SophisticatedHillbilly
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User ID: 1964
SophisticatedHillbilly
10mo ago
Is that not the employers fault for firing someone for such an absurd reason? I find it hard to blame the teens for that particular aspect of this.
SophisticatedHillbilly
5mo ago
While I agree with your point and generally am opposed to simply handwaving away all the details on how exactly we will par for things, I think the USA might actually be an example where this is true.
The state has immense resources at it's disposal, and almost certainly could give a comfortable life to everyone if it tried to do so without raising taxes or the like.. Of course, this would require cutting costs in other areas, and more importantly it would require cutting cost disease and corruption. Tough to provide for your citizens when the budget is stretched to its limit on $200 aspirins and $100,000 sinecures.
SophisticatedHillbilly
5mo ago
I like the comparison to the rocket equation, but I still think the US is wealthy enough to make it work. US GDP works out to around 70k per person per year, which means it's a distribution and priority problem. The reality of the modern world is that one person putting in the effort can generate the resources to provide for 100 who hit defect. Is the problem easy to solve? No, but it's definitely possible (okay fine, maybe not to 100% completion, but 90% even would be fine.)
I would argue it shouldn't be solved, but that's a different matter.
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
Do they need "boots on the ground" in that sort of conflict though? Couldn't they just bomb and shell every square foot until there's effectively no one and nothing left? Of course, it isn't that sort of conflict (yet).
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
Yes, he seems to be experiencing what has happened to many in the past: the Cool Thing went Mainstream.
It's always a wonderful experience when you find a corner of the art world that caters to people that think like you. It opens a realm of discussion, building on other's ideas, and just plain having fun that isn't otherwise possible.
But then the space gets invaded by "normies" and it stops being fun. The same rules that exist in the rest of society get implemented there as well, and the whole game is up.
The only solution I can see is to make things, and to join together with others who like to make similar things. You can't rely on others to do it for you.
I mean look at the furry community. It's full of people who self-taught drawn animation because they wanted animated furry content. Now it's a thriving art scene, and if that makes you go "eww" that's just proof of my point.
You want stories with old-school values? Make them. You want videogames with Nazis and hot women? Make them. You're gonna make the normies say "eww," and the only people who will appreciate what you've made are others like you, but that's okay because those people are who it's for.
And as a final note for all those who say "but I don't have an artistic bone in my body,": you can help in other ways. Anything more complex than a text-only work requires a lot of hands, and even text benefits from editors and the like. Provide funding, organize groups, bring in connections, manage projects, etc etc.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
Mormons would probably pull it off okay, especially since the hardliner Mormons still have steady tfr. Plus I don't think the tfr would keep declining once exposure to the monoculture is cut off.
Genetically, I'd choose the groups that settled the prior frontiers with minimal homeland assistant: the Borderers, Mormons, and certain Germanic groups. Pick some traditionalist subsets and go. How many people does a generation ship really need? 500? 5000? Either way it's so small that you're best off looking for weird small subgroup that is optimal for it rather than selecting people who are good at playing our society. High IQ is somewhat important, but not massively so as long as they're like 100 average at least, with a few especially bright individuals. I'm sure engineering a generation ship requires elite IQ, manning one likely does not. Probably a few solid Asian groups that would fit the bill, but I'd be hesitant given the lack of prior history of frontier-settling.
Beliefs-wise, nearly any cohesive religious group is fine. They do exist. It's not as if we live in a 100% atheist society.
SophisticatedHillbilly
8mo ago
Those systems tend to be framed as meritocratic internally though.
"Of course the aristocrats should run things, they are literally better than everyone else due to superior breeding (blood)"
"Of course we need to distribute things between the races, they are equal in their merits and so need equal rewards."
"Of course the most experienced people are in charge, they're the best at their job because they know it better than anyone."
Or for the credentialists: "Of course those with the highest credentials should run things, the credentials show that they're the best in their field."
Or for the IQists:
"Of course the smartest should be on top, smarter people are better than everyone else due to their superior inherent abilities."
I can't think of a system which a typical adherent doesn't frame as meritocratic. The question is always how to determine merit, which if you ever hired for a job you know isn't particularly easy.
SophisticatedHillbilly
5mo ago
As would I. Ping me if you post it please
SophisticatedHillbilly
5mo ago
To the former, so be it. To the latter: There is probably a non-zero number of parents who would push their children to do so I suppose, but any employer that allowed it would probably be being watched by the FBI pretty closely. And of course, so would be anyone who attended such a strip-club. I'm also 99% sure that the parents who would make their children work as strippers probably aren't raising their children very effectively in the counterfactual world where that's illegal, they're just doing other things that are in the privacy of their own homes. All rights will inevitably be abused. That does not make the rights bad or mean we shouldn't have them.
SophisticatedHillbilly
5mo ago
I can second the recommendation. It's my favorite book on the topic.
SophisticatedHillbilly
5mo ago
That's fair. Entirely possible it just varies based on the social circle. I can only go based on what I've seen and heard.
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
I mean, it's still a long ways off from being centralized enough. It doesn't even have a single unified military structure. The change a few years ago to be able to take on debt at the federal level was a big move in the right(?) direction though.
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
Simple:
- The longer this world goes on, the more of the sinners who can be saved.
- While the actual end result is a total victory, the time just before that is expected to be horrific beyond anything that humanity has ever experienced. Most people don't want to go through that sooner than necessary.
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
An increasingly centralized EU could be a world power if it takes the direction that the US did early on and gradually become a single state. Barring that, no single EU state is powerful enough to qualify, and too restrained by the rest of the EU to flex the requiref muscles.
Russia will likely be more of a regional power than a world power, I agree. However, do not underestimate the psychological impact that backing the losing horse has on international opinion. Ukraine will likely lose the war, which means Team USA lost the war.
Doesn't matter how costly it was to Russia, it demonstrates that even very heavy US backing doesn't protect you against even a dysfunctional regional power, which means many smaller states will look elsewhere, such as forming their own regional blocks.
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
to support Taiwan, similar to how it went with the Ukraine
I agree with your overall point entirely, but this gets me thinking: would the western public have supported Ukraine if the US military/intelligence community didn't make sure that happened?
Most people's position on the war doesn't seem to be rooted in serious principles, and I have no doubt that if the regime pulled a Eurasia/Eastasia flip tomorrow, most of the public would follow.
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
If you just keep shelling, we'll find out if Iran can figure a way to sink a carrier group.
And if I remember correctly, wargame scenarios from the early 2000's (when the Navy was arguably in better shape) showed this exact scenario going very very badly for the US. So much so that they had to redo the wargame from scratch with heavy restrictions of the Red Team general to save face.
That's what it was, the "Millennium Challenge." On further review, the range limitations in the exercise were definitely a factor, but it's still not inspiring.
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
True, and I think conservatives are generally outclassed. On this we agree entirely.
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
Force sale of X% of shares he held by his estate on the open public market at whatever the price was at his death (or some randomized time before it to prevent gaming) and the government collects its cut as those sell. Seems like a simple enough solution but I'm probably missing something.
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
You must adjust high African scores down to increase their accuracy, and you must adjust low European scores up.
I've no education in statistics, but isn't this double counting? The average score for Africans is calculated including the high-achievers and low-achievers. If Africans score an average of say 85, and you then apply a penalty to the high achievers, by doing so you move the average down below 85, in which case a stronger penalty must be applied to future tests and so on, right?. You would improve the average accuracy of any individual test, but you'd skew the whole. I guess it's probably resolvable by keeping nominal and adjusted scores separate.
But really, how much of a concern is the precise accuracy here anyway? An IQ test takes what, an hour? Make people take one every year, or every time they apply for a job, or whatever. If the collective accuracy of 10+ IQ tests isn't good enough for society, then God knows how we've made it this long.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
Don't have any genetic tests, but I have unusually large amounts of exposure to both the Sioux and the Navajo reservations through work.
Pure-blood natives are rare, but they do exist. Somewhere around 1/100 maybe. They're usually easy to spot in that they speak very differently (not sure how to describe this, it's like they struggle with making certain sounds and so replace them with similar but different sounds) and look quite different (similar to the Aboriginal examples above)
Additionally, they're all quite old, and will be gone within a few decades. None I've known were married to a pure native.
Unlike with whites, no one I've met seems to care about this racial mixing. Most see it as a cultural identity more than a blood identity (though non-zero blood relation is typically a requirement, and some have stricter rules)
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
While I understand your point, in some sense taxation is the central example of theft.
How many people get robbed each year? How many get taxed?
How much money gets stolen? How much gets taxed?
Any examination of other forms of theft are basically looking at weird hobbyist fringe-thieves.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
With sufficiently good AI art, it won't be possible to tell the difference. If nothing else, it craters the value for anyone who would create the real deal for money. People would still exchange verifiably older images sure, but crushing the creation of new stuff is the goal.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
Testing, testing, testing. Unless it's too late, that is?
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
I disagree on a few core points: I understand blue tribe is their own thing separate from the Democratic party, hence my point about blue-tribe conservatives.
The majority of the country watches, listens to, eats, drinks, and generally has the values and preferences of blue-tribe. First generation immigrants do not, but second-generation do by a massive margin. Perhaps the one major exception is LGBT issues, but that does not disqualify them completely.
Minorities may have a fewmajor cultural differences with blue tribe, but they align far closer than they do to red tribe. Immigrants typically are not at all supporters of the small-government, pro-gun, pro-christianity, pro-self-sustainability, pro-private-property-rights, anti-elitist, anti-intellectualist value set of the red tribe. AADS are probably the closest match, but they try very hard to signal that they are not of the red tribe, and red tribe does the same in return.
Do minority groups behave exactly the same as blue-tribe whites? No, but they aren't meant to. Many cultural groups have different roles for different classes of people, and blue-tribe is no exception.
🙄 🤓.
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