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
2d ago
Many men are just as stupid, or worse. OK, obviously this guy's lady friend is a moron, but at least she's emotionally invested in the circumstance and is unable to recognize what absolute garbage this individual is. What excuse does anyone else have? Why would anyone's reaction be anything other than advocating a swift and clean execution?
The longer I'm alive, the more straight up antipathy I feel towards addicts. Some people seem to develop more empathy for them over time, but I am pretty well fresh out of it. Guys like this will predictably make life worse for everyone around them, they're much worse than simply worthless, and it's absurd that they just keep getting to make the world around them worse every day.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2d ago
The extremely dangerous men of special forces military units have no desire to signal their extreme dangerousness to the general public when they're out for some drinks with the boys. If anything, these guys are less likely to get into stupid fights for no real reason than the average guy because of their ability to easily keep their cool in stressful situations.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2d ago
Oh, that sucks. I actually do enjoy boardgames, but I don't buy them often enough to have bumped into that. We grabbed Wingspan and its expansions, Ark Nova, and Brass: Birmingham and we've been pretty happy with that rotating set for the time being. My wife bought me a preorder copy of First Monday in October which makes for delightful nerd cross appeal, but that order went in quite a while ago.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2d ago
Yeah, I don't know, chalk it up to small sample size I guess. I only know a couple of these guys and they're both pretty relaxed and have no tattoos at all. I'm obviously aware that plenty of soldiers have tattoos, but I get a completely different impression than I do from the face and knuckle tattoo guys on that front as well.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1d ago
Yeah, I think that's correct as well.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
26d ago
Are the blackbagging tactics of ICE a necessary evil, a dangerous overstep, or some nuanced in-between?
Assuming we're simply referring to "blackbagging" as forcefully and publicly initiating the detention of illegal aliens for their removal, they are a necessary good. I want the illegal aliens removed, but it would be even better if they simply noticed that they're unwelcome and left of their own accord. To that end, this process should be carried out openly, publicly, and with no undue kindness.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1mo ago
During the same period, roughly 15 million Americans died in total. I just really doubt that the average person can notice an ~8% increase in death rate, particularly when most of the people dying aren't people that you're very surprised died. My position remains that basically nothing should have been done other than expediting the vaccination schedule even further for those that would plausibly benefit from it and I've never seen anything that makes me think that position is even slightly wrong.
Maybe the real lesson is that evenly distributed deaths just aren't very noticeable even if they're statistically relevant.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1mo ago
Perhaps it's Pollyannaish but I wish that we could do our shaming in a more dignified, and less clearly antagonistic way.
I just don't think this is how shame works. If what you're doing deserves to be treated with dignity and without antagonism, you should not be shamed! In fact, it will probably be very difficult to shame you if you actually know that you're conducting yourself in a dignified fashion and feel strongly that the people who suggest otherwise are in the wrong. I don't think it's plausible to accurately convey that people should not wish to turn out like Aella without flatly saying that she is an unshowered prostitute and thus should not be treated as a serious person.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
DEI discriminates against white people: 33% - 41%
It remains interesting that people are simply misinformed about the facts. DEI policies, factually, are discrimination against white people (and Asian people). They literally cannot accomplish their stated goals without doing so, they are definitionally policies that implement discrimination. That's not an ironclad argument for or against them from where I sit, it's just the starting point that we all need to be aware of in order to have these conversations.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
I flatly don't believe in polyamory being real as I have typically heard it articulated. I don't believe that people who share the sort of bond that happily married people share can ever exist among people that aren't monogamous. They're not monogamous couples with extras bolted on, they're people that are failing to form successful pair-bonds concocting unstable edifices based on their desire for promiscuity and unwillingness to engage in genuine commitment to another person. I really hope there won't ever actually be a push to normalize this behavior with some social obligation to pretend that I believe polygamists have relationships that are as respectable as actual marriages.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1mo ago
We can just count total deaths. A bunch more people died than usual. We don't really tend to miscount how many people died.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
For people upset about ICE and due process, this coverage is also not your friend. The framings- and the not-very-deep undercurrents that go against the framing- will give a basis to dismiss concern as motivated. The children-in-cage's and child-separation critiques are not going to be forgotten. The fact that not separating children from their deported parents is now a basis of criticism is going to undercut criticims of both. The media's rush to present a concerned father is going to run into discrediting disappointing revelations.
I agree, but what am I to do with that? Based on the "child separation", the "Dreamers", this case's publicity, and the general zeitgeist, it really does seem that the only policy that will actually be accepted by opponents on this is that if you have a child in the United States, you cannot be removed. There is no actual set of proceedings that could satisfy the demand that parents not be separated from their children but also that children cannot be deported with their parents. Any attempt to come up with some narrowly satisfactory resolution that would meet the due process standard that someone came up with approximately 15 minutes ago will slam into some new bad-faith litigation about why of course some deportations are fine, but not this one.
It is increasingly clear to me that getting any resembling what I would consider an appropriate level of deportations will actually just require deciding to be mean in a way that will alienate a significant number of people. My options are not between making a strong legal argument for position or just letting everyone stay, they're between deciding to look mean or just letting everyone stay. If meanness is going to be the actual deciding factor, that's what the decision-making from my side is going to have to be centered on, and I'm perfectly fine with just being mean at this point.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
23d ago
Expecting someone to be able to ballpark the population of Iran isn't actually looking for deep expertise though, it's expecting a strong generalist's knowledge of trivia. Sitting United States Senators should be better than a typical bar trivia team at knowing things like world capitals and national populations. If they're not at that level, I'd consider them too stupid or incurious to hold the office. Senators should be polymaths with strong interests in things like CIA World Factbook information.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1mo ago
I continue to dislike that as the primary metric of doing better during Covid. The important way that Sweden did better is that they engaged in fewer human rights violations, which is much more important to me than how many elderly people passed away of natural causes.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
Which side’s vices are worse? That’s an empirical question...
It's not. One cannot turn the question of whether international trade policy that costs some fractional percentage of production is worse than promoting racially discriminatory college admissions policies. Hell, one can't even reliably determine which economic policies are better or worse in a strictly empirical question. Most political questions are values questions, not empirical questions, and you should immediately distrust anyone that claims that their preferred policies are just The Science.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
I guess I still don't actually understand what your working model is here. Setting aside whether the new legislation would have been good or not for the moment, it seems clear and obvious that there are plenty of statutory reasons for removal or denial of entry that weren't being used. With that fact well established (at least to me), I immediately become very skeptical of anyone that tells me we need new legislation to accomplish something that they're not even trying to do with what's already on the books. So skeptical, in fact, that I tend to think there's an ulterior motive - perhaps there's some poison pill in the law I missed, perhaps they want the optics of saying they did something, perhaps they're shooting for a compromise lock-in that I don't want. From a game theoretic perspective, I would love an off-ramp from this equilibrium, but it's very hard for me to believe that the Defectbot that just did 243 consecutive tats has responded by agreeing to cooperate after only one tit.
I guess our disagreement is about whether the current laws provide statutory reasons for removal or denial of entry?
I am in favor of deporting men that show up looking to reside here with tattoos that plausibly resemble gang tattoos. I am not actually all that interested in trying to decipher whether the tattoos are actually gang tattoos or just kind of look that way; I want nearly zero alien gang members in the country and I don't really view it as much of a boon to get tatted up Venezuelans that aren't in gangs either. While I might be inclined to extend some sympathy to the plight of winding up in an El Salvadoran prison, I mostly chalk that up to being the pragmatic solution to Venezuela refusing to accept their people back. At the end of the day, cleaning up the absolute mess that previous regimes have left when it comes to illegal aliens, criminal aliens, and immigrants with various extremely questionable "temporary" and "asylee" statuses, I am just really not inclined to balk at the removal of tatted Venezuelans with fake asylum claims.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
I know poly isn't for me, but if someone says it works for them, who am I to argue?
Many people claim things are good for them that self-evidently aren't. Whether this is one of them or not isn't easily answerable, but you don't actually have to accept a junkie's claim that he just really enjoys the freedom of living in a tent.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
But because our culture glorifies working in the sports, fashion and entertainment industries, and scorns working in a normal job like a normal person (bullshit jobs,4 soul-crushing desk job etc.), lots of people keep pursuing their dream job long past the point at which it’s abundantly obvious that they’re not talented enough to make a living as a rapper or streamer.
Most people trying to make it as rappers and streamers probably don't actually have a powerful skill set that could be swapped out for a strong income elsewhere, so the people I feel really bad for are the postdocs plugging away in research labs well into their 30s, making a pittance and crossing their fingers that they'll finally get an academic offer. Academic research isn't quite as extreme of a rockstar profession as rapping, but it is actually a gamble with enormous opportunity cost relative to other options that high-IQ people that are willing to work long hours can take.
The biggest piece of advice I can give to talented young people is to stay flexible, that you don't actually know what your dream career is when you're choosing the starting path as a teenager.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1mo ago
At least until there's a volunteer manpower shortage and they either pay someone to comply with the onerous amount of boring administration or they wind the requirements back.
The bureaucrats and politicians won't be sad about that either. People that aren't on the payroll don't have the same levers to pull and thus lack the same sort of patron/client relationships that political types thrive on. Oh, sure, there might be budgetary problems, but that usually just resolves as a referendum on property taxes that everyone dutifully agrees need to be raised.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
3mo ago
At recess I read books. I opted out of gym as much as possible, it was humiliating and vulgar. The only post-puberty phys ed class I was forced to take was sex segregated so I wouldn't have had any opportunity to see differences. In earlier gym classes I didn’t look around much. Why would I? Are people comparing themselves to see how many jumping jacks they can do? I just wanted it to be done with.
This seems to be pretty much the universal experience of people that advocate for trans participation in women's sports. They have no idea how large the gaps are between men and women because they have somehow managed to take pride in avoiding anything to do with physical fitness. I guess I can kind of, sort of squint and see how that happens, but the part I don't understand is their willingness to jump into arguments about a topic that they just don't care about at all.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
In the short span of time since I've heard this case, I've been trying to digest how exactly this fits in, and it's just so remarkably brazen that I can barely articulate it. I already thought that the more immigration-sympathetic judges played fast and loose with the rule of law, but it's on a completely different level to personally aid and abet the attempted escape of an illegal alien. When it's a legal proceeding with a decision I don't like, there's at least some pretense that we disagree about the law. This doesn't even have that fig leaf.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
I don't think spotting the weak links is actually as hard as this framing makes it sound. You can allow an almost arbitrary amount of academic freedom in biochemistry and expect that there will be at least some valuable and true information that is eventually produced. In stark contrast, many social "sciences" cannot and will not ever produce any true information about the world and I think these are pretty easy to spot from a mile away. No deference is owed to fat studies scholars on the basis that the university also employs materials scientists and agricultural microbiologists.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2mo ago
That's what I would have said about gender woo until it swiftly moved from just being left alone into conscripting everyone else into participating in it. If people want to do something I don't approve of with their own lives, sure, that's their call, whatever, but I am now leery of pushes for normalization.
My fancy ramen from the Asian grocery does indeed seem to have gone up significantly in price. That's the only "pain" I've been personally felt from the tariffs and I'm pretty sure the response from pro-tariff policy people would be that I should stop buying Chinese noodles and get aboard the Korean noodle train. Because I am a very stable genius, I predicted this months ago:
In all seriousness, I will continue to be actually pretty agnostic about the whole enterprise and think that we won't really know what the actual outcomes are for quite some time yet.
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