If you think human sacrifice is good, then you should say so outright and explain why you believe that. If you think that ethics classes are not "total non-sense taught by dimwit professors" as the above poster claims, then you should say so outright and explain why you believe that.
But please don't gesture vaguely in the direction of doing further research to nay-say the value judgements of those who have stronger opinions than you.
There is no amount of research that will convince me that human sacrifice is good. It's not because I'm stubborn or closed-minded, it's because I have a coherent moral worldview. Reading about it may be interesting but it will never change my mind.
If the best argument in favor of university-level ethics classes you can muster up is that I should do more research so that I can discover for myself an argument in favor of their existence, then that suggests that they are truly without any value whatsoever. It's a rare and pitiable thing to see a position so devoid of merit that even its defenders can't bear to speak in its defense. If nothing else the Aztecs were at least capable of making arguments to justify their actions.
If you ever get a chance, do a self-driven review compare / contrast of ancient human-sacrifice rituals for different religions with different stakes in humans harm. Even if it's just the Aztecs cutting out hearts to prevent the universe from ending, or the Carthaginians burning babies alive in honor of Moloch, the overlaps and distinctions in what they think human sacrifice will accomplish can be enlightening.
And then, once you've read that, presumably you will somehow have changed your mind and believe human sacrifice is a good thing instead of a senseless waste of human life. You will probably even want to sacrifice your own children to Moloch, when the time comes. I know I haven't provided any reason why that should be the case, but apparently that's how this works now.
One thing is for sure, though: I have a higher opinion of the moral and ethical foundations of Aztec priests cutting the still-beating hearts out of the chests of POWs than I do of the sorts of people who teach ethics classes. At least the Aztecs had the excuse of not having access to better information, something that cannot be said of someone who works in a modern university.
Sunshine
2mo ago
The pastor is blinded by his preconceptions. These boys aren't crippled by anxiety, they've simply developed class consciousness.
The common logic of the old world was this: "Women will never make the first move, therefore men have to." This is the one-sided logic of the bourgeoisie factory owner who says to his workers, "You need me more than I need you," and deludes himself into believing it. When your negotiating partner refuses to come to the table because they think they hold all cards, the only recourse is direct action.
The boys aren't stunted, they're on strike. Your move, girls.
MAGA would generally refer to the political movement of Donald Trump along with his supporters, especially those who strongly identify with his policy agenda, style, and brand of populist-nationalism.
Is there a reason you can't just say "Trump supporters" or "Trump and his supporters"? Or, heck, how about "Trump's political movement"? That seems to fit in nicely with what you're saying.
"Trump's political movement has a better chance to change immigration than Republicans have probably ever had," is shorter than what you actually wrote, and it's very specific about who and what it's referring to. Doesn't it feel so much more professional? Especially when you compare it to using MAGA as a noun, which has real screenshot-of-tabloid-headline-posted-on-Facebook-by-Boomer-relative energy.
Again, your line of argument very closely mimics the old debates we'd have against wokes/SJWs/social justice leftists/political correctness/identity politics.
I really don't think it does.
The takeaway from that fight was not that using derogatory nicknames is good. The takeaway was that you must name yourself or you will be named by others.
The thing is, you're just referring to Donald Trump and his supporters. This is not a nebulous political movement championed by thousands of activists who often contradict each other and yet all push in the same direction. It's one guy and the people who voted for him. He already has a name, so you can and should just call him by his name.
If your side cared to, they could write the law to strength their position without relying on prosecutors.
Is this actually true? This sounds false to me. Can you actually write a law that can be enforced without the need for a trial? If so, people are definitely sleeping on this hot new strategy.
We can try and trace the culprit, we can prosecute, but under the present political system, there are problems about the government actually guaranteeing a conviction.
-Sir Humphrey Appleby
I guess the answer is that you have ICE round people up and deport them to El Salvador without a trial. Which, amazingly, is the exact strategy the Trump administration has hit upon. And they didn't even need to pass any legislation to do it!
I think it's pretty telling that you switched from the vague term "the alt-right" to the equally vague term "MAGA" without ever stopping to define who it is you're talking about. Especially since it's not at all clear that "the alt-right" and "MAGA" even refer the same group of people.
This isn't Voldemorting. I can define any term I care to use. My question is, can you? I still have yet to learn what it is you mean by the term "MAGA," despite the fact that you replied to my post. How can I tell you what alternative to use when I don't even know who this "MAGA" group is supposed to be?
Is it all Republicans? All Trump voters? Donald Trump himself? Is Joe Rogan MAGA? Is TheMotte MAGA? Is Pierre Pollievre MAGA? Inquiring minds want to know!
It's an observation, not a theory. You can't falsify an observation.
However, I suppose if every single person who was involved in Epstein's pedophile ring was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned (this would include many prominent political figures) I would stop observing that law enforcement is arbitrary and that the pure text of the law has no ability to prevent the rich and powerful from doing whatever they want whenever they want.
Prosecutorial discretion means that prosecutors can freely choose whether or not to enforce the law. Police and FBI have similar latitude in what they choose to investigate. This discretion is used frequently and whimsically, and often has the effect of de-facto legalizing certain crimes for certain people (white people smoking pot, rich people fucking kids, shoplifting in San Francisco, etc). This isn't a theory to be falsified, this is a well-documented fact.
So are they wrong for acting like "MAGA" is "some kind of entity or group"
I don't know because, as I clearly said, it's unclear what "MAGA" is supposed to be. Is it everyone who voted for Donald Trump? Is it the so-called "base" of diehard Trump voters? Is it the Republican Party? Is Ted Cruz part of MAGA? Is Mitt Romney part of MAGA? Is Joe Rogan part of MAGA?
The answer is that it's wrong in two different ways: It's using a disrespectful nickname for some collection of people, and furthermore it's also badly-written because it's unclear exactly who it being referred to by said disrespectful nickname.
Sunshine
2mo ago
My argument is not that no laws are ever enforced. My argument is that law enforcers will do whatever they like and then justify it by whimsically reinterpreting the laws as they see fit. If the law matches what they want to do then that's fine, they can play along. If the law doesn't match what they want to do, it gets reinterpreted. Therefore, just counting up a bunch of instances in which the law was seemingly enforced means nothing, because there will be plenty of situations in which the text of the law lines up with what those enforcing the laws feel like doing that day. That doesn't change the fact that those same enforcers could just as easily have chosen not to enforce the law, if they felt like it.
The text of the law is a red herring. The person deciding how to enforce the law is the only one with real power.
Sunshine
2mo ago
As an aside, I think it's in bad taste to use the term MAGA as if it was some kind of entity or group. You only do it once in the top-level post, but you use the term frequently in your replies below.
First of all it's extremely vague. There is no club of MAGA card-holders. You're just using the term to vaguely gesture in the direction of Donald Trump's supporters. When you say "MAGA won" what exactly do you mean by that? What is MAGA and what did it win? If you're referring to the Republican Party's trifecta victory in the 2024 election, I think it would be more appropriate to refer to them by their proper name. If you're referring to something else, then I think you should define what this "MAGA" entity is and what exactly you believe it won.
Secondly, it's disrespectful to refer to an entity or group by a term it does not use to refer to itself. I would say the same thing to someone who went around ranting about "SJWs" or "Feminazis" or "the Deep State." If you have something important to say about the United States civil service or a particular group of activists, your point is not diminished by calling them by their proper name. If you need to refer to them by a derogatory nickname to make your point then that's a clear sign that you don't actually have one.
Sunshine
2mo ago
That video is infuriating because he almost gets it. He describes the rake in excruciating detail, elucidates exactly why and how people step on that rake, and then, with great pomp and ceremony but zero self-awareness, proceeds to step on the rake himself.
I have yet to see any evidence that the text of the law matters at all. Not just in America but in every country, and not just laws but all written rules and regulations.
Personally, I suspect that approximately 99% of the population is functionally illiterate and operating on the level of the collective psychic unconscious. Rather than "reading" the "text" of the "laws," people simply synchronize their psychic emanations to establish what the majority of those present think the law ought to be, then act as if that was the text of the law. Only on very rare occasions does anyone bother to read what's written down, and when they do their ability to comprehend seems to be garbled by the still-present influence of the collective unconscious.
This is the only way I can explain the current interpretation of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, among other things. If anyone was capable of reading it then surely they would understand the meaning of SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. Since clearly they do not understand and continue to infringe regardless, they must not actually be reading it.
What's the point of writing pages upon pages of legal documents when you know full well that it will only be used as fodder for willful misunderstanding? The text of the law doesn't matter at all. The only thing that matters is who is in the room deciding how to misinterpret that text to favor them.
The Republicans have finally overcome their confusion and started fighting on the real battlefield. They've put their own people in place, and now they're the ones deciding which laws to ignore. They're deporting citizens, violating privacy, closing down whole government departments, and they're having a blast. Why backtrack now?
Seriously though. In a country where DAs routinely refuse to prosecute shoplifters because they're ideologically opposed to the concept of law enforcement, what in the world gave you the impression that laws matter in any way?
"Cease quoting laws to those of us with swords." -Pompey Magnus
Sunshine
2mo ago
To be clear, there's already 700 miles of fence along the border. It was built long before Trump came along.
To the extent that a physical barrier is effective at preventing illegal immigration, they've already built one.
I think there is a disagreement here about what you're saying. There are two possible interpretations of this line of argument.
"Current problems with illegal immigration are caused by the text of the relevant laws. Passing new legislation will change the situation on the ground in a desirable way, by asserting some amount of control over illegal immigration."
This is what I think you intend to say.
"The Democrats are not clever enough to invent new excuses to sabotage immigration enforcement, so changing the laws will put an end to the shenanigans once and for all. They won't discover a new interpretation of the text a few years later, or decide that the law is a 'living document' which means they can ignore the literal text. The legal minds who brought you Roe v Wade will not be able to torture this law until it says whatever they want it to say. Adding ten thousand more pages of legislation to the millions upon millions of pages already there will totally change things."
This is what everyone else hears.
I think it's pretty clear that there's more to power than the text of the law. The Republicans seem to have decided to adopt a totally adversarial, zero-sum stance. They seem to have decided that any compromise with the Democrats is a strategic error. They seem to have decided to fight this battle through personnel rather than legislation.
Can you blame them?
Sunshine
2mo ago
To add on to this, it seems obvious to me that Trump is focusing on the march through the institutions. He doesn't care about legislation because he's operating under an older theory of power: removing his opponents from positions of power and installing allies in their places.
Sunshine
2mo ago
I think there's a core of truth to TPOASIWID that Scott fails to refute.
A system requires a constant inflow of energy in order to continue to function. A tree needs sunlight, a business needs customers, and a state needs tax revenue. Systems tend to evolve into the form that maximizes energy inputs, constrained by local conditions. The shape of the tree evolved independently multiple times because that shape maximizes inflow of sunlight. Similarly, businesses and states tend to evolve into certain forms in order to maximize their inflow of cash. In ancient times states revolved around immovable wealth sources like mines, ports, and bridges that could be easily taxed, and many states orbited around those sources. In modern times state revenue options have diversified, and states have grown larger to suit.
The purpose of a system is what it does, if by "what it does" you mean "what it eats."
Canada is literally bigger than the US, so yes it would be the largest state in the union. It would also be the most populous, edging out California. And yes, it would definitely guarantee that the Democrats win every election for quite a while. Canada's major parties are a centrist party, a left-wing party, a radical left wing party, and a French separatist party. Also universal healthcare has supermajority support from both the left and right, so expect that to become the single most important issue facing the government.
Frankly, it would make more sense to turn Canada into five states than one big one (BC, Ontario, Quebec, Western, and Maritimes).
Sunshine
3mo ago
Trump announced in a post last night that he was considering voiding the last minute preemptive Biden pardons of Fauci, members of January 6 House committee, and others, because an "autopen" was used to sign the pardons. Presidential authority to grant pardons is very broad, and apparently autopen has been used by prior presidents; looks like a losing case if it goes before the Supreme Court.
The version I heard was that the EOs and pardons are being voided on the basis that Biden wasn't aware of them. As in, someone else wrote the pardons and EOs and signed them with Biden's signature without any involvement from the President himself. If true, the autopen is not the source of the issue.
If the Putler view is correct, then failing to defend Ukraine is a mistake. It is a survivable mistake for the US, but a catastrophic one for Europe. (To paraphrase Churchill, if we appease Putler in Ukraine then the US will get dishonour, but the EU will get war).
You lost me here. The idea that Russia is even capable of threatening more conquest is just silly. Ukraine was the softest target in Europe, and Putin has spent years beating his head against it. Both Ukraine and Russia have been bled dry by the war, so even if Putin won a total victory today he still wouldn't get back the manpower and materiel he spent conquering it. There is no way that he's going to come off a victory in Ukraine and move on to Poland, especially not after Poland has had so much time to prepare. And Poland wouldn't even have to fight Russia alone, since it's a NATO member. Given that Putin couldn't even get a clean win against Ukraine, it's safe to say that if he ever goes toe-to-toe with the core members of NATO his ass is grass.
Russia is poor and weak, and it just spent a whole bunch of its dwindling manpower to laboriously pry a few provinces out of Ukraine's cold, dead hands. This was its last gasp.
Sunshine
4mo ago
He defined Conflict Theory in an unusual way, I think. Scott says that Conflict Theory is disproven because people don't act in their own best interests.
That means that, from his perspective, "The other tribe is attacking us because they hate us and want us to die," is actually a statement of Mistake Theory, not Conflict Theory. Because hate is irrational and therefore a mistake, people being motivated to conflict by their irrational hatred is taken as evidence for Mistake Theory rather than against it.
I think a lot of people use those terms differently, but I also agree with Scott on this one. The logical conclusion of Mistake Theory is that everyone just needs to get smarter and stop making mistakes and the problem will go away. That means that proving that the conflict is irrational really is a knock-down argument against Conflict Theory. If the Conflict is a Mistake, then it can be solved with better policy.
Sunshine
4mo ago
This is beautiful. However, it doesn't account for the collapse in the price of gold when Elon Musk takes a spaceship to Psyche 16 and flies it back with 100 quintillion USD worth of gold. We'll be using it as paperweights by the end.
It would be safer to peg it to a basket of goods.
Sunshine
4mo ago
If overdose deaths are suicides, then they're accidental suicides. The proper term for an accidental suicide is "fatal accident". Normally, when someone suffers a serious accident but survives, we give them medical attention to try to keep them alive.
I actually don't have a problem with suicide, provided it's intentional and done right. I think the authorities should make you wait a few weeks to confirm you're really sure you want to die, then shoot you up with lots of fun but deadly drugs.
What I do have a problem with is denying lifesaving treatment to people on the (unproven!) basis that they're a drain on society.
I am skeptical of any plan that involves causing large numbers of people to die on the basis that the world would be better off without them. What if it isn't? You would have just caused a bunch of deaths for no reason.
It'd be pretty embarrassing if you wiped out all the heroin addicts, then a few months later someone came out with a new AI-devised wonderdrug that can cure all addictions with a single pill.
Sunshine
4mo ago
I think you have this backwards. If Eric Adams goes down, it's a reasonable bet the next Mayor of New York will be uncooperative with immigration enforcement. He's not being rewarded for abandoning his duty, he's being extorted into doing his duty because the Feds have dirt on him. If there was no dirt on him then the Feds wouldn't have any leverage.
Before we continue this discussion, I believe you should read all 7 Harry Potter books. I also believe you should read the Bible and the Torah. I believe you should read the Dead Sea Scrolls. I believe you should have an AI translate all 7 Harry Potter books into Swahili and read them again. Learn Swahili first if you have to, time is apparently no object. I believe you should read every word ever written by Thomas Aquinas. I believe you should re-read them, but this time reinterpret them as the works of Thomas Aquinas's black trans lesbian housekeeper, plagiarized without credit.
I think you're operating under a misconception. You seem to think I disagree with the concept of reading things. I do not. My point of contention with you is that you are not making any actual arguments in favor of your position. Telling people to read more books is not an argument.
It's not that I don't know enough about ethics, or that I haven't considered the possibility that other people might believe different things than me. My point is very simple: If you're here to make an argument, then make it. If you're not here to make an argument then you should at least stop trying to give people homework.
The presumption that the only reason anyone might disagree with you is that they haven't done enough research is not charming.
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