Tollund_Man4
No bio...
User ID: 501
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
and/or filed the serial numbers off a current court case involving trans people and changed the names, entities, location and context in an attempt to create "gotcha" bait
It sounds like a reference to the recently controversial Enoch Burke, a Protestant teacher whose objection to the use of 'they' pronouns for a student spiralled into him being suspended from his job on accusations of harassing the principle for an answer, his banning from the school grounds by a court while the suspension was being appealed, his jailing for 3 months for contempt of court when he repeatedly showed up at the school despite the ban, and lately his family members getting forcefully ejected from a court after he finally lost his appeal against the ban.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Housing sex criminals separately would be another good thing to try. In some of the articles and stuff I looked at while writing this post, some people proposed we house trans sex criminals separately. But housing all sex criminals separately would obviously address the problem too. Even if we had limited space, severity of crimes would obviously be a better way to prioritize than being trans.
This is what is done in Ireland iirc. There are some sex offenders in every prison, but Arbour Hill is where they are concentrated as they have teams of clinical psychologists there to try and reduce recidivism rates.
Given the lack of female prisoners I don't think they have a specific place for female sex-offenders.
Conor Cruise O'Brien's States of Ireland (I might have mentioned this book in response before, it's a short book but I took a break and got distracted).
It was first published in 1972, just as the Troubles were getting out of hand, and while it therefore lacks hindsight on some things the foreword shows such a good grasp on the fundamental issues that I'm expecting it to be very good (and I haven't been disappointed by the first few chapters). O'Brien was an Irish Labour politician and as far as I can tell also a Marxist, but so far that hasn't lead him to saying anything I disagree with. He criticises Marxist analysts for ignoring the role religion and ethnicity play in the conflict and he even picks apart socialist and hero of the 1916 Rising James Connolly's Labour in Irish History for being unacceptably vague on where the Protestant worker who rejected Irish nationalism stood in his analysis of class conflict (Connolly disappointed many contemporary Marxists by becoming more nationalist as time went on). Though O'Brien would later become a unionist, it's obvious that in this book he fits comfortably in neither the nationalist nor unionist camp. Neither side would be entirely happy with this summary of the situation in the foreword but I think it's a very perceptive one:
Specifically: The population of Northern Ireland consists of about two-thirds Protestants to one-third Catholics. But Protestant fear and suspicion of Catholics in Northern Ireland do not correspond to these proportions, but to the proportions between Catholic and Protestant in the entire island of Ireland, in which Protestants are outnumbered by Catholics by more than three to one. And Catholics in Northern Ireland are also strongly conscious of this proportion, and of rights which they believe it to imply.
Also: The manner in which the island is divided - with the "Protestant' area of Northern Ireland including cities, towns and counties with Catholic majorities, while the 'Catholic' republic includes no city, town or county with a Protestant majority - does not reflect a 'natural' balance between the communities that make up the population of Ireland; it reflects the different historical relations between these communities and the people of Great Britain. The British Government of 1920 did not create – nor does the British Government today artificially preserve – the relations between the two communities in Ireland which resulted in the partition of the island, but when partition became inevitable, the British Government of 1920 ensured that the benefits of all doubts went to one community: the Protestant community descended from settlers from Britain.
Oddly enough he spends a few chapters analysing the history of Ireland through his own family history, but given that his was an influential family and he himself had some influence on the later development of the situation (as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs he was responsible for banning spokespersons for Sinn Féin from appearing on the national broadcaster RTÉ) this doesn't seem out of place. I read this excerpt a few weeks ago and it struck me today as something worth going back to, in one short account from one person's family history nearly all of the conflicting loyalties of early 20th century Ireland are touched upon:
Tom Kettle came back to Dublin, on leave from the Western front, in the early summer of 1916. He went to the house of his sister-in-law, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, where his daughter Betty was playing with her cousin Owen. When the children saw him coming they ran away. He was in uniform.
Men in that same uniform had ransacked that house in April. They had been looking – unsuccessfully – for evidence, which could be used to justify the murder by firing-squad in Portobello Barracks, Dublin, of Tom Kettle's brother-in-law Francis Sheehy-Skeffington. Skeffington, as a pacifist, and also as a socialist and a nationalist, had opposed the war, and his anti-recruiting activities had naturally made him unpopular with the military authorities. He was picked up as a hostage and then shot on the orders of an officer named Bowen-Colthurst. He had earlier witnessed a murder committed by the same officer, and had said he would denounce the murder. Bowen-Colthurst was found 'guilty but insane', and released after some months in Broadmoor. Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington went to America, to tell the story of her husband's death, and to rouse Irish-American opinion against America's entry into the war as England's ally. . . The men who, like Redmond and Kettle, had favoured 'fighting for England' began to look like traitors, or at best dupes. Tom Kettle was killed at Guinchy in the autumn of 1916. If he had come back he would have been rejected, for essentially the same reason that made his daughter run away: his uniform.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
So then you just take the next logical step and demand that the Australian government disband and then... what's their next response? How are they supposed to resist that conclusion?
Disband the old racist constitution and give them a chance to write their own? Why would they ever resist!
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
The proposal itself is odd. Why allow taxis to pass freely? How are they better than private cars?
Most cars are occupied only by the driver, a taxi has a big incentive to carry more than one person. If the goal is efficient use of road space then taxis are preferable.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
How it works in Europe is that vans and small trucks are allowed in in the early mornings to restock shops and then the road is pedestrianised during business hours.
A van can traverse a cobblestone path if it's wide enough, you don't need a proper road which such a small amount of vehicular traffic.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Partly out a sense of gratitude towards those around me and a wish to pay them back somehow, being dead gets in the way of that.
More philosophically, I try avoid conceptualising the bad in life as cancelling out the good. The best things in life justify themselves and every moment that led up to them, whereas misery is mundane and you just get on with it. Maybe I'm deluding myself, but there's no negative in this equation.
My friend runs a language exchange and while it's a great place to meet women and overcome awkwardness, he's got lots of stories about a particular type of guy who has a combination of awkardness and lack of humility that eventually leads to their banning from the group (and sometimes making threats to my friend afterward). The ego comes into play when they realise no one likes them and they try to save face by saying stuff like (real examples) "I'm a doctor/I'm a lawyer and I'll sue/I get laid all the time anyway (with prostitutes)".
Being awkard is fine, being persistent in overcoming it is good, refusing to take well-intentioned feedback from guys who are clearly more socially adept can be a bad move.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I initially tried quite high numbers but that made me start to dread my reviews and I ended up not doing them very often.
I've found that doing it on the laptop makes it seem like a far smaller task as opposed to doing it on the phone, not sure why. I've found about 20 a day to be the most I can do sustainably, but I'm wondering if I'm actually hitting a limit of learning or if I could do a lot more with some effort?
I would suggest starting low and increasing the number once the habit is ingrained.
The habit is well ingrained as I've used it for learning Spanish in my own time, but with French I actually do need to get good quickly as I'm moving there in a few weeks.
Are you using a premade deck or adding your own words?
Both, I've got a premade deck with a few thousand cards with audio, and another one where I add what I've picked up from general reading and listening.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Has anyone got opinions on the optimal amount of new words one should learn each day on Anki when learning a new language? I'm trying to learn French.
Other justifications not mentioned above include retribution and rehabilitation
Arguably retribution is just another form of deterrence, except this time the state is deterring the victims' friends and relatives from taking revenge on criminals (likely to get out of hand when it's a personal beef) by carrying out a more measured form of revenge.
Niether the friends of the victim nor the friends of the perpetrator are happy with the state's decision, but in both cases just enough punishment and just enough fairness has been shown that no one is going to risk jail to fill the gap in justice which the state has left.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
When I was in South Africa I noticed a lot of private security stickers on people's houses and plenty of people had generators to make up for the power outages. I'm not sure how affordable either of these are for the average middle class South African, but with access to those things you are somewhat more sheltered from the decline. For people who can afford these things the streets will get less safe and doing business will become more of a hassle, but you can still pick where you travel and where you do your shopping.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
My bad, I meant a tag that shows up next to their username every time I see them. Makes it easier to remember who's who.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
You can't tag people on this site yet can you?
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
For who? 100 IQ short guys?
Some were short, some tall and handsome. 100 IQ sounds about right, maybe less.
How'd they even afford the plane ticket?
I'm not American so maybe it's different there, but it's not that hard to save up a few grand on minimum wage over the course of a year. If you're willing to work in a bar or something you can probably even find a job at your destination.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Sure, but do we have historical precedent for transitioning from a culture similar to the West now - i.e. post-sexual revolution - to a heterosexual-monogamous culture, though?
I always hear about the Weimar Republic being very decadent, did the Nazis manage to do it?
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I think he shot himself in the foot by using that term. I had never heard it before and my first impression was also that it was something extreme. 'Enforced' isn't a word that goes down well in today's liberal world.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
6 weeks of vacation? On what planet does the average guy making $40k trying to work up to a position that makes 60k have that?
This is actually easier if you're making less than 40k. It's very easy to find a shitty job so just quit and there'll be another equally shitty one available when you come back. I've got friends who have done this.
Perhaps a bit of a divergent, but the entire dilemma has led me to a larger question of how much of life success (in dating, in work, in school) amounts to hard work.
There are traps involved in the hard work ethic, you can justify a lot of pain for very little gain. I'm not bitter about it because I did learn some useful skills and it was good for my character, but a friend of mine who milked the welfare system for years while picking up multiple marketable skills has at last catapulted far beyond me in earning power (his work ethic was impressive in its own sense of course). It really does seem like 'learn a marketable skill by whatever means' is the path to success, hard work doesn't really pay off in shitty jobs where there are very few rungs on the ladder for a hard worker to climb (basically worker < supervisor <<< owner).
Dating on the other hand, I think the big trap lies in overanalysis. Simply meet more women and talk to more women and.. you get it. There are terminally awkward guys who hit a wall and never seem to improve (pattern seems to be that they have an ego problem and lash out in frustration burning all their social credibility), but I've seen some really awkward guys get over this hump with persistence.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
If data comes about that demonstrates I'm wrong, then that's a learning experience, not a choice to change my view.
You can also ignore the data and remain committed to your view despite the evidence. I'm not sure if that's a 'choice' in some philosophical sense but there is more than one way this can go.
China and India would certainly switch to nuclear if it were actually the economical option.
I have no reason to doubt this, but it does seem odd to me to suggest that the lack of a green lobby means a country will default to pragmatism when it comes to energy. Do China and India not have their own set of political challenges (say a fossil fuel lobby) when it comes to nuclear or is really as straightforward as nuclear failing on one or all of cost/skill/payoff?
Of course someone who knows these countries can tell me I'm wrong and I'll accept that, but I worry that the reasoning is along the lines of 'because they don't have the same problems as the West, they don't have a problem', where the 'problems of the West' are the only things we would think to look for.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Also, this might be the first time I’ve seen illegal immigrants blamed for housing demand.
I'm not sure if this is how it goes in the US, but in Europe illegal immigrants quickly become asylum seekers who the government must provide accommodation for.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Just guessing, but it's probably not grammatical in English because a lot of how English is spoken in Ireland is down to imported Irish grammer.
'I'm not' can be one word in Irish (níl mé/nílim), so 'amn't' probably sounded natural when English was becoming the dominant language.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
That's Hiberno-English for you, I say if we have to put up with "ain't" you should tolerate this.
I can think of one line of reasoning to refute this argument: what if your success is owed far more to factors other than your ideals? If you were born smart, handsome and wealthy, you're probably going to be succesful even with the most vapid ideals. If you were born poor, ugly and sick then the path to success and happiness is going to be a hard one even if you're guided by the best ideals.
While the majority of people are just not consistent and don't explicitly follow ideals, I think this is a large part of the problem. There are plenty of strict vegans and Muslims out there exemplifying their ideals, but are you persuaded? If you don't share the core moral religious belief in the first place then the discipline someone exemplifies in following a religious rule isn't more impressive than any other type of discipline, it's just odd.
For example you say that religious people are more likely to thrive, but do they thrive in a sense that say a feminist could agree on? Both sides exemplify their ideals, neither side sees something they want to imitate. Outside of the stuff most people agree on like health and wealth, persuading people that an example of your values being adhered to is an example of something good means grappling directly with the moral question.
More options
Context Copy link