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Walterodim

Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t

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joined 2022 September 05 12:47:06 UTC 

				
User ID: 551


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Walterodim


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 12:47:06 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 551


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Even that I know it's snarky and somewhat dumb, I always wind up returning to the same thought experiment with regard to free will - how do the people that believe in pure determinism (or determinism plus stochastic randomness) react to a physical threat? If someone stands in front of them and says, "if you deny free will, I will punch you in the face", do they behave as though they believe that there is no free will to be exercised on the part of either party, that everything that follows is a mere consequence of the state of the universe with possibly a roll of the dice to determine the outcome? Many will affirm that they do, in fact, believe that, but pretty much no one would be willing to bite the bullet and say that neither individual has a choice in what follows. I am aware of various explanations for this and it's possible that I'm just too slow-witted to fully grasp them, but they really do just seem like pure sophistry to me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's the counterargument I hear and it just sounds like unfalsifiable bunk to me. I flatly don't buy that whether I hit a guy or not is just stochastically determined by parameters plus randomness, I believe that it's actually a product of me electing to do so or not. My claim is also pretty obviously unfalsifiable bunk, but then we're just stuck at whose sophistry is more compelling.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 28, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Needing" a couple beers to enjoy hanging out with your buddies at a bar is not, in fact, a terrible thing. This is particularly true for definitions of "need" that aren't fully compulsive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


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.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for April 12, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How do you feel about esoteric finishing and blending though? Things like what Barrell and Bardstown have done have produced pretty interesting results. I don't want Seagrass all the time, but when I do, it's really good.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for April 12, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


...how fucking hard making great whiskey is and why MGP is such a dominant force.




Hilarious that there are people that want to skip out on MGP because they don't like sourced and finished whiskies. More bottles for me!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for April 12, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why not just buy this little guy instead? Same price, low miles, only ten years old, intentionally designed to be that size, and it's even kinda cute. Come to think of it, I ought to buy my wife one of these.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for April 10, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's only two things I can't stand in the world.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is Putin still strong and trad?




Probably. Are there people that would characterize Putin as strong and trad that like the CIA?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think I pretty much endorse this, even though I recognize that there's a fully general version of it that could be pretty mindkilling. Nonetheless, when someone sneers that free will is incoherent and would have to be powered by magic, I might as well just respond, "yeah, isn't magic cool?". I don't really buy that their argument amounts to much more than, "I don't understand it, so it must be magic", but since I don't think I actually understand it either, I might as well shrug and declare that it is indeed magic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 3, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"I would respond to someone's principled, albeit harsh, verbal condemnation with physical violence." I'm really not sure that's the kind of argument you want to advocate.




I wrote that this is what I would want to do. Personally, I have pretty strong impulse control, so it's unlikely that I would actually react that way. I wouldn't think less of someone that replied to OP's "advice" with a physical challenge though.




I don't read OP's comment as having contempt for Bob.




This is not consistent with, "as my churning viscera limits my rhetorical strategy from being much more sophisticated than, in so many words, just yelling "CUCK CUCK CUCK" at him".




Slippery slopes are greased by the shrugging nonchalance of the agnostic and conformist.




Yeah, that's why I think the correct response to your putative friend expressing how much they despise your wife and calling you a cuck is feeling an impulse towards violence. I'd be a lot more concerned about the slippery slope of thinking, "well, my wife is a bit of a whore and might deserve to be lonely and miserable forever" than the one where your first impulse is to defend her.


I really don't know how you can read that post and think it's about sincere concern, respect, and values.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Seems obviously stupid, like a waste of time to admit the not-very-bright kid, but I just don't care very much. Life isn't going to be fair in every individual example, but it's fair enough that I'm not really going to get wound up that a 1460 kid wound up one rung lower than they "should" be.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for November 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Sure, I can agree that focusing on looks overly much over competence in an employee might be an example of misalignment from the idealized version of themselves that would be best for a business, but given that the two of them only had a minor difference in terms of competency, I don't particularly care.




My view on the matter seems common in practice, but uncommon to articulate, which is that being around attractive people is more pleasant and that all else equal, I would always choose the more attractive person. In the United States, so many people are grotesquely fat that it's easy to opt into being way more attractive than the median simply by being reasonably physically fit, which also makes attractiveness a marker for character.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for November 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I cycle more than I walk and I notice that a comparatively short walk will leave my legs stiff where doing a longer distance on a bike would have no effect.




Yeah, likewise and conversely, I'm a pretty good runner, but garbage on the bike. When I trained a bit, I got better at cycling rapidly, but the baseline from being a runner really only helps to the extent that I can keep spinning with a redlining heart rate for a lot longer than someone that's untrained. My muscular fitness for cycling still sucks. Sure, you can get aerobic fitness from either one, but the sport-specific muscular power and endurance ain't gonna build itself.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #3
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're right, I should have explicitly stated that I was referring to "Islamophobia" being unacceptable in liberal circles and coding as a hard-right sentiment. The JP columnist I linked to is very much on the broader left, and I suppose I still think of that set as my ingroup.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would describe that as a mostly accurate view of that relationship.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


crutch to mitigate the downsides of modernity, except instead of social anxiety




Of course, the drugs seem to work like shit compared to be an authentically mentally healthy human being. I expect that Wegovy and similar drugs will wind up similar on a number of dimensions. I genuinely cannot imagine preferring a lifetime of pill popping to just riding a bike.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, like I said in my other post on the topic, I'm in favor of something fairly close to a total pause to provide for a period of assimilation. A generation or two of stabilization would do wonders for cultural cohesion, in my view.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Waves of immigration to major cities continued apace throughout the 19th century as well. New York City, Chicago, Boston, Philly, and other large American cities relied heavily on immigrant labor and the new immigrants formed large ethnic enclaves in those cities. Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans, Jews - these people and their experiences building our major cities are certainly important parts of the formative story of the United States and many of them weren't headed for the frontier.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for June 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I played a bunch of Diablo IV with my wife yesterday. This is a shared experience and not an uncommon one. Talking about what Aspects she should use to increase Twisting Blades damage doesn't strike me as all that different from discussing what our plans are for a given marathon training cycle.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


...lack of access to weapons




The combination of demographics and access to weapons seem to combine to drive murder rates, in my view. As I mentioned in another post, the murder rate among whites in Minnesota and Wisconsin is incredibly low, almost non-existent, and yet there are tons of weapons in the rural areas. The people are just not really the shooty types so much. As @rudig points out, Oslo has some populations that are fairly violent; I would guess that their capacity for large numbers of murder is moderated by their access to firearms. Where the two intersect, Milwaukee and Minneapolis have high murder rates among their black populations - violent subcultures, predicted by demographics, combined with easy access to firearms gives predictably bad outcomes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for May 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The balance expressed by a pro rock climber who can also run a marathon is much more interesting than the specialization expressed by a 5'6" skeleton ambling to a 2hr45m marathon time.




Strong disagree. The only reason the former seems "balanced" is that pretty much all fit humans are at least somewhat decent at running, so they're capable of doing a crappy job of running a marathon. This is pretty much the equivalent of the fact that most runners can do at least some pushups - they're still mostly bad at it and it doesn't demonstrate that they're complete athletes because they can do a little bit of another sport.


I also reject the false dichotomy. One of the guys I run with is 5'6" and roughly 170 pounds and is a 2:35 marathoner. Running pretty fast for amateurs doesn't require a skeletal frame.




Marathon running might be kinda bimodal in terms of interest: it is interesting to watch pros try to break 2hrs, and interesting to watch complete rank amateurs try to gut it out, but it's not that interesting to watch a bunch of junior product engineers try to break 4hrs.




I have no idea what's interesting about watching amateurs try to gut it out. They're basically just not even trying to do the activity. If you already know going in that you're going to spend a bunch of time walking, then you're simply not running a marathon.


Marathoning is boring to watch no matter what the level is and I won't try to convince anyone otherwise, but gimmick versions of running that skirt around someone just having shitty conditioning doesn't make it more interesting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I didn't and haven't been back to LA recently. On the list now though! Thanks :-)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure, that's why I said that you'd see smaller bigs. Am I underestimating the effect in a way that isn't obvious to me?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for April 12, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Absolutely. I do like rum in general, but Foursquare was a gamechanger for me as someone that's mostly a bourbon guy (Scotch and Irish whiskeys are great too, but I have more bourbon than all other liquor bottles put together). They retain all of the tropical flavors that I love about good rums, but are really expertly aged. I think we have about 5 bottles and I've never been disappointed. The ones that simply have years for names have probably been my go-to favorites - 2008 had a panna cotta sort of taste to it that was just fantastic as a dessert. They're probably my favorite thing for the porch on a hot day because they fit the vibe.


I think the real rum guys are less in because it doesn't have any of the funkiness that you get with Jamaican pot rums and such, but if you're coming from whisky in the first place, that's a feature rather than a bug.