new ride on mower. It's not exactly the same, but it has the same feel.
We could link that to BurdensomeCounts (I think?) prior post on how our intuitive thinking breaks down when dealing with above Dunbar numbers of people. If we see something that works with our direct local community, it's kind of grandfathered in to our thinking when we start looking at large numbers of people.
Also in the US at least, due to the historical issues with slavery, the tension in thinking between "that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; ..." and enslaving a group of people and their descendents has created a national guilt of sorts around racism.
We see this tension right at the beginning in the Founding Fathers who wrote things like: “the only unavoidable subject of regret.” and “we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” So this isn't some modern invention. The tension was seen right from the get go.
The reason racism is seen as so bad in the US is because of this collision between the idea of the US as the "shining city on the hill" as part of its founding mythos and how then failing to live up to their own ideals is seen as a "hideous blot". This kind of meta belief is in my experience as an outsider shared by many Americans whether on the right or left. The Civil Rights Acts et al did not cause it, they are the symptom of it.
My Trump voting conservative neighbors, believe that a man should be judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin and that is part of the foundation of their belief set. That America is a place where dreams can come true for anyone, where anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and have a chance of success, where Man is created in God's image. This is inherently at odds with treating a sub group of people as cattle. It can be rationalized away, because we are amazing at rationalizing away contradictions, but as HyncklaCG will always remind us, there is a reason Republicans were the original abolitionists. "The Radicals were heavily influenced by religious ideals, and many were Protestant reformers who saw slavery as evil.."
Comparing racism to anything in the US is going to be tricky because racism is a cloud that hangs over the national sense of identity, the tarnish on their otherwise exceptional outcomes. Not compared to the rest of the world but compared to their own standards. It's like a straight A student who agonises over a single D compared to a student who barely passes any of their classes. The very thing that pushes them to be exceptional also means their (perceived) past failures hurt that much more.
The question then would be, why would you expect Americans (in general) to think Marxism is worse than racism, when their only real direct experiences with anything like communism were probably somewhat positive, and that the juxtaposition of the inspiring rhetoric of their nation's founding has one tarnish which looms to an outsize degree in the collective consciousness. It is not comparing like with like.
It would be like going to Ireland and trying to find a legislative cause as to why they might think Marxism is more socially acceptable than Religious persecution or British Imperialism. Each nations cultural and social beliefs can only be understood in relation to their own historical context. The success in the export of American cultural values does also muddy this of course. Is racism more or less socially acceptable than British Imperialism in Londonderry/Derry would be an interesting comparison.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Strictly that doesn't prevent it being hacked information, or information obtained illegally.
"The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was enacted in 1986 and prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization. "
If permission was given for the purposes of data retrieval, even after abandonment of the device recovering any data from a device in excess of the authorization given may well fall under relevant Federal or state laws. You can be in a position where the abandoned property becomes yours, but the data on it does not.
"So, was Hunter Biden’s email “hacked?” Yes, in the sense that it was read and disseminated without his knowledge or consent. But under the law? Magic 8 ball says, “situation unclear. Ask again later…”"
It's not as straight forward as saying he was hacked, but it is also not clear that he wasn't.
This has nothing to do with the reasons the story was squashed (other than to give a figleaf), but it isn't actually super clear cut as to whether it would fall under Delaware's Computer crime laws as hacking. It also depends if local copies of email were accessed or his online accounts were accessed through stored passwords.
If you take a computer to a repair place , give them your passwords to help with repair and they clone your drive and publish your emails online, they probably have hacked your data as described in the various statutes, and they probably can be prosecuted. And you can probably call it a Hack and dump. If they do it after you abandon it, the situation is unclear. In other words the fig leaf is real, the question is (ahem) how big it is in actuality.
Does the military get optimal results? Given how many non-officers complain about the incompetence of their superiors this seems highly unlikely. Does the US military perform well due to unfettered power from officers? or does it perform well in spite of it?
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