SophisticatedHillbilly
No bio...
User ID: 1964
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
they can't bring themselves to fire these employees or disproportionately reward the people whose productivity increases.
Why is this so true? I would be happy to do this, but it seems it’s anathema to most companies. Any explanations?
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
How effective would nuclear weapons by a relatively small nation be against an invading army? It’s not a scenario we’ve ever seen play out.
The standard nuclear war scenario involves a 3-prong nuclear strike combined with standard missles to assist with saturation and eliminate all enemy industrial and military centers approximately simultaneously. Does Israel have the capacity to hit so many targets at once? Or is it more of a tactical-use scenario? Or maybe just a “whoever attacks first gets their political capital eliminated” scenario?
These aren’t rhetorical questions, I’m just genuinely not sure, and I feel like smaller scale one-sided nuclear warfare looks very different than the Cold War images most people think of.
I do think a lot would come down to how competent the Arab alliance could become in the lead up to an invasion. Even a comparatively old-fashioned but reasonably equipped army should be able to win by sheer numbers in this matchup, but they’d have to get the corruption under control and actually build a lot of equipment.
The last couple wars seem to show a severe lack of competence, but I don’t think that’s inherent or will always be true. After all there have been some very effective Arab conquests in the past.
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
Because actively destroying something is fundamentally different than preventing its creation? This is one of those things that is so intuitive I do think the onus would be on you to prove the inverse, but:
-
The end result is not the same. Things that are destroyed leave ghosts, things that were never made do not. Memories, physical damage, emotional attachments, etc are all left behind and change the calculus.
-
The process is obviously different, and processes have by-products and side effects. In the case of abortion, a case could be made that normalizing abortion weakens norms around the inherent value of human life, or the value of facing the consequences of your own actions (I don’t necessarily believe this, but it is just an example)
-
Different rate of change. Abortion is quick, education and cultural change are slow.
-
Different subgroup impacts. Sex education will likely have stronger impacts on the more educable, and abortion on the more avoidant.
This applies to basically every instance of prevention/elimination. Why prevent cavities when we can simply fill them? Why prevent infections when we have antibiotics? Prevention and elimination are only the same in the most spherical-cow utilitarian nonsense world imaginable.
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
Couldn’t the argument be made that it’s not about increasing volume of life, but rather just about not ending life that already exists? Prevention =! Elimination after all. He even gave the birth control argument (though many conservative Christians would oppose this as well).
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
Yeah this wasn’t (isn’t?) uncommon in my very white hometown.
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
Why only factor in IQ? Given that things like moral preferences, health, and a good portion of culture come from genetics as well, doesn’t an IQ-maxing breeding strategy destroy those other three things?
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
In that same vein: determine which presidential+congressional ballot is more likely to be split and vote for them. Seems like R president and D Senator? Perfect. Hate D president but think R senator can win? Vote for them. And so on.
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
This creates an odd scenario where you could reasonably argue that a few modern despots are the wealthiest people ever. Near-infinite monetary wealth, combined with modern amenities and technology, combined with ancient style control over other people.
Stalin wins out I think on total amount of control of resources, but he does miss out on some modern goods. Perhaps Putin as wealthiest person ever? I could see arguments for other despots as well.
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
NGOs. Take a look at any other issue that is handled by an NGO network, and you’ll quickly realize that no state really has the political will to achieve what a disperse network of wealthy unaccountable independent actors can do.
Imagine for a moment, the immigration NGO-blob, but for parenthood:
-
organizations dedicated to improving the public image of parents and parenthood, pushing it through ads, media content, etc.
-
organizations dedicated to making parenthood as free and painless as possible, through free money, training, and even individual caseworkers assigned to families to assist them with any difficulties that may arise.
-
organizations that help “eliminate gender disparities” by establishing prestigious awards for accomplished mothers, special job positions for current and “retired” (empty-nester) mothers.
-
sex-positive education orgs that importantly note that having children as a result of sex isn’t a disaster, it’s a boon for society.
-
weird humanities degrees focused around the study of children, family-formation etc that gradually force the university as a whole to be extremely pro-parent.
-
development groups dedicated to redesigning urban areas in favor of large families
-
festivals, maybe even a whole month, dedicated to parenthood.
-
extensive lobbying groups to make sure that all of the above are not only legally favored, but funded with federal dollars.
There’s really no simple policy that could do the same.
SophisticatedHillbilly
11mo ago
Isn’t this what winning is supposed to look like?
No. Winning is supposed to look like getting an increase in resources and abilities, allowing you to tackle even more difficult challenges, ad infinitum.
SophisticatedHillbilly
11mo ago
Yeah the beauty of modern drone weapons is that pretty much any electronics hobbyist has more than enough skill and money to build and fly them. State-level weapons at individual-level prices.
What are they, if you don’t mind sharing?
More options
Context Copy link