SwordOfOccam
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User ID: 2777
SwordOfOccam
4mo ago
Both sides are not equally invested in the outcome.
If you think they are then that’s one hell of a blind spot.
SwordOfOccam
4mo ago
The US government in that case did go to the effort to confirm the individual actually was a member of a terrorist organization.
It was an act of war against an enemy combatant on foreign soil, not law enforcement.
SwordOfOccam
6mo ago
Consider if Trump makes a sufficiently big mess of government and the economy he’s giving the other side the potential to roar back into power with a mandate to do things you (and I) won’t like.
SwordOfOccam
6mo ago
Now add alienating allies into the mix.
Obama was soft on Putin. Trump is another level.
SwordOfOccam
6mo ago
He and Putin went through a lot together on the same side.
Trump wants to be buds.
SwordOfOccam
7mo ago
Median federal job is not the median job so the comparison is not apples to apples.
High-skill federal workers are almost always paid less than private sector.
Source: former fed
SwordOfOccam
7mo ago
Well not begging that question is one of the main points of the book, so no it doesn’t. (Many disagree that he succeeds in the philosophical grounding of his moral frame, but he does try.)
Of course, many people take issue with even the second part where you agree science can help. The “how” as opposed to the underlying “what/why.”
Any moral system requires some axiom to start from and Harris explains how we can use reason to arrive at that rather broad one. The lack of other sensible contenders helps here (for those with proper priors, anyway). Of course, there have been materialist contenders, such as communism and whatever we want to call the anti-human environmentalist ideology.
SwordOfOccam
7mo ago
Sam Harris would not agree that:
we all sort of just know what's right and don't need reference to any kind of overarching moral framework.
His book was focused on countering the argument that science cannot inform morality in some objective way as nonoverlapping magisteria, not outlining a moral framework in any real detail beyond "well-being of conscious creatures." Harris is a consequentialist and very influenced by Derek Parfitt and the overall liberal/humanist tradition. Given the state of the world, no one should argue that liberalism/humanism is humanity's default and indeed Harris's original project was pointing out how badly Islam is opposed to that moral framework.
Atheism by itself is no moral system. Communists were atheists and had/have a moral system quite different from liberalism/humanism. Western atheists today see a big split between classic liberals and post-liberals (i.e. progressives and "Atheism+") split along Culture War lines.
SwordOfOccam
8mo ago
I’m not engaging with the overall argument, just noting that you are not properly characterizing how debanking works with regard to a very public and very controversial person who has had involvement with the law.
Being banned from social media platforms for violating stated policies is not very exciting either.
I think there is a very real tension in a free society in cases like this. Somebody can be deprived at scale by private actors (who have strongly correlated interests and risks) of a key service—banking—for only appearing to be possibly engaged in illegal activity, with no explicit coordination or direct government involvement (regulation does play a role, of course).
We force medical insurers to serve those they would otherwise avoid and we ought to force sports gambling companies to stop limiting the good players, and there’s a whole host of laws on protected characteristics, but in general companies should have some level of choice to refuse service. “Legal discrimination” remains a minefield.
Ironically, the idea I’ve heard expressed by left-leaning technocrats that every American should have a government-provided checking account by e.g. the Fed to make things like tax rebates and such easier and eliminate unbanking could solve this particular issue.
SwordOfOccam
8mo ago
I think some contracts are funded up front as well.
I just don’t recall any contractors I know worried about losing pay from shut downs.
SwordOfOccam
8mo ago
How does one get debanked like that without massive, backdoor coordination of influential people?
Banks know who he is and don’t like the risk profile.
Simple as.
There is maximum pressure put onto him, really the whole debanking thing shouldn't even be legal in the first place.
Freedom of association still goes two ways in some places.
You can dislike the system we have without having to resort to conspiratorializing.
SwordOfOccam
8mo ago
I believe contracts are generally written such that funding isn’t affected by a small shutdown.
This shit is old hat.
SwordOfOccam
9mo ago
Nobody gets confirmed until Trump takes office…
I can compare to my slightly younger self here because I bought a house over a decade ago, a condo about a decade ago, and I will soon almost certainly rent because housing costs have exploded, even though I am far wealthier than I was the last times I moved in the same metro area.
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