Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
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User ID: 551
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
8d ago
I think your last paragraph gets to the heart of the matter. Attractiveness is tied very tightly to status, particularly for women. When men are ranking women's attractiveness, their rankings are pretty close to openly articulating the status rankings of the women in question - ranking someone last in a group is basically the same thing as just outright saying, "I think she's a loser and not worthy of the same respect as the other women". When this is done with people are members of a near-group (or worse still, a friend-group), it's a fairly aggressive action to take. On the flip side, this is why ranking celebrities can be fun even in a mixed-gender group - no one has to be personally invested in it in the same way. Of course, everyone basically knows where they stand anyway, but it's rude to say it outright! If you had a group of guys where one buddy was unathletic and low-income, everyone in the room would know he's low status, but it's still a dick move to explicitly point it out.
I once again find the solution to be localizing the matter. There is something that is vaguely grotesque about industrial-scale slaughter, even for those of us that don't find anything morally objectionable about. Nonetheless, I know farmers and butchers, and they aren't particularly bothered by their work, and I think it's precisely because they're sufficiently close to it and doing it on a sufficiently small-scale that they're confident that the animals were humanely raised and slaughtered. Yeah, it's quite literally bloody and grisly work, but no worse than the same operation conducted on a deer that you've shot and killed. I wouldn't go so far as saying that I like gutting and skinning an animal, but you get on with it and it's not that big of a deal. I've done worse to mice as a research scientist, I did feel bad about that, and the marginal number of ruminants required to feed a family is a hell of a lot lower than the number of cute fuzzy animals necessary to do immunology.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
11d ago
Energetics are less of a problem with cattle than vehicles though - they're not particularly efficient, but they're capable of growing literal tons of high-quality nutrition by simply eating grasses that grow naturally. While this is apparently not as cheap as CAFOs currently (although I'm not clear on how much of that is a product of corn subsidies), there's something to be said for the ability of someone without expensive equipment and sterile lab conditions to produce excellent meat via naturally occurring inputs and a herd of cattle or bison grazing. You can afford to waste a lot of energy when the energy is being produced by the sun, processed by plants in a field, and reprocessed by ruminants.
We'll see. Cell culture media isn't cheap though. For the time being, I suggest exercising a lot of skepticism about what the financial inputs for lab-grown tissue are if someone claims that it's actually quite cheap.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
11d ago
Seems pretty niche. The reason people know what beef tastes like is that beef tastes very, very good. For more people than not, it's basically optimized for deliciousness already. There is just not much better than a good cheeseburger or steak. I'm fairly adventurous with food and love trying different meats, but the reality is that none of them are actually as good as just getting a classic cut ribeye and grilling it up.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
11d ago
In the same spirit, many of us can afford humanely raised, fully pastured animals and should elect to do so whenever possible. I'm not as good about this as I should be, but I've moved strongly in this direction and the food is just better anyway.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
21d ago
Where some folks on the right said the census bureau was cheating as they redefined poverty to include food and housing aid, to make it seem like we've made progress eliminating poverty when really all we've done is increase government handouts?
Supplemental poverty is the alternative measure that includes transfers.
Conservatives and progressives both seem to vassilate on what exactly they mean by poverty when it's convenient to do so. Conservatives claim that transfers don't work because they haven't pulled everyone up to a middle-class earned income, but they also note that America's "poor" are housed, clothed, fed, and have entertainment budgets. Progressives claim that transfer programs work and we can tell because supplemental poverty figures tell us we've pulled people up, but then insist that tens of millions are "food insecure". To the extent that the concern is actual material impoverishment, welfare spending works and we do a lot of it.
I do try to be consistent - I occasionally get annoyed by the size of these programs, but the reality is that spending $183 billion per year for the hungry instead of for space has resulted in Americans having entirely too much to eat rather than any issues of "food insecurity".
Do you think that the anger at elites is unfounded (given nobody falls below your definition of poverty anymore), more related to status than income (although definitionally 49% of people will also be sub-median statuswise...) or are you more sympathetic to discourse around income inequality than poverty?
I am completely unsympathetic to inequality discourse. Part of the reason is that it's often couched in the language of poverty, insinuating that the relatively deprived are absolutely deprived. Really though, I just generally don't buy that inequality is a real problem. I'm fine with anger at specific elites for specific reasons, but some fuzzy claim that Jeff Bezos just has too much money because Amazon is wildly successful is just annoying to me.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
21d ago
It’s a will question, like a hoarder who lives in filth because they just can’t throw anything away for psychological reasons even though there’s a dumpster right outside.
Your core point is correct, but it's worth noting that there are principle-agent problems within this. Plenty of people do have the will to simply remove vagrants, but the United States is home to people that will take it all the way to the Supreme Court insisting that bums have a right to camp in your parks if you don't just give them housing. The threat of litigation and the fact that there are lunatic judges that will rule in favor of the bums means that it takes a lot of will to proceed with something as simple as telling bums not to camp in your park. Some of the hoarders don't want to live in filth, but there is a powerful federal government forcing them to at gunpoint.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
25d ago
But unless they're exceptionally rude, most girls won't say to your face that your height isn't good enough, so you might well be missing out on those, especially since you say you've only dated the ones shorter or just very slightly taller.
Oh, sure, I accept pretty much without question that genuinely tall girls are right out. They don't want me and I don't want them. Nothing personal. That just doesn't eliminate enough of the pool to really be much of a problem.
To be clear, I'm not claiming that height isn't a distinct life advantage, just that it's a sliding scale rather than categorical. Being doomed to date women that are mostly median height and below isn't really much of a problem. Like a number of other things in life, the good news is that if you get it right even once, you're all set anyway.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
25d ago
Manchin has said that he won't vote to confirm anyone that doesn't get at least one Republican.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
26d ago
Oh, sure, I completely understand why it's an excellent move for Estonia to join NATO. If I were running Estonia, that would have been my absolute top security priority, a dream almost too good to be true. Even in the event that NATO didn't have the resolve to actually provide for my full defense, the strategic ambiguity could easily be enough to make Russia look for an easier target. The situation that NATO finds itself in now is that it must fulfill that commitment or it loses strategic credibility.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
26d ago
Quick story of long-distance relationship success - I started dating my wife about three months before she was scheduled to move to another city. Within a month of us getting together, I had her just move in with me since she was at my apartment nearly every day anyway and could save on a couple month's rent by leaving early. She moved, then we flew back and forth for two years before I finally got a job in her new city. We still live in the new city a decade later and have happily ever after.
I'm going to be corny and say that while your math might be wrong on the specifics of the 22, if you're actually infatuated with her, it's entirely possible that you'll never meet another one like her, or that it'll take years to do so. Unless you have a history of demonstrating unusually poor judgment in relationships, I say fuck it, do everything you can to be with her. I did and it made my life immeasurably better.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
26d ago
"False imprisonment by rioters" has been a talking point on the right for years now, but it took urban liberal Jewish/* lawyers to deploy it in practice?
These sorts of actions only happen in left-wing places, so it pretty much requires urban, liberal lawyers to deploy it. The "protesters" wouldn't really get anything out of blocking a road in rural Kentucky and the extent to which it would go poorly for them would be fairly immediate, hence no red-tribe prosecutors needing to deal with them.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
27d ago
To silently encourage my wife to achieve the female ideal of “be slim,” I must reach for the much higher male ideal of, “Fully develop every muscle group.”
Of note on this front - the equivalent isn't actually fully developing every muscle group, it's just developing biceps, triceps, pectoral muscles, and lats. Sure, the ideal is higher than that, but the equivalent to "be slim" isn't being a Greek statue, it's just being lean and lifting enough to have noticeable upper body definition.
Am I being mind-blowingly vain?
Absolutely not. Maintaining your body and expecting the same from your wife is perfectly reasonable, particularly if you entered your relationship with that as a shared understanding and it's just degraded over time. I genuinely don't know how I would handle it if my wife just decided to let herself go. I would be thoroughly annoyed and looking for solutions - I think it's great that your starting point is focusing on what you can do directly.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
28d ago
Amish exist more than they live
If this were so we would we see more suicides
Without commentary on the Amish specifically, this isn't true. Animals don't really kill themselves much. Lacking introspection is a good start for not killing yourself.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
15hr ago
Yeah! It's not a masterpiece, but it's a big open world, the aesthetics are neat, and some of the quests are done really well. Some of the story is kind of incoherent, but it looks cool and the systems are fun.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
19hr ago
The current SC is not exactly shy about overturning precedent
Big disagree. I know the current zeitgeist is that this is a super radical, extreme court that sweeps away precedent with the flick of the wrist, but the court I actually observe is very moderate, with a Chief Justice whose most salient characteristic is his desire to direct the court towards the narrowest rulings possible on any given case. When I read or listen to oral arguments, I certainly don't get the impression that any of the justices think that there's no reason to think about precedent.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
20hr ago
I think Darryl Cooper (MartyrMade podcast/Twitter) probably qualifies. If he's a generalized anti-Semite, it doesn't come across in the podcast. His personal politics are hard-right and I don't think he has any particular affinity for Muslims or ire against Jews.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1d ago
I confess to enjoying the Costco guys. Still cringe, but wholesome.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1d ago
This borders on AAQC territory for how generalizable and accurate the advice is. The only thing I'd add is sorting out style, which is also not actually very hard once you stop insisting that you don't care about style.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
5d ago
Your description, plus the replies below, plus my personal experiences leads me to suggest an annoying hypothesis - there's just a lot of variance and any individual is going to have too small of a sample size to draw meaningful conclusions. It's true that post-viral symptoms are pretty significant in a non-trivial number of cases and can linger for a long time; it would be pretty unsurprising if Covid was worse than typical on this front simply because it's a much nastier bug than the typically circulating viruses.
But really, look how all over the map everyone is in the comments. For my part, I have gotten absolutely flattened by viruses in a couple times in the last few years and tested negative for Covid. Even after I felt better, my running performance was measurably worse for a couple months in both cases. In stark contrast, I just got a cold and it resolved quickly from a symptomatic perspective, my heart rate and HRV returned to normal quickly, and there was no measurable impact on running. Why? I don't know, shit happens. When we try to draw lessons about what's going on from like a half dozen data points, they're just not going to be very reliable lessons.
Semi-related - I got hand, foot, and mouth disease as an adult about ten years ago, and WOW is that an unpleasant virus. Do not recommend, 2/10, would not try again.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
7d ago
My first thought was I didn't even know he was pregnant!
Seriously though, it registered as kind of weird, but a man's got a right to his priorities and I wouldn't question him either way. I'm probably always going to have a soft spot for Gobert after people gave him so much shit for joking about Covid.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
11d ago
Trick question, I would never be waiting at a bus station (and I did have breakfast this morning).
But really, I would go get my first-mover advantage if I could. I can see the case for lining up the same way, but people probably won't, and I'll be damned if I going to get the short end of the stick because of a coordination failure.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
11d ago
Changing the size and influence of movements is actually pretty hard. If Hamas can do that for some fairly trivial investment, that's pretty impressive on their part. I find it a lot more plausible that the primary drivers aren't actually Hamas-controlled NGOs, but the academic elites at the institutions where the mostly peaceful protests are happening.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
11d ago
There is no need for a conspiracy of puppeteers - the public health people really do have some very stupid ideas about what's good for the public, they've displayed it repeatedly, and taking options away from them preemptively has value.
I think this toy model misses and important dynamic that seems to happen somewhat regularly. Instead of policy changes that are at two ends of the spectrum, instead imagine one group that thinks the status quo is basically fine and one group that wants to make a change. Any compromise at all, literally any agreement to do something will be in the direction that the party of change prefers. The specific issue that I see this on is firearms, where there are just almost never actually any meaningful compromises that include tradeoffs, it's just one side winning and getting more of what they want while declaring it a compromise.
Of course, there are paths to tradeoffs even on these sorts of things because issues aren't necessary monofactorial and logrolling other policy preferences is also an option, but in practice, a compromise on "gun safety" is going to look an awful lot like an unmitigated win for that side of things.
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