SSCReader
6d ago
I agree! I don't think the current format is good, and I don't think OP's version of having individials have to negotiate with companies with their own budget is either.
Functionally though what is the difference between paying a company to do x or fining a company of it doesn't do x?
In the first case the company raises prices to cover the cost of X and its customers will end up paying for it, in the latter taxpayers pay for it ( some of whom may or may not be customers).
So I suppose the question is who should be on the hook for paying? Customers at least in theory have a chance of benefitting from X more individually than taxpayers most of which may well live hundreds of miles away from said business. However in taxpayers the cost is distributed across more people so probably feels like it costs less. Though that might count as hiding the cost I suppose.
As it stands we do both I guess, companies can get grants to make adaptions, and can get sued if they don't. So maybe thats the answer, a mix of both depending on the situation. Make funds available and directly fine companies that refuse anyway.
SSCReader
7d ago
If I am going to have a government doing things that I don't like, can I at least ask that they not do it stupidly and waste a bunch of money?
Sure! And I think the government should absolutely be deciding how much money it should be spending on say the ADA per person (assuming we decide it should be done at all which is of course not a given!). But I think then leaving it up to the person to have to coordinate on which businesses to target, is basically wasting the reason why governments are useful at all, which is coordinating these kind of issues.
And you will get no argument from me that governments should be do much better at keeping track of what is paid for what and the costs vs benefits of x. I was in government (local and central) long enough that I am certain I have had several rants about it.
SSCReader
20d ago
Why wouldn't we short-circuit that to just "has that desire"?
You probably could, simply say someone who has that addictive desire yeah. I was just editing your example definition, to point out, that there was a potential exit, in that I could be wrong so that someone who once was an addict and no longer has that desire I would consider no longer an addict. For addiction you can't generally know if you will be an addict until you have experienced it, whereas a pedophile can (and usually will) have those desires before they ever abuse a child. A pedophile who never abuses a child is still a pedophile, but there is no such thing as a cocaine addict who has never tried cocaine because the experience of what it does to you and how it makes you feel is part of developing the addiction.
My point is the zeitgeist already was that addicts can't become not addicted to drugs, I am in my 50's and that is certainly what we were taught about addiction when I was a kid. "Not even once!" Whereas current doctors (like self_made_human) seem to think addicts CAN become not addicted to drugs. So is there some kind of "new science" and does it run the direction you think it does?
My experience would say the opposite, that we USED to believe addicts can't be cured and now we are beginning to believe they can. Which could mean that there never was a really settled zeitgeist in the first place, for things to move on from. And therefore politicians and activists can simply use the version that best supports whatever position they are trying to argue in the moment (or more charitably that whatever belief they have is WHY they are taking the position they are taking).
SSCReader
20d ago
Like surgical removal? Freezing them in hypersleep? Harvesting them for Royal jelly?
I like an Aliens reference as much as the next guy but having an alien parasite that bursts from you and always having to worry about relapsing even if clean for say 5 years don't see all that similar personally.
SSCReader
22d ago
The Sexual Revolution pitch was that we could remove shame from sex completely, that everyone could have all the sex and everything would be fine.
I don't think that was the pitch, because like every change, there was no single one movement responsible for it. What you had was a coalition who wanted slightly different things, one part wanted gay sex to be accepted, another wanted women to have more freedom outside of marriage, another wanted men to have more freedom without getting married, another felt sexual urges in general should not be shamed as much, etc. etc. There were few would if you asked would have said for example, should we stop shaming sex with animals or corpses? Almost no-one wanted to remove shame from sex entirely.
To be clear almost everyone is shamed under the old model. They just use that shame to behave differently. Every kid who felt guilty about masturbation. Every husband who felt shame at cheating, or even having thoughts of cheating. Every woman who felt shame at sex outside of wedlock, or who had a sex drive society felt was too much. Every gay person who felt shame at being attracted to their own sex. All of those groups constitute probably a majority of people. That's what I mean by a tipping point.
Now as for why Puritan America did not change, well Puritan America was a result of people fleeing from cultures that shamed differently. There is a reason we call them Puritans after all! So they in fact are a product of a "Revolution" of their own (among other things of course). But even more the 20th Centuries Sexual Revolution I would say the sexual norms of the Puritans did not last, they were relaxed within decades. It's just in the New World there was a lot of space for people who felt differently to just..go somewhere else. And practice things differently. But that isn't the case in the US anymore.
Just to point out, I do think shame is important, as is empathy. They are evolved mechanisms given humanity is a social species. And they are important in ensuring societal stability. I'm not saying that shaming sex is bad, or that not shaming sex is good. I am saying that our history shows that shame has limits and ANY society or culture that wants its beliefs and conditions to continue is on a tight rope. Can't shame to much for too many, can't shame too little. Both will result in the destruction of your system. The good (depending on your point of view!) news is that also is true for whatever comes next. I think there are signs that the shame mechanisms invoked by "wokism" are also going too far and will fail.
Social dynamics mean we are not good at simply arriving at a pretty good spot and just staying there. We almost always push too far, or not far enough.
SSCReader
27d ago
/* Don't @me, you know it's a safe assumption on this issue!
I'm confused because the answer to your question seems to be no, it did not take urban liberal Jewish lawyers to deploy it, because the lawyer in question seems to be a Catholic black latina? Whom you quoted. You don't need to make an assumption at all!
SSCReader
17m ago
It can be true that you don't have an obligation to do so AND that socially that does result in additional costs on productive people. You don't have an obligation to drive a less polluting vehicle, nonetheless the government can force you to do so (or tax you if you drive a more polluting one) if it thinks the benefit is great enough. Companies don't have an obligation to keep manufacturing in America as it is more expensive but it might be a good idea to force/tax them to do so anyway etc. etc.
Not having a personal obligation doesn't negate the fact your choices may be sup-optimal for society at large in other words.
SSCReader
2d ago
Essentially (to my understanding) that people assume our rules and norms are self-enforcing whereas in actuality (as per this theory) without significant effort we would exist in the "state of nature".
So thinking that men would revert to such a state when deprived of the social efforts to repress our base instincts means you are noticing the hole in our current (mostly Western) mindset.
It doesn't have to be. If you pick up the right prenatal classes there are a number of helpful things you can do. supporting her physically (depending on position), massaging her legs, feet, back (useful if she is prone to cramping), to more esoteric things like counter-pressure. Your wife may also not be in a position to advocate for her needs. Which isn't a problem if your medical/birth team are good, but its always possible you get an issue, you'll have to go to bat against.
In my case for my third child, the midwife waited too long to decide on an episiotomy and I had to tell them my wife was prone to a tear and if they didn't cut it was going to be much worse (a lesson learned from births 1 and 2).
Your call of course but I think you can plan find ways to be useful.
SSCReader
5d ago
Eh, we've lost of interesting posters over the years, but obeying the rules is mostly easy. Given the purpose of this place it has to select for people who can decouple , and not post angry. If you tell the mods you aren't going to obey them whether you think you are right or not, that needs to stop. No matter how interesting a poster you are. I like FNE but she pushed and pushed and pushed and struggled with not responding to people saying her ideas/pov was not correct, as if they were saying she was a moron. And using nuclear levels of sarcasm doing it.
It has to be interesting posters who are willing to voluntarily toe the line. Honestly i still feel like moderation is not harsh enough. Habitual line steppers should be gone after 3 instances. They clearly aren't going to learn.
SSCReader
8d ago
You should see me injecting butter under the skin..My wife thinks I could give BBLs down in Mexico.
SSCReader
8d ago
This situation seems analogous. I guess it's reasonable to ask whether the hatred is toward Catholics in particular, or Christians generally, but it's pretty clearly a wave of hate crimes aimed at a coherent target. It's especially notable since there's zero evidence the inciting incident actually happened.
Sure, that's basically my point is that it may be generally anti-Christian sentiment not anti-Catholic. Not saying either of those things are good, just that, it isn't necessarily what we were talking about.
As to the inciting incident, assuming we are linking it to the residential schools, it depends what you think the inciting incident was. I'd suggest the talk of deaths is only accepted because of the already existing animus about the residential schools. Even if every attributed death was debunked perfectly, I would suggest that not much would change in the feelings about the matter.
Like if the Holocaust was successfully denied, and all the Jewish deaths were just attributed to the horrors of war and a starving populace and not actual gas chambers, would Jews have no animus against Nazis? Seems unlikely.
So I would say the inciting event definitely happened. In that some of the native populace was forced into schools. That animus is WHY they believe that the schools were murdering kids during rugby practice, not the source of it.
SSCReader
9d ago
https://tnc.news/2024/02/12/a-map-of-every-church-burnt-or-vandalized-since-the-residential-school-announcements4/
Note that "100 Christian churches in Canada have been vandalized, burned down or desecrated" is a different measure than number of churches burned down. Your source lists around 50 churches that with a fire or arson attack. Of those it lists around 27 as destroyed or razed, with another few have no description of the severity.
My count only covered those burned down. 33 looks to actually be consistent with your source as well using that metric.
So perhaps adjust your trust in the AI counting somewhat?
SSCReader
9d ago
Yeah my point is that he is probably a little too blase, about anti-Catholicism, history shows it can spill out quickly. Which is why I would certainly endorse the US being aware of that. It wasn't too long ago where it was actually open. As I said when we were talking about Christian nationalism, I think there is an underlying wedge there that can get worse.
SSCReader
9d ago
Employers will only hire humanities graduates if they are sufficiently clued in to know which are the intellectually rigorous schools and programmes.
Again this may be true for very high end employers but for most all they look for is a degree and they don't care how rigorous that degree was. I did recruitment for both private and government organizations, and while the civil service did care, no-one else did, including blue chip communications companies and local government. And the reason for that is they are not getting to pick from Oxford or Cambridge or Harvard grads or wherever in the first place. Your middle of the road office manager type can easily get a job with a non-intellectually rigorous humanities degree. Sure they might not get into Wall Street or quant jobs, but they were never going to. Your point only applies for the very top slice of jobs, for all the others, just need to have a degree to tick a box on the form, you will be fine with a degree in basket weaving or creative writing or musicology.
SSCReader
10d ago
Most of the office people in my local government and private business days had humanities degrees, I think you underestimate how little most bog standard employers care about whether the degree is humanities or not. A degree is a degree (with the exception of STEM). As long as you can signal enough that you can sit down, follow instructions for 3 or four years that is good enough.
Now that is seperate from people who think they will succeed in industries which are famously hard to break into.
SSCReader
12d ago
Then you are incorrect. If I didn't commit to veganism when my wife wanted me too, then I am not going to because other people do. I have no qualms about eating cats or dogs either.
Fads come and go.
Because if things worked the way you think they do them presumably YOU and everyone else should currently support lab grown meat because it is currently not legislated against?
Its just not how things work.
SSCReader
15d ago
I've had this exact experience going both directions. When I decided not to believe any more, I have a strong memory of watching all the valences flip, and the same happened the other way when I decided to believe again. In both cases, it was absurdly obvious how good the new arguments were, and how ridiculous all my old commitments had been. It's definately not an experience one forgets.
I agree with that, except, it wasn't something I made a conscious decision on, but it was very much an overnight thing. Thing that had made sense no longer did and things that did not, now did.
I've seen this a fair bit in my marriage, and now that I'm a father. I love my wife; she's by far the best thing that's ever happened to me, hands down, not even close. I am confident that the case for her excellence could be made objectively, but I don't actually care: things happen, and sometimes I get annoyed or frustrated with her, and when that happens I actively work to grant that frustration and annoyance as little space in my mind as possible. My goal is to love her more perfectly, and I make an effort to actively encourage thoughts and behaviors conducive to this goal, and actively prune thoughts and behaviors that impede this goal. Likewise with my children; I may not be able to control my emotional reactions to a situation, but I can certainly control how I feed or starve those reactions, allowing or denying them self-reinforcement.
I also agree here, while I don't think we (I'll use we for myself and may other's here, but not everyone clearly) can control our feelings or beliefs, we can control how we act on them. I get angry at my wife or my kids, and I think you can choose not to actively dwell on them, or to go do something else with that time and energy.
Dump your entire current social network, and surround yourself exclusively with Christians. Actively cultivate deep, meaningful relationships with them. Adopt the axiom that Christianity is correct, and apparent incorrectness is a problem with your perspective or assessment. Consume high-quality Christian arguments, actively work to adopt Christian perspectives, seek status from fellow Christians, focus on all of Christianity's good points and on all of non-Christianity's worst features. Actively work to contemplate your life and experiences through a Christian lens, and actively work to develop an understanding of Christianity that fits with your understanding of life and the world. Do this all day every day for several years, and see what happens. My guess is that if you did so, at the end of those years you'd be a whole lot more Christian than you are now. Do you think otherwise?
I do think otherwise, yes, because I was in that position, and that didn't stop my belief set changing and then I stayed in that network for years after with no sign of it switching back. I visited pretty much every church I could get my hands on (well except Catholic, back in those days in Northern Ireland, that would still have been an issue), from Quakers to The brethren, from Methodist to Pentecostals. I devoured Christian apologetics, talked to my parents (both Sunday School teachers), to vicars and deacons. None of it made a difference to my belief set. Things i had believed now appeared silly and superstitious. Arguments that made sense now had holes big enough to drive lorries through. And I don't think I am alone in that. When I moved to America I dated an ex-Jehovah's witness who recounted similar struggles to the extent she was shunned by her family after leaving the church, and how she had struggled and prayed and fought to, in her words "stay in the light" and that was within an insular community where she was immersed even more than I was back in the day.
I have observed my own feelings of what is true shifting significantly based on media consumption and social desirability, among other influences.
I would agree that media consumption and social desirability can have an impact on my beliefs of what is true, but I have not been able to observe it happening in real time, I have just seen it happen in other's so it seems arrogant to assume it doesn't happen to me.
If people have no control and beliefs simply self-reinforce, how do people change their minds about a thing? More generally, have you not observed yourself choosing between available reactions to a disruptive event? Have you not observed yourself choosing to adopt one attitude over another in response to a given situation?
To an extent I think most people's mind is changed for them. Not by an outside force but by their own inner workings. for example I had an online argument a long time ago, where I argued point A and someone else argued B. Some weeks later I realized B to be true and no longer A. I didn't choose to change my mind, but presumably below the level of conscious thought my mind was still churning away on that argument and was convinced. I can certainly choose my actions, by managing my emotional state, but that doesn't mean I can control what emotions I feel in the first place.
My argument is that people have considerable control over the trajectory of their minds over the long-term, and they steer that trajectory through choices, some acute, some chronic, through exercise of their own will, decided by their own internal deliberations and competing desires and values. Those desires and values they choose to feed grow stronger, those they starve grow weaker, and through this process their mind changes as a consequence of their choices. How could it be otherwise?
Some of this I certainly agree with, and to be clear I am not advocating that people do not have responsibility for their beliefs still. The sub-conscious is still part of us, and who we are as a person, no-one else can be responsible for our actions based upon our beliefs whether or not we chose what to believe consciously or not. IRA bombers still chose to kill people even if they didn't consciously choose their belief system.
SSCReader
17d ago
They haven't forgotten any of those things,otherwise they wouldn't want problematic statues torn down would they? Because they would have forgotten those people were slave owners. They know who did what, they just think the bad things they did outweigh the good.
SSCReader
19d ago
Massive, well-funded efforts to develop Determinist methods of controlling or engineering individual humans repeatedly fail, and those failures not only do not cause an update on peoples' priors, but are completely forgotten.
Certainly from the point of view of surgery they have failed so far. But if something can be done naturally, it doesn't mean we have to have the ability to replicate it, (experimental science is powerful, but observational science is also important). But I think it does demonstrate observationally that physical changes, make people behave differently. Even drugs and alcohol are the same. You are correct that what we can't do is fine tune control someone's mind (or at least as far as I am aware). But just as I am confident that I have my own free will, I am also confident very drunk me, makes different choices than sober me, even in the same situation. Again, seeming to show that physical changes impact my free will, (though of course I generally am making the choice to drink in the first place!).
Now I would also admit, that I am not certain Determinism is true, but probably we are just either side, I think it is probably true but am not certain, and you think it is probably false but are not certain? I would say there is some evidence some kind of determinism is true, but it certainly isn't irrefutable or 100% by any means.
My own internal experiences suggest to me that changes to my body, do impact on the choices I make, such that while I also experience making choices freely, some choices appear to be more free than others. I think some people would call that willpower or something similar and suggest that we have a certain "supply" of that which allows us to make choices against our biological urges perhaps? If I am hungry for a long time, or tired, I start making choices I know are bad and after the situation is resolved, I look back and wonder what was I doing? It feels in the moment that I making free choices, but in retrospect it appears I was not. Being very tired makes me snappish and irritable, so the physical processes seem to be doing something to impact my decision making.
SSCReader
20d ago
Or maybe it's the only sane thing in the room.
Or simply that Christianity is not one thing. Some versions of Christianity can be too blood-thirsty and some versions too meek, some too triumphalist, some too obsessed with slave morality. And to the extent that every Christian is different, we can change Lewis's example a little. It is not just many men speaking of one man, it is many men speaking of many other men.
Catholicism and Orthodoxy are different, and each have their own different sects and churches and local differences. If you ask me to describe Christianity I am likely to talk about it in the context of the Christian conflict in my home nation. That is going to be very different than a Greek orthodox in Crete, or a Baptist in Alabama. Not just because the viewer is different, but so too is the thing being viewed.
SSCReader
22d ago
Also as per the article the figure they are giving is per migrant household not per migrant.
SSCReader
25d ago
He is suggesting you are blaming the victim. Though really the analogy would need to be: Someone walking in a bad neighborhood was raped, so their lawyer suggested showering afterwards, not calling the police and simply hoping the perpetrator was caught.
I think it would be reasonable to criticize the lawyer, while still being aware that the rape was bad in and of itself as well.
SSCReader
27d ago
Hence "just build nuclear plants; if you thought it was such a problem you would already have accepted the added risk".
Unless you also feel nuclear catastophe has a similar cost. Remember we've already established the risks are not being evaluated rationally. So you can't then use the fact they are not evaluating the comparative nuclear risk rationally as evidence of anything other than irrationality, thats what I mean by double dipping.
Remember these are not utilitarians. Just like the answer as to why groups who feel like abortion is a Holocaust happening every year aren't concentrating solely on that. That is just how people are. Virtually nobody who claims to believe that X is the worst thing in the world are willing to trade off other bad things against it in a rational manner. It is just not how we operate by and large. We are not rational. They are not rational. Rationalists are not actually rational (although they try).
So people who try to use that against a group (whether that is claiming Christians don't really believe abortion is murder or that climate worriers don't really believe in climate change), are just missing the point. They do believe it. And yet they will not act as if they do. Because they also believe in many other things and are not evaluating the trade offs in a utilitarian way. So that isn't evidence of anything except that they are humanly flawed (or gifted, if you think utilitarianism is evil).
Maybe it is true that every anti-abortion advocate should quit their job and advocate full time for a federal ban given as they believe that hundreds of thousands of innocent children are being murdered annually. Maybe everyone who believes climate change is an existential threat should be crowd funding atomic reactors. But that just is not how most people work.
Well if it takes a well developed cultural system to leverage us into not behaving that way, then are we not just repressed rapists? Just ones buried under years of conditioning? Teach men not to rape indeed..
Just to be clear I don't 100% agree with Hobbes here, though I think it is as you say partially true. Just noticing the similarity in positions between somewhat feminist thought and the Hobbesian conservatives.
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