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
1yr ago
Do you have any Covid-culture requests that you would decline to honor? For example, insistence on masking in between sips and bites. I ask not be belligerent, I'm genuinely curious where others are going to draw lines going forward.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Yeah, but are there many such people who keep at it out of contrarianism?
I don't think so. I think this is just the way public health people are. The entire culture of public health is about pushing for marginal improvements in expected longevity across large populations, which often means recommending things that look pretty silly on an individualized basis (e.g. the CDC admonishing against over easy eggs). It seems to me that this culture of pursuing some value of "health" at the population level is chosen by people that have a particularly neurotic bent to begin with and that the localized cultures at these institutions continues to push the internal logic of it, to the point where quite a few people in the profession really will refuse rare beef or feel that sunscreen is a strict requirement for going outside.
Of course, it doesn't escape my notice that quite a few people in the industry are obviously unhealthy at a glance, but the cognitive dissonance of that never seems to bother people all that much.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I started college multiple years multiple as a consequence of living in a rural area where the local school didn't really have any resources for kids like me and parents that just wanted to try to find a way to help me learn as much as I could. The result is that I went to a university and then a graduate program that were probably beneath the tiers that I could have landed based on my apparent academic ability relative to peers, but that I got to start on my career much earlier than most people would. I was young enough at each step that there wasn't just some "youngest in cohort" style of effect, but so young that I stood out and everyone knew it. I've often wondered what life would have turned out like if I had the same basic abilities, but had instead lived in an affluent urban district where I would have just been another bright kid striving to get into good schools, and I really just have no way of conceptualizing what that life would have been.
In the Gladwellian context above, this would presumably make me severely underprivileged - always the youngest in my cohort by a mile, coming from a background that tends to not be academically successful in the first place. Really though, that just makes me think of how individualized these things actually are and how little these types of "privilege" have to do with how we actually experience life. At no point did I ever feel like I was held back by the unfairness of being years younger than my classmates and colleagues. I've always felt incredibly lucky to have the natural advantages I have in life - complaining about it would just seem remarkably tone deaf to me.
Gladwell, however, had a suggestion for these students. There is an algorithm developed for competitive youth swimming that corrects for the fact that late-developers are disadvantaged by regular metrics. Would they have support a similar system if it were applied to adjusting test scores to birth dates?
I'm on the far "disadvantaged" end here and my response would literally be a snort of derision that I should get bonus points for being young. The scores are what they are, you earn them as fairly as you can at any point in life. We have different backgrounds, different strengths and weaknesses, and the impulse to level all that off seems utterly perverse to me. Personally, I'm perfectly happy to extend that across all forms of supposed privilege, but I suspect that the students wouldn't find that all that compelling.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I think the reality is wildly disappointing to both sides of the argument - there just that much actual fraud, nor is there actually a large, measurable suppression effect of requiring voter IDs. I strongly side with the pro-ID side because I think the appearance of free and fair elections is incredibly important and the number of legitimate voters without IDs is a rounding error, but I don't actually think there are many people running vote scams either.
That said, I could be wrong, and agree that your suggestion is a good way of testing whether these interventions matter. One problem is that the delta wouldn't actually tell us whether large amounts of fraud had been stopped or whether there was mass suppression of legitimate votes.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
If the pandemic is over, then why are we approving medicine that was only tested on a dozen mice to be used on humans?
The relevant graph has an n of 8 (scroll to the last slide), not 12.
That said, it may be a representative graph of a single trial rather than actually being the only trial. Still, just an absolutely bonkers thing to approve for a not-mergency.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
My first suspicion is that in a world with cryonics, this means body modification is sufficiently good that people can transition fully and convincingly without too much trouble. I suspect that in such a world the 2022 discussion is going to sound weird and anachronistic. I'd probably give up on trying to convince anyone that it was an important issue, since this would suggest that it was a publicly salient issue for only long enough to be a footnote before becoming technologically and culturally resolved to whatever the 2122 status quo is.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
The idea that Kaepernick was blackballed out of the league seems like pure fanfiction to me. He was coming off his age 29 season and in the prior two years of starts, his teams went 3-16. His surface stats look OK, but he ate an enormous amount of sacks while being a checkdown machine resulting in him finishing just behind Brock Osweiler and Trevor Simian in advanced stats like QBR. His successful years in San Francisco relied heavily on his athleticism and an offense tailored to his strengths by Greg Roman, who specializes in drawing up offenses for limited, but athletic QBs (also the offensive coordinator for the Bills with Tyrod Taylor and Ravens with Lamar Jackson). At 30, his athleticism was fading.
Basically, he was already a huge liability that would be a shot in the dark gamble if someone wanted to try starting him. More realistically, he'd be employed as a backup for someone he's stylistically similar to. That's less appealing than more ordinary backups because you more or less need an offense tailored to deal with his lack of ability to run through progressions and inclination towards taking sacks rather than forcing tight window passes.
Realistically, someone would probably have done it anyway, basically viewing him as an old version of Mitchell Trubisky. Athletic QBs always get another chance, even if they kind of suck. But what was his inclination to play the role of the good veteran mentor, working hard to be ready to fill in if needed, but mostly just waiting on the bench? Would he be willing to do that? I greatly doubt it. Given that, what possible upside could come from selecting Kaepernick instead of just signing Matt Barkley and moving on with your life?
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
If you don't have an ID at this point, you probably aren't functioning on a level where I care if you vote or not.
Yeah, my framing there was really just being careful enough to use "almost". I actually agree that it's pretty much a tautology that lacking identification in 2022 means that you're not a legitimate voter. I flatly don't believe the sob stories about how requiring identification will disenfranchise X number of totally innocent people that are completely legitimate citizens.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I was inclined to agree circa April 2020, but I think that we've since run massive natural experiments and found out that masks basically don't matter to any meaningful extent, short of wearing tight fitting respirators. Every time I see someone still wearing a cloth mask, I wonder at just how bad their information diet is.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I used to think it was entirely feasible, and I still suppose it could be along a number of different political issues, but everything in 2020 disabused me of the notion that it would be fine to be with someone with radically differing views. Starting with Covid, I don't really see how I could have reconciled the seething hatred that I felt (and feel) for the public health bureaucrats and lockdownists with a partner that wanted to stay home and stay safe. I don't think I could have tolerated being with someone that condoned BLMs riots as they tore down monuments to our city and smashed and looted our commercial district. I don't see how an anti-gun partner could tolerate my affinity for firearms - I'm going to have multiple guns, they're going to be in the house, and it's not really negotiable.
We can disagree about the proper role of central banking in the modern state, but we can't disagree about the things that are forced into the center of our lives. I suppose this is what's meant about the distinction between "politics" and "human rights", as I really do view freedom of movement, security of property, and the right to be armed as basic rights in a free society. For others, the things that are held in this fashion might be gay rights, abortion, or simply the reciprocal of what I said above (the "rights" to be free of sickness or not have guns around, at least in some framings).
Given the parameters of current year politics, I don't suppose I'd have much interest in dating someone with substantially different politics if I were single.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
In the case of trans children, I do actually think it's pretty unambiguous. Even if I'm wrong, I can't imagine it would make any sense to have a partner than didn't have almost exactly the same inclination I do.
In other words: politics!
Not really. I honestly don't care very much what the local property tax rate is all that much. I have opinions, but it's not going to ruin my life if I get stuck paying an extra couple grand for some pointless makework project.
That's just a sleight of hand attempt on their part to move properly political questions into a sacred domain where their views will be beyond criticism. In exchange, they'll allow you to haggle over bureaucratic and administrative issues that no one actually cares about.
Didn't I just say that I have a bunch of things that I don't consider negotiable?
Your reply seems pretty unrelated to what I wrote. I don't get it.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I would initially guess that they would desist, as most people who express early age gender dysphoria do, and I would act accordingly. I would certainly want to remove them from any school that actively promotes gender malleability. In the event of persistent insistence outside of that toxic environment, I would have to give serious consideration to the possibility that they might have a lifelong condition that requires treatment. For the purposes of this conversation, I think the most important thing is that I would not be willing to go along with the paradigm that children can pick their gender.
Whether I'm right or wrong, this would not go well with someone that's more in line with the modern progressive position.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I predict that most "human rights issue, not a political issue" types would just stare at you and say "wow I can't even."
I'd be shocked if you got a reply that was anything other than looping back to, "it should be between a woman and her doctor" or "you just want to control women" or similar. This is not a topic that invites thoughtful replies or a reset of expectations and positions.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I would find it highly suspicious if a 10-year-old said they were gay. If you're referring to a teen, yes, I think it's fundamentally different in that people pretty much know their sexual orientation by that point. Perhaps more importantly, identifying as gay doesn't require hormonal disfigurement.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
When you're living with someone and sharing everything with them, you're bound to have disagreements that can drive you crazy that you need to learn to live with.
Are you? I know I'm pretty fortunate, but I have no disagreements with my wife that drive me crazy. Every topic that we've debated and disagreed on is something I have no problem moving on from.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Definitely isn't true for me, I don't recognize your username and I upvoted your post here ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Propose places that might be willing to do a link trade.
DSL forums?
The catch is that such knives must be no longer than three inches and must not lock.
This is one of those areas where arguing the specifics of what knives are acceptable to the state seems beyond the point. I can definitely think of use cases where I would really prefer a knife to lock (my pocket of knife of choice is the Benchmade Bugout and I spread the gospel of its excellence to all), but again, this just isn't the point. I'm viscerally offended by the idea that there should be bureaucrats or legislators concerning themselves with the quality of the locking mechanism on a pocketknife. Click through the Benchmade link above and you'll find what is clearly not intended as some assault knife but has a 3.24 inch blade and a locking mechanism.
I just find it bizarre to find it totally normal for your government to tell what the acceptable specs on your pocketknife are. Accepting this as a reasonable thing is just entirely alien to me. I think this is exactly why I react so strongly to guys like Andrew Cuomo saying, "no one needs 10 rounds to kill a deer". It turns out these slopes are very slippery indeed and accepting that it's legitimate for the government to tell me what the appropriate magazine size is for hunting does seem to lead inexorably to having a system that determines whether a locking mechanism on a pocketknife is something I "need".
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
If agents of the state are going to start being prosecuted for using force or intimidation to substantially interfere with liberty, I am here for it. In my ideal world, every governor that imposed a stay-at-home order for Covid will be prosecuted for millions of counts of false imprisonment and sentenced for however many tens of millions of years in prison that should entail.
Of course, the obvious holes in such a plan are... well, obvious. It turns out that we don't actually prosecute political actors for doing things that are just bad ideas and that eventually have legal correctives for the aggrieved parties.
Suppose you are a billionaire and want to decrease the amount of racism in the world; what decent options do you have?
Assuming I live in the United States, partake in litigation against affirmative action. Continue to press on the blatantly racist measures Harvard and other elite institutions have implemented to exclude academically qualified Asian-American and flyover white Americans.
Suppose you are a CEO of a corporation, what policies do you put in place to ensure there is no discrimination based on skin color in hiring, promotion, etc?
Well, it's going to be hard, because the way EEOC rules work in the United States, I pretty much have to put a thumb on the scale in favor of black candidates. Then once they're hired and (as a cohort) underperform their peers, I have to have HR continue putting a thumb on the scale at each level of promotion, lest I be said to racistly only hiring them, but not promoting them.
Personally, I'd prefer to do away with those measures altogether, but trying to avoid the voracious testers and attorneys of the United States Justice Department isn't easy.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
First, I’d appreciate if you pointed me towards a more detailed discussion of these regulations — what do they demand the CEO does; how is the compliance checked; what is the mechanism of enforcement?
There is so much that it's hard to even know where to start. Obviously, the best resource should be the EEOC home page, but you'll find quite a few platitudes that aren't that easy to decipher as an employer. Is there something in particular you're looking for? I'm not being sardonic when I say that compliance is complex and the regulations are many. The punch line is that if your hiring doesn't reflect local demographics, you'd better have an explicit reason or you're guilty, and you might be guilty anyway. You're definitely going to need to keep a record of the race of each of your employees and each candidate that you're interviewing, along with a number of other characteristics.
The requirements and legal actions available are the sort of things that I would think would make a libertarian see red.
Second, what do you think are the policies of the ideal world? Suppose you removed all the affirmative action laws — what do you propose to do next? Surely just doing that is not enough, the pre-affirmative action America wasn’t a place free of racism; in fact, quite the opposite.
I think allowing freedom of association is the least racist policy choice. I do not agree with the Ibram X Kendi position that the cure to past discrimination is future discrimination.
I am not being snarky in my statements above - I think the present state of the United States includes academic and employment discrimination against Asian and white Americans, particularly in favor of black Americans. I doubt there's a perfect equilibrium to be achieved, but think movement in the direction of less racist academic and employment practices would mostly be about mitigating the discrimination against Asian and white Americans. I don't think you can find any prestigious or high paying sector of work in the United States where there isn't a thumb on the scale in favor of black Americans currently.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Probably (and I'm pretty sure universities are doing exactly that), but I wouldn't say that this satisfies the stated goal of having a less racist society. It's probably the optimal thing to do from an employment compliance perspective, but it doesn't seem to improve life for any of my countrymates of any race. I guess maybe it furthers some global anti-racist goal, but this is not a goal of mine.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
So what's the actual takeaway? I see people following each step of the legal process closely, and I can understand how that's interesting for the law-watchers, but it all sounds like a lot of handwavey bullshit to a layman like me. Does anyone have a good sense of what the actual odds of prosecution are?
If I hear "the walls are closing in" based on possessing some document that I don't care about or asking another politician a question one more goddamned time without there being any material payoff, I'm going to lose it.
Last year, I brought up a similar situation for a New Year's Eve party and there was some excellent discussion and advice at the old place. Based in part on that advice, I settled on the primacy of friendship over silliness and went along with the rapid test, then proceeded to enjoy the evening. I felt deeply conflicted about this at the time, even though it's a small thing. I think I'm completely done on that front now though. If someone wishes to continue pursuing Covid consciousness, I'll part ways with them until that's no longer important to them.
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