Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
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User ID: 2188
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
6mo ago
Yes: That's what's necessary for God to be with us, and He loves us enough to do it.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
6mo ago
To do the thing, He set up the rules to require Him to do?
Not following, here.
You don't get to be the omnipotent, omniscient creator God, then also want kudos for solving some problem you created. The sacrifice of Jesus is only required because God wanted it to be so.
Yes, that's what I just said. He wanted to be with us that badly. If He hadn't, He'd presumably have just not bothered with us or gone through that.
Still not sure what else you're implying. If God wants to marry us, which is rather what this whole thing is about, He wants a bride capable of choosing Him. That also means that we're capable of choosing to reject Him, hence everything else that happens.
Maybe you're suggesting that God could simply have created us capable of choosing Him and also incapable? If so I think your notion of 'omnipotence' is broken.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
4mo ago
If I had to choose one group to occupy the streets I’d certainly prefer the migrants than the aggressive “native” homeless in progressing states of mental decay. The migrants are clean, accompanied by well behaved children, and don’t bother you when walking down the street (in this way I also prefer them also to the third inhabitant of Chicago streets, lanyarded young workers of some nonprofit that will accost you with any question they judge will trick you into attention). The regular homeless population of Chicago smells terrible, yells, and makes the city feel dangerous enough that no women I know will take the train at night. In contrast, a relatively dignified family looking for work at least has motives that are comprehensible to me, even if I think they’ve made the wrong choice.
It's funny how much this feels like an argument that "the migrants aren't so bad really if you think about whether you'd choose them over what we already have," as though that were a plausible scenario and we won't just have both now. This is interesting rhetoric.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
10mo ago
Can You Guess Why The Little Mermaid Is a Huge Hit But Not In China?
The backlash is due to Halle Bailey being chosen to portray main character Ariel.
...
According to Box Office Mojo, Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid has only grossed $3.6 million in mainland China since it opened there on May 26. The Chinese box office tracker Endata confirmed that the film made 19.5 million yuan ($2.7 million) in its first five days. In comparison, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse made 142 million yuan (nearly $20 million) in the first five days after its release.
Now I may be a simple country hyperchicken, but it seems to me that Spider-Verse also featured a black main character. Seems like an odd comparison to make, given their narrative.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
10mo ago
Sure, it's better to be alive now in the first world than at any previous point in time. Our material well-being is historically pretty maximal, though we may have peaked just about now.
This is a popular talking point and even Jordan Peterson capitulated on this when he was murdering those Swedes, but I have my doubts. The worthiness of human existence is not defined by material comfort, and I suspect that many a man exists in these benighted latter days who would have been much happier in an era of shitty rights, worse food, and a faithful and stalwart wife who would bear him many children. Your mileage may vary but I know which I would choose, were I not blesséd enough to have both.
Re: Germanity, what can I say but F. I doubt very much if that race can be reconstituted but if I have the opportunity and no greater obligation I surely will accomplish this thing.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
11mo ago
If Christians typically went out and executed people for mocking Christ, that would indicate that Christianity is dead.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
3mo ago
You don't seem to be taking nutrition into account. Meat is very good for you. Pea protein blended into a seed oil slurry isn't.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
4mo ago
Can't find it but there was a SSC or LessWrong piece about how the optimal number of motoring deaths is not zero unless we decide it's worth banning motoring altogether.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
5mo ago
I've seen several accounts of men in this position who didn't receive any interest until they got their MD at which point it was fish in a barrel.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
5mo ago
They'd be a deductible expense for me, so I chuckled and smugly looked them up to-
Yeah, no, not a chance.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
7mo ago
I like my rpgs to be as Tolkienesque and possible and have collected about all of the relevant systems, but I find that it's difficult to get a group together which shares that aesthetic taste. By and large, people really do seem to prefer pop-fantasy. Damn millennials. They ruined the millennium!
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
11mo ago
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
4mo ago
Speaking of trigger warnings, I can think of a few (admittedly not well thought out) reasons why I may not want trigger warnings that are different from the strawman he used at the start of his video.
Spitballing here (and also I don't care) but given that we're talking about digital content, maybe someone could write a bot that uses AI to review the item and add some reasonable (low-hundreds) list of triggers as metadata, and then the consumer can set their pertinent triggers and automatically receive a warning that they want, whereas everyone else is unaffected.
Again I don't have a horse in this race but this seems workable pretty soon.
In fact, though, I side with those who argue that it's on the consumer to decide what they wish to consume. If there's a market for trigger warnings, well, the market will provide solutions.
I also side with those who suggest that avoiding things which make one uncomfortable (or 'open up' 'past trauma') is a major impediment to the healing process. Trauma-as-identity is a failure mode for human existence and getting over it as quickly as is healthy is imperative. And yes, fwiw I say this as someone with some hard things in my past.
Spent a minute trying to find a charitable basis on which to respond to this, but —
Can't remember the last time I saw someone so casually dismiss an entire concept while openly admitting that he doesn't even know what is being discussed and can't be bothered to spend five seconds at least googling the acronym.
It took you so much longer to write that! And you're so comfortable assuming that HBD-proponents only hold their views because of tawdry character flaws. When you do make it to google maybe look into "projection (psychology)" as well.
I'd thought you were a troll but it looks like you've been around a while?
One of life's mysteries, I guess. Like what 'HBD' means.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
11mo ago
Well it's an interesting question -- is there any sort of intrinsic character to Christianity, or is 'Christianity' whatever people do while declaring themselves 'Christian'?
Can a group like Antifa call themselves "The Anti-Bad Guy Squad" and thereby make all their actions good?
I believe tech companies are meritocratic in the hiring process
Hopefully without doxxing myself, I work as a contractor for several of the top-5 tech companies (however that is construed it is true). So I'm privy to a lot of their internal communications, culture, etc. And I can tell you that these people are simply falling all over themselves to worship the dark and the lame. The gay, the fake, the trans. It's pathological and it's clearly a very high priority.
at least for the tech positions
Yes, but this is doing a lot of work. A serious skilled employee (i.e. white or asian male) generates enough productivity to support maybe 10-20 others. But this is being utilized. I go to a lot of sales meetings, etc. with the 'big guys' and it turns out that almost everyone in a position to function in other-than-coding-or-facilities is a woman of color, and they (mostly) have no idea what's going on.
I like to ask people questions. E.g. I was once at the Udvar-Hazy museum, where resides the actual Enola Gay, and was fortunate enough to chance upon a veteran who had flown the same model of plane. I asked him one of my favorite questions, which is, "If you could change anything about it, what would you change?" This is, more broadly, a great question to ask of anyone about his industry. But the guy's response was, "The head." Apparently people at one end of the plane had to crawl through a long, cramped, dark, very cold tube to get to the bathroom. Fair enough and good answer; precisely the sort of insight for which I am fishing.
So anyway, given what I do, people very high-up on the corporate ladder like to meet me and have a conversation. Executives, etc. And I like to ask them, "How did you get into this?" Up until about 2017 it was mostly white men with blue eyes and they had interesting answers. Long life histories, fascinating twists and turns, happened to be in the right place at the right time so as to illustrate broader trends and forces. These guys were enthusiastic about describing their journeys and, frankly, grateful to tell someone who clearly wanted to glean what wisdom he could from their examples.
Now it's all girls with names like Roselia and they have no idea how they got where they are. Not only that, but they perceive that they don't belong, and suffer terribly from impostor syndrome, and hate me for asking. So, after a couple years of bad sales, I stopped asking, started emotionally supporting them, and am doing just fine. Except inside.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
7mo ago
What exactly do you mean by Tolkienesque?
I’m curious as to which systems you think get closest.
Well there are several overtly based in Middle-Earth. MERP is the OG here, with more modern versions such as The One Ring and even a series of supplements for playing in Middle Earth using the 5E rules. I want to run a One Ring game but haven't found the time or people for it. Hopefully in a decade I'll be able to do it with my kids.
Point is, neither of these groups seem like they’d end up at Tolkien, and I can’t think of any systems that really try to implement such a style. Maybe a low-magic variant of 2e?
Yeah, I really like 2E for this, with 1E attitudes toward magic, i.e. it's very rare. A +1 sword is a big deal for even mid-level characters, and giving a magic weapon of any kind to a minion is a huge deal.
There's a style of play called 'E6' (idk why) where the basic premise is that characters can ascend to level 6 as normal but advancement stops there. This keeps them feeling roughly mortal which I think counts for a lot. Beyond that point in normal campaigns it becomes more and more difficult to give them real challenges beyond simply enemies with comparably-scaling stats, which feels clicky to me. In E6, as the campaign goes on, they continue to accumulate wealth and prestige, which opens the door to interesting options. And of course magic items, while hard-won, gradually serve to give them a sense of legendary prowess. But at the end of the day, one bad encounter with a gang of low-level enemies can still wreck them entirely. And they never really get the sense of being able to walk into combat without concern.
In one game I tried something out where beyond level 6 they could only attain further advancement in levels by eating dragon hearts, and dragons were as difficult to find and kill as you'd expect. I liked this approach because it really slowed down advancement and provided some kind of justification for why normal people could get so superhumanly powerful. Also it ends up feeling a little bit like Birthright, which I've always loved.
Haven't tried it, but I bet that Westeros campaign setting from... 20 or so years ago? probably would be a good fit as well. IIRC it was partly based on the idea that the players are, and only ever will be, eminently vulnerable. And it seems to be very low-magic, in keeping with the setting.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
7mo ago
Idk about good but it certainly was eye-opening. Did you catch the username? I was confused about how cocaine comes from scorpions and wanted to follow up via PM.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
7mo ago
I remember being astonished to learn that Vietnamese tourists will generally bring their own dried food to eat during their travels. Asia really is a foreign country.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
11mo ago
The only way out is to stop producing so many dysfunctional people. We have so far failed to figure out how.
Seems to me that a good first step would be to stop subsidizing their production.
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
11mo ago
My state banned fishing and then later on one of its counties promoted having sex through a hole in a shower curtain.
Link please
Unsaying
Lord, have mercy.
7mo ago
Here is the problem with advocating censorship of "bad" ideas: If it is permissible make rules about what ideas can be expressed, then someone has to make those rules. And who will that be, people with power, or people without power. Obviously the former.
I don't see why that's a problem, though I can certainly see why it would seem problematic to people with certain assumptions.
Is there protocol for that? Is he even eligible at that point? Does he reign from prison? Is he released? Can he release himself? Seems like I should know these things.
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