cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
6mo ago
France.
And I'm tempted to just rewrite exactly what I wrote above. Working civilization is not a zero sum game like competitive basketball. It's not about being better than everyone else, it's about being good enough to cross a threshold. More like can you shoot a basket, rather than can you win a game of basketball.
cjet79
6mo ago
Clark's point raises the question "why Britain in the late 1700's?". The selection effect he talks about has been in place just about everywhere in history. The rich upper class reproduced in high numbers and crowded down the poor into subsistence and eventually starvation. Why not a continental European country? Honestly take your pick and they probably looked similar to England.
I don't think I was "quibbling" with the analogy. I do think that happens sometimes, when you can stretch the analogy to make a point that doesn't make any sense in reality. But my point stands outside of the analogy: a working civilization does not require a high IQ population. It requires good culture and policy. Reproducing those things is hard, but does not require high biological potential.
cjet79
6mo ago
Yeah that kinda feels like the "nothing ever happens" position, which I'm always tempted to take. Since it seems right most of the time.
cjet79
6mo ago
I'd be interested if there is something sufficiently interesting happening.
I don't mean that facetiously. Like I'm not against football. I just don't want to follow the day to day. But if something like deflategate, or some amazing string of wins, or some new way of playing that shakes things up happens I want to know.
If someone had to sum up each season and describe the interesting things that happened within one paragraph, I'd totally read that.
I do like the amazing feats of athleticism and the close strategic calls. I know about 99% of the rules (and I'm interested in learning how those rules change season to season, and why they changed).
I feel like people are sometimes all in on football or totally anti football, and y'all are maybe grouping me in anti football. That's not where I'm at. I'm partially interested.
cjet79
6mo ago
The other reaction I had to this post was somewhat surprise to hear that the pro-immigration side "won". I don't really follow twitter/X stuff at all. I instead hear about politics through second hand sources, the main one is themotte. But the secondary one is via comedy podcasts.
Tim Dillon is one of my favorites. I feel like he has a good understanding of what I'd call the dirt bag political pulse. The kind of people that barely pay attention, and if they were to pay attention it would not add anything positive.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3_LVaHqP96k?si=i4nFHV-slWKMUOXV
His latest episode covers this topic. And he unashamedly bashes Elon and Vivek. Especially Vivek. And the overall impression I got was that this is one of those embarrassing and wonky positions that people high up in the Republican side will take. But that it is a distinctly uncool position to take.
cjet79
6mo ago
Comedy skit about that:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lM0teS7PFMo?si=GyB-7F1nMDamSbe4
One of my favorite parts:
Wisher: how about if I wish for the powers of a genie?
Genie: no, bad idea, how do you think I got this job?
cjet79
6mo ago
Y'all are acting like this is the Wednesday wellness thread and I'm asking how to socialize with people.
I know me, and I know how to socialize with people.
cjet79
6mo ago
Europe's average IQ is 100 today. And that "100" has been a has changed in meaning over the last century with the Flynn effect.
We don't know what it was in 1800, because the test didn't exist at the time. We do know that a bunch of things with negative impacts on IQ were part of their daily lives. Everyone was drinking beer and wine, since it was the main way to get clean water. Which means alcohol during pregnancy, and early adolescence. They were burning coal and wood constantly to keep warm, that destroys health. There were rolling famines in Ireland, and refugees from it were suffering from malnutrition in early childhood.
I would not be surprised if the average IQ of Britain was in the 75-85 range in the late 1700s. They dealt with it and built a world spanning empire because of superior culture and policy.
cjet79
6mo ago
Ah no it's not like that, it's more like I end up in situations where I'm a third person in a conversation and the other two know everything and can have the in depth conversation, and I'm left sitting there like wtf happened.
I need a good minor interjection like "I heard the commanders have a good new quarter back?" And then once they answer that I can bow out of the conversation having briefly politely participated.
cjet79
6mo ago
Are the English a high IQ society? I'd consider them middling at best. Germany and Switzerland are both probably better off, and most Jewish sub communities within Europe, like in Hungary were easily way higher.
The industrial revolution started in England. It was undoubtedly good policies and culture that got them there, because their smart neighbors had to play catch-up rather than leading the way. And they were arguably filled with a bunch of malnutritioned low-IQ idiots breathing smoke and drinking alcohol constantly while they accomplished the whole thing, its possible they were much worse off in "biological" potential than India is today.
In your analogy you are talking about a zero sum competition: "being an NBA player". There are limited spots and not everyone can do it. But I don't think that applies to having a high standard of living and a working civilization. In the analogy it would be more like "can you learn to play basketball at all". I think a 4ft tall not very bright child can learn to play basketball. And I think having a working civilization requires about a similar level of biological potential.
The reason it doesn't happen more often is that getting the culture and the policy correct is the actual really difficult part.
cjet79
6mo ago
A local homeless man in the ABC store was very excited to tell me that the Washington commanders are gonna be in the playoffs this year. This was like a month ago.
Was he correct? Are the commanders any good this year? In order to properly blend in with the sports dads in my neighborhood do I need to actually pay attention to National football aside from finding out when the Superbowl is? (I forgot to do this one year and accidentally scheduled a party that weekend, it was poorly attended.)
cjet79
6mo ago
The longer version of Bryan Caplan's take still seems reasonable to me:
https://www.betonit.ai/p/reflections-on-india
There are serious problems with Indian governance. And the Soviet style experiment that you think can easily be shaken off is still influencing them to have awful agricultural policies.
The difference between the worst poverty in the world and one of the richest countries in the world is not biocapital it's government policy. It's most clearly visible in Korea, where the DMZ separates two governments, not two people. And the difference between them is as stark as things get.
cjet79
6mo ago
There is the joke "I want to do illegal thing ... In Minecraft" as a sort of joking way to avoid clearly confessing to a crime.
A while back I remember someone, maybe on the slatestarcodex subreddit talking about how they were fascinated by the mini civilization and rules that had arisen on their Minecraft server.
Does anyone know of any writings on Minecraft societies that are interesting or worth reading?
cjet79
6mo ago
I don't like seeing this. I've been a mod on these forums for a long time. Going back to slatestarcodex subreddit back in 2017. This is sadly not new.
There is no "real" message it's possible to engage with, and the people responsible just need to be supressed and incapacitated. (emphasis added)
Back then it was about "punching a nazi".
We are a discussion forum, and no good discussion ever really starts with "we need to not listen and physically suppress the people I disagree with".
You've been warned multiple times in the past about this, and banned for similar offenses. You are headed towards a permaban at this point. One week for now.
cjet79
6mo ago
My kids did this for me without prompting. Someone was taking their tiny little rat dog on a stroller ride in the neighborhood and they saw it and said something like "WHAT!?! Why is a dog in a baby stroller!? Babies are supposed to go in strollers."
Does remind me that I'm being somewhat of a hypocrite on the dog front though. I bring my kids to the grocery store and they can probably just as easily gross someone out. They might be snotty and coughing. They'll touch anything and everything. They'll run out of aisles and sometimes run into people. And I don't even have them on a leash. (I'm joking a little for exaggeration. My kids are generally well behaved and a little shy in the grocery store, but Im just giving the shape of the argument.)
cjet79
6mo ago
I'm kinda curious where you live. Whether its rural, urban, or suburban. I'm in suburbs in Virginia, I've never seen a dog inside a grocery store.
I don't see them all that often in the local airports either. But one of my trips up to the northeast I was surprised at how many dogs were in the airport, had to be an average of 2 dogs a flight.
There are the neurotic dog owners that probably have awful reasons for bringing their dogs every where. The reasonable people I talk to seem to just take advantage of the fact that norms have broken down. If other people are bringing their dogs along, why should they hold the line when it would be convenient for them to bring their dogs as well?
cjet79
7mo ago
Depending on the technical solution the economic and political issues can be minor or major.
Doing carbon capture makes it all a major issue, since that will cost trillions or tens of trillions.
Sulfur dioxide seeding or a sun shade only cost tens of billions. Which is within the funding range of some existing US billionaires.
cjet79
7mo ago
That is an interesting point, and apparently there is a linkage between autism and obesity.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4657601/
But this abstract seems unclear on whether it a common cause for both, or Autism leading to obesity.
cjet79
7mo ago
I was just at the African American history museum recently. My mother recently published a paper on the graves, names, and locations of slaves that our ancestors owned.
I bring those both up just to say that in my observation there is a large amount of myth and uncertainty even in things that feel like recent history.
Even internet history is convoluted and difficult to untangle. And we often have all the logs and evidence available!
Harriet Tubman's general exploits seem plausible. There were almost certainly former slaves that worked in semi clandestine roles to ferry other escaped slaves up north. There were almost certainly stories of harrowing close calls. We know for certain there was an "underground railroad" for those escaped slaves, or at least as certain as we can be about these things (maybe a bunch of people all lied convincingly in a similar way).
It also seems like she isn't a very trustworthy narrator. She probably lied about her personal role or took on the stories of others she had heard from. Or maybe she under embellished and the truth is crazier than the stories we got. History sometimes has some off the wall weird shit happening.
I'm not entirely sure how much it matters. Even prominent placement in a video game seems underwhelming. Those leader portraits can and are replaced by game mods. I'm almost certain there are mods that switch out the German leader for Hitler.
Most importantly of all, stick with Civ 4. It's the best in the series, and the peak of the genre. We need more autists like the dwarf fortress guys making video games. Work on the same thing for twenty years and retain all creative control within a family sized social unit. If it was them making the civ game they would have just encoded a whole leadership class that represented Tubman and stuck a random name generator on top of it. We wouldn't have this silly controversy, and more importantly no one without an extreme interest in the game would even be able to articulate a culture war critique of how it was handled.
cjet79
7mo ago
This isn't the kind of thing we are looking for as a top level post in the culture war thread.
Things to keep in mind:
- This is not a group circle jerk "not anything we didn't already know". It is a discussion board and you should make some effort at discussing something.
- This is mostly just a hearsay boo out group post. While you should and are encouraged to bring your own perspective to things, bringing your own evidence and assuming the perspective of the audience gives almost nothing to be discussed.
I was going to leave just a warning, but you've been warned over five times in the past about this. There are rules here, we need to enforce them and we have few tools to do so. Our lightest touch tool is just written warnings. That isn't working here, so I'm moving to a one week ban, I know that seems like a harsh jump, but we've done you a disservice in the past by only sticking to warnings, and not escalating to a one day ban after your third warning.
Ah I had a reversed understanding of what you were asking. Like I was gonna pick a country and you'd demonstrate why it doesn't work.
But no I'm not really gonna put that level of investment into this discussion.
I'm gonna gesture at things and ideas, and in return I'll not expect much more than other people just gesturing at things and ideas.
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