SSCReader
1yr ago
If a depressed person said if you deny us medication or therapy then more depressed people will kill themselves, is this making a veiled threat or recognizing (what they see to be) factual truth?
SSCReader
1yr ago
Sure but why does that impact you? Its just an ad for a demographic that is presumably not you.
I don't drink beer but if my favorite cider company did some ads with a NASCAR driver or Donald Trump or Kyle Rittenhouse or Ben Shapiro or whoever you think the opposite variant of Mulvaney might be then I just don't care. If they think aiming at a particular demo with a particular celebrity who is on the opposite culture war side to me helps their sales so what?
Its no skin off my nose. As long as they don't change how the cider tastes or how much it costs or whatever then they can market it however they please. They don't need to market to me, I already know I like it.
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
1yr ago
If they are suffering from a mental illness, arguably they are not 100% in control of their actions or words.
SSCReader
1yr ago
I would point out again Sanderson isn't actually being burned at the stake. So i think the argument that they are just as bad right now is not proven.
And again if Bob punches Joe, even if people think punching people is wrong they are usually ok with Joe punching back. The Church has no-one to blame for this other than itself (or God I suppose). Reaping what ye sow and all that.
If you push enough groups of people to the fringe such that the fringe becomes another power centre in and of itself, this is what will happen if they can rally enough support against the prior "evil" empire.
Now I heavily suspect this lesson will not be learned and things will flip once more, but we aren't anywhere near the worst previous excesses, so religous complaints right now just sound like a case of sour grapes to me.
Wokism will I think schism and shatter like Christianity did, though its less centralized so how that looks may well be different. And probably for the same reasons, corruption, power grabs and over reaching.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Those children become the state's responsibility as well but nobody cares about the hypocrisy.
That's because safe haven laws are there to stop women dumping unwanted babies who will then die. They have different goals. Remember the legal system is not monolithic. It has been built by people with varying goals and ideas, who have assembled a patchwork of interlocking systems at different times, from different parties and different ideologies.
Having said that, do note, that the other parent may be able to petition for custody and in some states the State must specifically check with the other parent before revoking parental rights. It does vary by state. So it is not necessarily true that the father does not get to choose to keep the child.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Straw that broke the camels back. Nothing especially bad about this post compared to a number of other norm eroding posts I am seeing.
SSCReader
3mo ago
This is just demonstrably untrue.
It can't be demonstrably untrue, because whether the country is fucked or not is not an objective question. It's a subjective one. You think it is, I do not.
I think it is better than it was 50 years ago. I think tomorrow will be better than today no matter who is president, because most of the changes have nothing to do with who is president. Who is president is downstream of cultural change, not upstream.
In other words if people turn against DEI or AA in then it will go no matter who is elected president. The president is a figure head, a lightning rod, a symptom, not a cause.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Liberalism is i think an illusion, it came from the see-saw of power tipping and for some amount of time being near equal.
Just to be clear I don't suppose wokism or whatever will be any better at not driving groups away and then getting opposed and the balance tipping back.
My view is that it being a cycle is ok. There will be times when one side is up and the other down (simplistically, i think there are actually multiple axes here) and times where they will be in transition and roughly balanced. The world got on ok when gays were forced into the closet and so on and it will get on ok if Christians have to go back to building priest holes or whatever. It is just not that big of a deal on a macro level. Now it is on an individual level, i understand why Christians or Gay people would be unhappy and push for change depending on circumstance.
My meta view is that it is ok for these cycles to go by. If Atheism is down, its ok, I can fake being a Christian if it gets so bad i am in danger and i can suck that up. There is no winning or losing, just how things are and how we need to navigate that. Sometimes our beliefs will not be shared no matter what we do. Ideologies and religions die out and are replaced and that is ok. It has to be ok, its the only real option, as there isn't any permanent victory coming that I can see.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Nope. Nothing you are saying in anyway makes me think that is a good idea. Perhaps reconsider your approach?
SSCReader
1yr ago
To be clear, I am not even sure about what your accusation is supposed to be. That's the point of the state clearly rule. I assume you're saying that these people are driving trans changes because they have an eunuch fetish, but it might be because you think they are mentally ill or because you think they are evil. I certainly didn't get you were poking fun at conspiracy deniers.
I'm not clear on what your specific point actually is. Which is why stating it outright somewhere would be helpful, even if you have to keep the rhetorical flourishes. Just a suggestion.
SSCReader
2mo ago
the onus is on election officials to convince the losing party that they lost fair and square.
I don't think that is the job of election officials. Especially having been one such election official. That is way too high level a thing for random local government workers to be worrying about. Their job is to organize the election in line with whatever budget, rules and laws apply in their location. They don't have the time or expertise to be trying to decide what will look legitimate or not. That is done by the politicians setting what rules and laws they need to follow.
If Michigan wants 134 observers of each party and passes a law, then when the election officials deny more people getting in and that looks like they are hiding something, that is not on the election officials. When people are filming through the windows and the city attorney tells them to cover the windows in case some of the ballot information is visible, that isn't on the poor schlubs getting paper cuts inside.
Legitimacy is built way before that point. The fact several hundred people were trying to get in prior to that situation shows that the legitimacy was in question BEFORE the election actually happened. Election officials can't do anything about that.
SSCReader
6mo ago
January 6th broke the symbol, but they certainly didn't break what it was supposed to symbolize.
Oh sure, they had already lost faith in the symbology, for sure, they had already looked down so to speak. And on a personal scale you are correct attacking a symbol is much less severe than a person.
On a civilizational scale though, people are replaceable, shared symbols are not (though their physical representations can be). Very few people are as individually important as a shared belief system to the stability of a polity.
SSCReader
1yr ago
I've explained exactly nothing about my reaction to the evidence. The only thing I have talked about is my critique of how the point was made. You are familiar with the Motte yes? This is very much our bread and butter. Nearly any point can be made, but we have rules and a culture around HOW the point should be made.
It should be plain, it should be written as is people you disagree with are reading and you WANT them to read. It should avoid Boo Outgrouping and should optimize for light and not heat etc. etc.
SSCReader
6mo ago
No, they interrupted a ceremony of the state religion.
Arguably that is the most important government function. The shared illusion we all (for a given value of all) pretend to believe. The ceremony is more important than the actual way the system works. Any threat to that isn't a physical or procedural threat, it is in fact an existential threat to the entire edifice. Almost any type of government from feudal to oligarchic to democratic to republican has legitimacy as long as people believe in the ceremonies, whether that is the crowning of the King enshrining their Divine Right to rule or the counting of electoral college votes enshrining the victor has been chosen by The People.
We can run out onto the air off a ledge as long as we all agree not to look down...
SSCReader
1yr ago
Thats the default though. 60 years ago kids were being indoctrinated into an ideological system with the backing of the state, whether their parents liked it or not. And 40 years ago, and 20 years ago.
Arguably the issue with America right now is not that kids are being indoctrinated but that they are not all being indoctrinated the same way. Thats how you get a cohesive polity. Too many states, too many systems. Call it a civic religion, a shared mythos or whatever. The point is what you are complaining about is not new, every kid is getting indoctrinated into something.
The fight is over what. But the sholip on not having kids indoctrinated at all sailed a long time ago. But
SSCReader
1yr ago
Having worked everywhere from blue chip tech companies to the civil service, I very much disagree. The high performing go getters are required but they don't care much about corporate culture, but the 90% of people in the organization who do the grunt work benefit from it highly.
Most work in most organizations does not involve solving difficult problems. Your high performing, high IQ, problem solvers will do great regardless of culture (though a great team with a great facilitator will do even better than one without). The work of billing and managing and the boring day to day work required for a company to survive benefits from cohesiveness and shared culture.
SSCReader
1yr ago
It does say "or explain why they do not" which can either be meaningless or the option 75% will take depending.
If I say because I put my family members on the board, or because I think diversity is stupid, what actually happens?
The quote "these rules will allow investors to get a better understanding" seems to suggest that either the numbers or your explanation will be visible to investors.
Checking the text it does say companies that choose not to comply will have to say why. There don't appear to be any official punishments for picking that option. "The Exchange would not evaluate the substance or merits of a companies explanation" seems to support that.
Which isn't to say this is not a big deal, its essentially a capitalized social shame model, using investors as the instrument. Assuming investors lean a particular way it might be more effective than a simple requirement in actuality.
But it is useful for context to know what the unspoken "or else" is.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Not being 100% in control does not mean they lack all agency. For example when carrying out an assessment on patients when I used to be involved in social care, we would minimize what choices they lost. A person who would spend all their money on QVC items would have their finances handled by a social worker but they could still make all other decisions. Mental competence is generally not all or nothing in that perspective.
SSCReader
1yr ago
Indeed. But can anyone? Let's say being suicidally depressed gives you 70% agency. You can make most choices but in a depressive episode, society may try and override your choice to kill yourself (if it can) by treating you whether you choose to or not. It will then discharge you, offer you therapy or drugs and so on.
If dysphoria does lead to increased levels of suicide then the same response would be to..forcibly transition people whether they want it or not? Remember when we believe people do not have agency due to mental illness, we generally act to treat their illness whether they want that treatment or not at that moment.
SSCReader
1mo ago
of which nearly none of the blame can be reasonably laid at the feet of Donald Trump or the republican party.
Well Trump was the President who signed off on the first 2.2 trillion dollar CARES act in 2020, so if you believe the arguments that this contributed to inflation, then Trump at least is somewhat responsible. Biden then also signed a 1.9 trillion dollar rescue plan as well of course.
SSCReader
2mo ago
By that logic marriage being between a man and a woman is a step on the slippery slope. I remain skeptical about "Legalising marriage will not lead to gay marriage" Why wouldn't it? Now we've decided that marriage is between a man and a woman, whats is so sacred and immutable about it at allm? Your logic implies we shouldn't even have taken the first step!
But I think the fact many places had polygmous marriages before gay marriage means this isn't a slippery slope. One does not lead to the other.
This is a case where there are multiple overlapping groups who have different ideas of marriage and just because one is convincing does not mean the others will be in any given culture.
Clearly in Islam the polygamists generally won in a way which didn't lead to gay marriage. There is no reason why it can't be the opposite way round somewhere else.
SSCReader
2mo ago
You'll note that even this article quotes this:
"Both political parties had surpassed the law-mandated maximum of 134 challengers with more than 200 each, and when election workers told GOP challengers the party had hit its limit, some began shouting about the unfair process and lack of transparency. An unidentified election worker shouted back the group was at its maximum size."
Poll watchers were kicked out (or not allowed to enter) because there were already in EXCESS of the legally mandated 134 challengers inside the room.
How is it impossible to trust when there were more than 200 Republican poll watchers INSIDE. How many before you would trust it? 300? 500? 1,000? There has to be some maximum that is enforced.
The elephant is that this was not enough! You can let more people in to challenge than the legal maximum and still people are not happy. Votes were not counted in secret. There were 200 Republican poll watchers inside the room. Even that article does not claim there were none. The biggest claim there is:
"“There were some pretty tense moments inside of this room. Basically some poll workers or some of challengers told us that there was not an equal number of Democrats and Republicans in this room throughout the entire process,”"
That's it. Not that there were no watchers, not that they were kicked out and the ballots were counted secretly. Just that the numbers were not equal.
To be accurate we don't KNOW he didn't do it. We just know he won a court case about it, so that his accusers (or their attorneys) had to draft said statement, which contradicts their earlier statements.
That may well mean he didn't but could mean there wasn't enough proof etc.
Just like people being found not guilty does not actually mean they are not guilty.
It does mean he should be treated as innocent though you probably still wouldn't want to find out your daughter was dating him.
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