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
This is probably because driving is treated as a "privilege" by the state.
Driving should be treated as a privilege. I'm more opposed to safetyism than the median person, but it still surprises me that we came up with a norm that operating one specific class of heavy machinery is basically a right that's hard to remove, even for individuals that are incompetent or repeatedly demonstrate that they will drive while inebriated. Tens of thousands of otherwise young, healthy people die in vehicular accidents annually and it remains an entirely niche issue to even think about traffic safety.
This doesn't get me to the point of favoring this particular sort of intrusion, but I generally think licensing is far too liberalized.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2yr ago
evidently News Corp felt it would lose in a jury trial, hence the settlement.
Quite possible, but it also strikes me as possible that they think ongoing publicity shined on their handling of the election was worse for the brand than just coughing up some cash and moving on.
Between this and Jan 6th (as well as Unite the Right protestors, arrests of business associates, consultants, lawyers, and others), it also shows the huge cost (monetarily, reputationally, etc.) of supporting Trump and Trumpism, which has been inflicted on pretty everyone but Trump himself, who is still mostly unscathed.
This is particularly striking when we consider the dog that didn't bark when it comes to BLM riots and dishonest news coverage with the opposite valence. At this point, it's pretty hard to not get the message with regard to which way the hammer of "justice" will swing.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2yr ago
Thanks in part to cars, the average American takes only about three or four thousand steps per day and looks like a WALL-E character. I suppose that the standard libertarian perspective on this would be that the revealed preference of Americans is to avoid physical movement and that governments should try to accommodate that preference, but it's surely not how I'd like my city to approach things.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2yr ago
I'm also suspicious of single men (after a certain age) because it suggests that there's something flat out wrong with them. Whether it's inability to find a good partner or lack of willingness to keep one, they're doing something that's going to make me trust and respect them less. I don't know that I've met a man in his 30s that is loyal, smart, and likeable that isn't married. The best you're going to get in most cases is two of the above.
Sidewalks are legal to ride on in most municipalities. They're terrible to ride on. I don't know why you believe relegating cyclists to sidewalks would prevent accidents with vehicles - sidewalks cross intersections with less visibility than roadways and most accidents are at intersections.
If you just want cyclists to stop their stupid hobby, you should say that rather than proposing a solution that's obviously unworkable and that you've apparently been told is unworkable by cyclists.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Law enforcement clashed with protesters calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war outside of the Washington headquarters of the Democratic National Committee Wednesday night after authorities said the demonstration turned violent and lawmakers were evacuated from the building.
“Tonight 6 officers were treated for injuries – ranging from minor cuts to being pepper sprayed to being punched. One person has been arrested for assault on an officer. We appreciate our officers who kept these illegal & violent protesters back & protected everyone in the area,” US Capitol Police, who responded with DC Metropolitan Police, said in a statement on X.
...
Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said in a statement Wednesday night that “hundreds of peaceful anti-war activists came to the DNC to call for an end to bombs and violence in order to save Palestinian and Israeli lives.”
“They were met with brutal assaults by the police,” Miller continued. “The Democrats need to decide: will they stand on the side of peace and justice, or will they continue to support war and genocide?”
Riot, attack cops, claim to be the victim. This pattern of conduct isn't remotely surprising to me at this point, but I am surprised that anyone other than fellow travelers is willing to treat these things like a both sides situation, where we can't really know who caused things to turn ugly.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
4mo ago
Put simply, I think Elon Musk is an Antichrist. I'm not a religious man, but nothing seems to me to sum him up so neatly as the concept of an Antichrist. He has offered visions of salvation in the form of environmentalism, extraterrestrial travel, pro-natalism, and now DOGE. He is the richest man in the world and commands the world's largest microphone, using it to shape global opinion and change governments around the world. His relationship with the truth is flexible, to put it lightly.
If Antichrists are real, would they have many children via IVF with women like Grimes and Ashley St. Claire? Would he name them things like Exa Dark Sideræl and Techno Mechanicus? Absolutely.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
They take the viewer's eyes off of the actual visual content of a scene and diminish the need to listen closely to dialogue that is intended to be listened to closely. Try it out with a scene where the actors are speaking in hushed tones - if you turn on captions, do you tend to just read them without changing the way you're listening? If you turn off captions, do you tend to tune your listening to the sort of secretive tones that you would in real life? Different types of immersion impact the experience of content in a meaningful way.
I'm not saying everything needs to be engaged with this way. If I'm flying, the audio quality is going to suck anyway, the visual content is on an iPad, and I just want some entertainment to kill a couple hours, so I'm going to turn captions on. Nonetheless, I think it's a bad habit to get into more generally and feeds into the inclination to divert attention to multiple things instead of just paying attention to one thing.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
far more restraint than almost any other country in the world given their situation.
I don't think this is true - many European countries would simply not retaliate at all if left to their own devices.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2yr ago
Well, I did say you could get two out of the three. I remain skeptical of the personal likeability of people that have never attracted a woman that's good marriage material (or their judgment if they just rule out 99% of women in their cohort as unmarriageable). At some point, it's a bit of a tautology and says more about the sort of people that I like than anything else, but I generally don't enjoy the company of men that have zero success with women.
It also kind of comes across as myopic - maybe you had the good fortune to meet someone who you could marry when you were in your 20s, but not everyone else is going to be so lucky and you should be sympathetic rather than judgmental.
I object to this being "good fortune". Many women are attractive, honest, and would be good wives if given the opportunity. My experience wasn't being sullenly single until I one day lucked into the woman of my dreams. Treating this as a mere product of luck is the kind of thing I'm referring to with regard to likeability.
Of course, none of these claims are absolutes, but they're the tendencies that I've seen around me. The topic of who is to blame when men fail to find partners has been done to death around this community and I have not been persuaded that they're not doing anything wrong.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
5mo ago
There is a relevant in that first sentence. Let's try it out with different subjects and objects to see if we would call that a ban:
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The law signed in April mandates a ban on liquor sales at Total Wine if bottles are not labeled.
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The law signed in April mandates a ban on Toyota produced in Japanese-owned factories rather than American-owned factories.
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The law signed in April mandates a ban on cheeses if the milk is not sourced from FDA-inspected farms.
I would not describe these as "bans". They impose requirements (divestment from ownership by an adversarial government in this case). Perhaps they're bad regulations, but they aren't bans on the products in question. That ByteDance is apparently going to elect to sunset the application rather than take the money and run is strongly suggestive of the real value being non-monetary advantages to the Chinese government.
OK, so I don't bring my dog to grocery stores or other places where the norms would suggest not doing so, but I do want to give you my gut response to the question anyway:
Are dog people convinced that all humans love dogs (except for evil humans) and therefore there ought not be a problem?
I don't care that you don't like dogs. I don't think you're evil for it, but I do think it's a sign of uptight neuroticism. My dog is a shy yellow lab that never barks outside her own home. She walks directly at my side and doesn't approach strangers. If someone was afraid of her, I wouldn't deliberately inflict her upon them, but I also think it is absolutely just their problem. If, for example, I was at a bar patio and someone was bothered by her presence, I would say that it's entirely incumbent on them to go somewhere else - the dog is normal and pleasant, the anti-dog guy is the unreasonable party, and that's up to him to act accordingly.
I'll agree that there is an annoying fraction of dog-havers that think their dog belongs everywhere. The flip side of this is that I've seen people on local Reddits whining about dogs on patios because they have allergies or they're scared of dogs. I am not at all inclined to accommodate their delicate systems and sensibilities.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
11mo ago
This isn't true at all and is one of the mistakes people make that damages their long-term fitness improvements. Zone 2 aerobic exercise is definitionally easy. I can burn 700 calories/hour running at a pace that feels almost artificially easy and having a conversation. People that focus more on cycling tend to go even easier. If most of your aerobic activity feels hard, you're either out of shape or doing it wrong.
Getting started on exercise is difficult, maintaining it isn't.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2yr ago
This seems like the Principal Skinner meme brought to life. Sure, there are plenty of defective women as well, but if they all seem defective, that would suggest faulty evaluation. I am confident that there are plenty of high quality, marriageable women on the basis that many women are, in fact, married and stay married. My confidence is further increased by knowing quite a few of them.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
10mo ago
all of which are 100% necessary
Street parking, especially free street parking, is not as necessary as it's often treated as by people that want to park for free on the street.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
11mo ago
I do not assert moral superiority and I do not think people who muster the will to exercise and lose weight are morally superior to those who don't. That's all projection on your part.
I'll bite the bullet and be the strawman here - yes, all else equal, people that are fit and maintain their weight are morally superior to those that don't. You can explain to me the complex biological underpinnings of why some people have a harder time doing that and I will still think they are morally inferior to people that do it. I grasp that compulsive liars and addicts may lack the same full capacity for agency as others, but I still think they're morally inferior to people that are honest and temperate. Ultimately, I judge someone's moral positioning by their actions and the traits exemplified by sloth and gluttony are poor ones.
Does this come off as smug, self-satisfied, and self-serving? I'm sure it does, but I'm not inclined to pretend people that ruin their bodies through a lack of agency aren't demonstrating a condemnable moral failing.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Here's the rundown:
When he was 13, Lanza was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome by a psychiatrist, Paul Fox.[155] When he was 14, his parents took him to Yale University's Child Study Center, where he was also diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). He frequently washed his hands and changed his socks 20 times a day, to the point where his mother did three loads of laundry a day.[166] He also sometimes went through a box of tissues in a day because he could not touch a doorknob with his bare hand.[167]
Lanza was treated by Robert King, who recommended extensive support be put in place, and King's colleague Kathleen Koenig at the Yale Child Study Center prescribed the antidepressant Celexa.[168] Lanza took the medication for three days. His mother Nancy reported: "On the third morning he complained of dizziness. By that afternoon he was disoriented, his speech was disjointed, he couldn't even figure out how to open his cereal box. He was sweating profusely ... it was actually dripping off his hands. He said he couldn't think ... He was practically vegetative."[155] He never took the medication again.[168] A report from the Office of the Child Advocate found that "Yale's recommendations for extensive special education supports, ongoing expert consultation, and rigorous therapeutic supports embedded into (Lanza's) daily life went largely unheeded."[163]
In a 2013 interview, Peter Lanza (Adam's father) said he suspected his son might have also had undiagnosed schizophrenia in addition to his other conditions. Lanza said that family members might have missed signs of the onset of schizophrenia and psychotic behavior during his son's adolescence because they mistakenly attributed his odd behavior and increasing isolation to Asperger syndrome.[155][162][169][170][171]
I don't buy the claim that this is such an ordinary history that the dragnet would catch Motte shitposters. I suppose it is true that his utterly amoral parents protected their precious psychotic baby as he devolved from merely being an isolated lunatic into a murderous lunatic and that there might not have been much anyone could have done about it after they elected to do so. In any case, there is simply nothing anyone could have done to make this guy less of an unloveable incel.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
To my knowledge, imprisoning children and subjecting them to unbelievable cruelty for months or sometimes years at a time is broadly illegal.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2yr ago
The streaming environment has become quite fracutured and has impaired both the ease of access and price point for legally consuming media online.
Really? In the case of audio, Spotify runs $10 a month for access across literally every device I own, including a sport watch for running. This is unfathomably cheap and accessible relative to the CDs I grew up buying to listen to music. I guess television and movies are fractured in the sense that there are many services that include various non-overlapping content, but each of Netflix, Hulu, and so on provide easy access to more content than any person can watch without being a TV junkie.
Either way, my moral intuition was always that it was pretty obviously stealing to pirate music, movies, or software. Whether I was willing to engage in that stealing or not depended on my own financial position, ease of paying legally, and how sympathetic the target was, but I don't think I ever tried talking myself into the idea that it's not stealing. I genuinely have trouble crediting the position that other people hold that it's not stealing as anything other than a rationalization for why they should steal things. To be blunt, I think it can only be sincere in the case of people that are simply too slow-witted to grasp the concept of intellectual property. Most people would have no trouble discerning that theft of their intellectual property is still theft.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
5mo ago
In fact, it's not even being "banned" at all.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
10mo ago
And intersections are currently very dangerous because cyclist are on the road, not on the sidewalks.
No, they're dangerous because you're not easily visible when cars are turning. This is true even at running speeds and would be dramatically worse at cycling speed.
It's just very difficult to believe that you have any meaningful cycling experience to draw from here.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
What does putting oneself in the shoes of the individual being questioned have to do with it, though?
For me, it means considering that my own response would be nothing but contempt for Stefanik and a refusal to cooperate.
I suppose where we differ is in believing there was any noble goal here at all.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
That seems stretching term occupation quite far. Are you going to argues that Japan and South Korea are also occupied by USA?
Yes, obviously. Why would I say otherwise? A nation that has tens of thousands of soldiers from another country is occupied. That asking them to leave seems like it would be basically impossible with current political constraints further solidifies that this is an occupation, albeit a polite and friendly one. Some countries are better to be occupied than others, the Romans and Americans were both civilizing influences that protected the interests of their clients and vassals, but this is still what occupation looks like.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
What does better choices mean, in this context?
It refers to people exercising intentionality to consume the foods that align with their physical goals. If that's losing weight, it means a caloric deficit. If that's endurance sports, it means eating a bunch of boring sugars and simple carbs out of your back pocket while you're on the bike because it'll go poorly later if you don't. If it's normal homeostasis, it means matching your appetite to your activity. If it's bodybuilding, it means protein shakes, egg slonking, and chicken breast when you don't want anymore because it's necessary to add muscle.
Basically, it means making an actual choice, electing to eat the things that make sense rather than defaulting to absent-minded gluttony.
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.
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