Skibboleth
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User ID: 1226
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Jan. 6 detainees say a D.C. jail is so awful that they'd like a transfer to Guantanamo
Glossing over the performative nature of this gesture, you'd think the travails of the Jan. 6 rioters would engender a degree of sympathy for criminal justice reformers. Instead, the reaction seems to be outrage that Upstanding Citizens like themselves should be subject to the same conditions as common criminals.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Ah, it's one of those irregular verbs: my clever stratagem, your underhanded ploy...
What is it about trying to lubricate the voting process that makes it 'cheating' compared to throwing sand in the gears of the same (e.g. by closing polling places or purging voter from the rolls on dubious grounds), or gerrymandering, or challenging the signatures on your opponent's petition to get them thrown off the ballot, or anything other bits of legal maneuvering used to push and pull electoral outcomes? If we're not alleging actual fraud, what is the objection?
Skibboleth
7mo ago
The "deep state" is a motte-and-bailey where the motte is public choice theory and the bailey is that a cabal of civil servants controls the USG.
Skibboleth
3mo ago
who predict or expect a foreign policy crisis if trump wins , but always fail to articulate what this entails
I can't ascribe this to anything other than not paying attention:
(for just one example I dug up in 20 seconds)
Maybe you agree with these prognostications, maybe you don't. Saying that Trump's critics can't or haven't articulated their positions is just confusing.
I guess they have to keep toeing the 'orange man bad' line even though he was not that bad
"'Orange Man Bad' is the 'Buy index funds' of political commentary.". If historically left-of-center political commentators who have spent the past 8 years criticizing Trump and his policies continue to do so, odds are pretty good that they actually believe it.
If anything, the sudden flurry of "Oh, Trump wasn't that bad"-type statements from figures who previously criticized him reeks of groveling and bet-hedging. Jamie Dimon doesn't have to worry that Biden is going to punish him for making critical statements. Likewise for his many critics within the party who have 'come around'.
Skibboleth
6mo ago
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714525590873575600
Photograph of the aftermath in the daytime.
Skibboleth
20d ago
But really, it just enrages me, when I can still muster such feelings, that believing in colorblind meritocracy, free speech, presumption of innocence, biological reality, "my rules, applied fairly," etc., is now coded as "right-wing."
Because no one believes you. Whatever you, personally, believe, it all stinks of embarassed conservatism. People make fun of self-identified "classical liberals" because the label has been spoiled by bigots hiding behind a mask of libertarianism (libertarianism that for some reason only seems to extend as far as their own preferences). I like meritocracy too, but I've met too many people for whom 'meritocracy' means never having to think about how society allocates opportunities.
I could go on, but I'm on my phone and that makes composition awkward, so I'll leave it at this: I find this comment darkly hilarious because the kind of people who populate the Motte are exactly the reason you are treated to a presumption of bad faith.
This seems like a willful misreading. Do you think "dominate" means "conquer by force of arms"? Because it's not as if the EU has been putting up vigorous opposition to Russian hegemony absent US spinal prosthetics.
Skibboleth
8mo ago
I don't know if this post is a parody or not, but I have to ask how anyone looks at Vivek Ramaswamy and doesn't clock him as an obvious grifter.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
Just, what the fuck guys? Can’t we just be the normal ones? It shouldn’t be hard by comparison. But instead we’re attacking normality. We’re doing goofball shit.
The world is turned upside down: conservatives and liberals are extremely confused because they are accustomed to and expect to be setting and rebelling against norms respectively. Obviously, this is far more discomforting for conservatives than liberals. They lack the mindset, the institutional capability, and the practical knowledge to be good counterculture rebels. (This, incidentally, is a major reason why conservative protests are usually incompetent). The coalition members with the most energy for this kind of politics are the people you least want to hand the microphone.
Skibboleth
7mo ago
Otherwise, "we're a sanctuary city so long as none of the alleged refugees turn up on our doorstep" is just virtue signalling.
What share of illegal immigrant/asylum seekers/etc... do you think wind up in California? (Spoilers: it's a lot, considerably more than Texas)
LA and the state of CA have perfectly adequate reasons to oppose migrant busing without exposing themselves as secretly anti-immigrant hypocrites:
- lack of coordination from TX government
- Denying precedent for the principle that TX can shuttle indigents or undesirables to CA in lieu of handling them itself
- Ideological belief that shuttling migrants around is unethical.
The preponderance of evidence suggests this is an exercise in lib-owning, so it really shouldn't be surprising that liberal governing bodies are opposed to it.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
It's pretty strange to see so much discussion here about why liberals hate Trump - a lot of "sore loser" theory - without Democrats or progressives pushing back on why they think he's particularly norm-breaking.
There aren't very many Democrats or progressives on this forum and I'd hazard to guess most of them view trying to push back to be a waste of time - most of these arguments have been re-litigated dozens of times since Trump's presidency and the assumptions gap has been found to be unbridgeable.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
When you do it at the last minute in response to an ideologically ginned-up fake crisis which you ginned-up in part precisely so you could do this, all the while complaining that other people aren't respecting "institutional norms".
So what? If it is legal and we're not claiming it fatally compromises election security, what is the problem? Is the claim that these people aren't entitled to vote?
That the praxis of Western democracy in it's entirety has become fake and gay... [A]n autistic loyalty to the rules while shrugging your shoulders at the result has confused means with ends.
What does that mean? It's not like Republicans can't win elections, and if the media memeplex blares out left-propaganda 24/7 in an effort to "manufacture consent"*, it doesn't seem to be succeeding.
*scare quotes mine
Given the extent to which the caprice of individual judges can affect the outcome of your case, it is probably to your benefit to minimize weirdness and maximize respectability (and respectfulness). In an ideal world you could show up to court in a clown suit and not have it affect the outcome, but in reality the judge may feel disrespected, the jury may not take you seriously, etc...
If you were a pre-op transwoman going to court I'd recommend wearing a suit and tie even if it makes you uncomfortable. Life isn't fair.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
This imo underscores an important truth to the ultra principled who believe in free speech absolutism and neutral institutions, the overton window won't shift the other way just to punish the "heretics" who've assailed this sacred virtue.
Alternatively, it suggests that right wing "free speech" warriors never had a principled commitment to free speech as a value and were just angry that they were getting moderated and criticized.
Alternatively alternatively, it suggets that Elon Musk never had a principled commitment to free speech as a value and given the opportunity will punish people who criticize him.
this could just be the first legitimate W for the right.
What is a "legitimate W" and why would this be the first?
Skibboleth
9mo ago
Again and again, why do people keep on jumping to race as the most accurate way to filter for being able to integrate?
If someone keeps preferring racial discrimination to other methods of filtering, the most parsimonious explanation is that they are racist. If filtering by wealth or education leads to disparate impacts, that might be racist but it also might just be a preference for rich, educated immigrants and the disparate impact on people from the Middle East or Africa is too bad. If they say "I prefer Whites to Asians and Asians to Africans", it requires a lot of mental gymnastics to explain how that's not just racism.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Massachusetts has ~250k illegal immigrants. They're already living those values.
Skibboleth
19d ago
People usually call themselves "classical liberals" because they pointedly want to distinguish themselves from social conservatives. What I am saying is that many/most (though not all) such people are just garden variety conservatives who are embarassed by their own socially conservative views and/or the association with other conservatives, so they come up with stories to tell themselves (and others) how the party left them behind or the SJWs forced their hand or something similar, the point of which is say "I am not really a conservative."
the people who pull the strings in the federal government seem to be okay with defacto open borders.
Easy: the US does not have de facto open borders. "De facto open borders" is a mood expression of nativists who don't like current state of immigration enforcement. If we actually had de facto open borders, immigration would be unfathomably higher.
The people who "pull the strings" are wedged because there's no magic solutions to the material factors driving Latino migration. Nobody wants to spend the exorbitant sums it would require to actually physically secure the southern border. Nobody is willing to countenance just shooting them. Unfucking Latin America to the point where you don't have tens of millions of people who'd rather be an illegal or quasi-legal day laborer in a country where half the people hate them than stay where they are is a nontrivial exercise, and there isn't much support for that either (try and sell the guy who wants to deport all the Mexicans on spending trillions of dollars failing to develop Latin America). On top of that, the US is like most developed countries in that it has an aging native population that demands increasingly high standards of post-retirement living at the same time the retiree-worker ratio is getting worse, so it also just needs immigrant labor.
New York and other cities are howling about migrants being bussed into their communities, but so far seem reluctant to change their sanctuary city policies.
NY and other blue states already absorb the majority of immigrants, including illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. The central objection remains that the migrant bussing project is done in a maximally disruptive and uncooperative way.
Skibboleth
7mo ago
This requires admitting that immigrants are "undesirables"
No, it requires admitting that TX regards them as such.
This doesn't appear to have enough reason behind it to even refute.
When large groups of people tell you they believe X for reason Y, you should generally believe them.
Or, to put it another way, if they have such a problem with migrants, why do they have no problem with the literal millions of them already there? What it is about a few additional busloads that makes it a bridge too far? Nativists prefer to believe that this exposes their opponents as hypocrites because it vindicates their own sentiments ("our enemies secretly agree with us"), but it doesn't square with reality.
What do you think lib-owning is, if not exposing their hypocrisy and virtue signaling?
Showing off to your supporters that you're tough and cruel to the people they hate.
Skibboleth
10mo ago
We replaced homophobia with political enmity, not indifference.
The enmity is because the homophobia, to a large degree, remains. Many homophobes have grudgingly agreed (or been forced by law or social pressure) to not actively persecute homosexuals, but their position remains that homosexuals are not legitimate members of society and should be tolerated only on the condition that they keep it to themselves - don't express affection in public, don't "shove it in my face", don't say gay acknowledge homosexuality. And, of course, many of them do persecute homosexuals.
Indifference is reacting to two men kissing in public the same way you'd react to a man and a woman kissing in public, not tolerating private homosexuality.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Chances are pretty good you're overestimating how male-dominated the audiences for SFF (particularly Fantasy) are, depending on what you mean by 'overwhelming'. Traditionally it's been heavily skewed towards men (upwards of 90% at some points), but the most recent indications I can find are that it is in the vicinity of 60-40 male/female. Reader demographics are changing and preferences with them, along with the general mainstreaming of nerd culture eroding the influence of old school nerds.
If aspiring writers of science fiction and fantasy can't make it without catering to woke sensibilities, then unfortunately the quality of the genre will drop drastically.
I'm skeptical of both premises here - that it is impossible to have success without catering to woke sensibilities or that "woke" fiction is categorically worse than "non-woke" fiction. It helps if you want Washington Post Lit columnists to jerk you off ("a group of living avatars who personify New York do battle against an ancient eldritch monstrosity that represents gentrification and white nationalism, with the fate of cities everywhere at stake"), almost everyone including their co-partisans considers these people insufferable. You can find obnoxious ideological pandering and bad writing under any flag (looking at you, Ringo).
Perhaps more to the point, SFF awards have always trended towards the... I hesitate to use the word highbrow. Intellectually aspirational? Look at Hugo Awards from the past decades. You're not going to find the kind of pulpy novels Correia and Torgersen were complaining were overlooked*. Partly this is because SFF awards try to maintain some pretense that they are more than popularity contest, partly because the SFF community seems to have perennial cravings for mainstream respectability.
I can't speak particularly highly of Hugo Award winners in recent years (though I've also never had much regard for them - see the remark above about craving mainstream respectability), but frankly I blame that on the Puppies. The voting base leaned left before, but the backlash against the organized voting block activated a bunch of ideologically motivated left-wing/woke voters who seemed to vote more for authors than for books. Notably, the winners take a sharp downward turn in 2013 (regardless of how good a series might be, I find it faintly ridiculous to award an author multiple times for different installments). Even after that effort petered out, the after-effects on the active voters remained.
*as an aside: I'd also note that these are not really what I'd consider "shape rotator" fiction, for which I would point towards authors like Arthur C. Clarke (or, more recently, Andy Weir). Groggy authors like David Weber occupy something of a middle ground, but they lack the concrete problem solving dimension I associate with shape
When it comes to modern entertainment, science fiction novels especially have been one of the last bastions of male centric, systematized, shape-rotator style writing. It seems that where the genre goes could be an important bell-weather for the future of the culture war in entertainment.
Probably, but, as mentioned above, not for the reasons you think. Fortunately, writing is a medium with low production costs, especially if you're willing to forgo marketing and rely on digital distribution. There is perhaps no other domain where the exhortation to "start your own" is more credible. In the event that the shape rotators are driven into the outer darkness by the wordcels, they're still going to be able to write novels about bus crashes on the moon.
But frankly, I don't think that's going to happen. White male nerds continue to attain commercial and critical success within the SFF space (just off the top of my head: Alistair Reynolds, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson, Miles/Christian Cameron, Franck and Abraham).
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Would it be fair to say if Joe Biden went in a coma in 2008 and woke up in 2022 he would be one of the most ardent Maga extremists?
2008 Joe Biden would be a touch conservative for a 2022 Democrat, but he wouldn't even be a liberal Republican, never mind a hardcore one.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
This argument assumes that "legal" is equivalent to "moral", "acceptable". Alternatively, the laws are wrong, and the laws that establish the laws are also wrong.
Alright, what is the moral complaint about enabling people to exercise their right to vote, especially given that per the initial point we are not positing a fraudulent election?
Our system requires buy-in for its continued operation. What you're looking at is the metastasizing death of buy-in. People conclude that the system is not capable of operating in their interests
What does that mean? Do these people have the right to vote? If so, why does facilitating the exercise of that right undermine buy-in? I struggle to find a charitable interpretation for this.
Skibboleth
7mo ago
My point being that when someone says "the deep state sabotage Donald Trump" or words to that effect, they probably do not simply mean "his executive policies got slow rolled because the civil servants in charge of executing them were liberals who didn't believe in the policies".
Regarding the partisan lean of government employees, I refer other comments in this thread. I don't think there is some intrinsic quality of government employment that makes it skew dramatically liberal (and indeed, certain types skew very conservative for pretty much the same reason in reverse).
Practically speaking, what measures will gun rights advocates actually tolerate? It seems like the only thing they can countenance is more guns.
It seems to me that there are many ways we could 'reformat' our conception of gun ownership in a way that would preserve the ability of 'the people' to bear arms while making them less available for use in crime or mass shootings (or suicide), but I find it incredibly unlikely that the current American gun culture would find it at all tolerable.
The best you can do is probably something like move to New Hampshire. The most reasonable thing you can do is nothing.
The odds of concealed carry protecting you from victimization of any kind, let alone a mass shooting, is incredibly low, if for no other reason than because a middle class defense contractor is already extremely unlikely to be victimized and the efficacy of concealed carry in stopping mass shootings is... mixed. It's a psychological prop more than anything.
Mass shootings are, frankly, more analogous to terrorism than ordinary crime. Terrorism doesn't kill very many people, but it does scare people and make them feel powerless because it is outside the 'normal' sociology of murder. Nevertheless, carrying a gun because you might get jumped by terrorists is hard to justify.
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