cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
1mo ago
I am sometimes reminded of how bad life can get.
My dad's cousin has a 14 year old grandson, that he wants to bring on their annual fishing trip.
Turns out the boy is a furry (hearing my dad describe it without the word or understanding of what a furry is was entertaining), but this was the least bad thing. The boy was recently arrested for molesting his younger ten year old brother. His younger brother lives with his mom (who is apparently a prostitute). His dad remarried and has a younger daughter, he has threatened to molest his step sister too if he moves in with his dad. The boy can't be placed in foster care because he is a danger to other children. It's looking like the main option might be juvi.
cjet79
9d ago
There are some flavors of libertarians that derive a lot of stuff from contracts.
I suppose I see contracts as more of a good operating system, but the way violence is wielded and property rights are protected is more like having CPU and motherboard for your computer.
cjet79
1mo ago
Shame should be for those you love, and for when you can feel pride about them in equal or greater measure.
I think it works well as a tribal adaptation, for when someone else's actions can reflect on you personally, or when you realize that your own actions have caused a great decrease in social standing among you and your closest people.
The weaponization of shame against your out group just leads to your out group being inoculated against all shame. It is unlikely to stop their behavior long term.
cjet79
16d ago
I think if you are not allowed to ban something then you shouldn't be allowed to make access risky. All bans are is adding a risk component to a thing. You can at least pretend like onerous requirements serve a purpose. Where onerous crosses over into risky is where I'd prefer courts to draw a line and say "you are just banning the thing, so unless you are allowed to just straight up ban the thing, get rid of that requirement."
cjet79
16d ago
Hasn't come up yet honestly. It would definitely be the call the cops option. Where we live they'd show up and actually deal with the problem and probably get a round of applause.
Troublemakers are most often teenagers being teenagers. Though recently it was an inebriated adult causing problems. Which pisses me off way more because now the pool will probably start cracking down on any kind of drinking at the pool, and thus ruining it for all the adults that can have a few beers on the sly and not become complete animals.
There is a checkin area so we will generally know if someone is trying to enter when they shouldn't, but yeah in the past people have apparently tried to dodge their punishments. Memberships at the pool are acquired as a family unit, so we can kinda get family's to punish bad teens by threatening to remove the entire family unit if a particular teen does not behave. If they are incapable of controlling their teen ... Well we have a wait-list for membership so they will be replaced by a better behaved family.
cjet79
1mo ago
The deaths to pedestrians from cyclists seems like a bad statistic for either side to bring up, and a bad statistic in general.
- Cars are obviously more deadly on a per incident basis. I can't imagine a pedestrian surviving if I hit them regular speed in a car. I can't imagine a pedestrian dying if I hit them regular speed on a bike.
- Bike incidents are likely to be high, they share more spaces with pedestrians. Cars and pedestrians rarely overlap, they tend to intersect.
- The per mile deadliness makes bikes actually sound really deadly given how non deadly they seem. But that statistic is thrown off by high miles travelled by cars and low by bikes.
I think the risk to pedestrians seems minimal and bikes should just fully share the sidewalk with pedestrians. Bikes hitting people is most likely to ruin both people's day, but cars hitting bikes is most likely to ruin someone's life.
Every cyclist I've ever suggested this to hates it, and I think it's just because they don't like going as slow as you sometimes need to go on a sidewalk to be safe. But it is often what they are asking drivers to do: go slowly for the cyclists safety on the road. Which is when it turns into a whole political question. No one likes going slower than they can, so who has to suffer the indignity drivers or cyclists?
The answer seems obvious in my head, but I know I identify with drivers more (despite riding a bike around the neighborhood pretty often)
cjet79
1mo ago
America dodged a bullet when Trump dodged one.
Don't think any other event in my lifetime has been so close to setting off a civil war.
I know at least two men that are a combination of drunk, belligerent, massive Trump supporters, and in possession of enough firearms that they could have easily turned into a problem. The problem is that I don't know tons of country rednecks, maybe a dozen. So that is probably a bad sign of just how fucked things might have gotten.
Their goal wouldn't have been taking control of the government, it would have been shooting the politicians they didn't like.
At best it wouldn't have been a civil war, just a decade or two of people deciding it's ok to shoot politicians they don't like and all the impacts of that norm.
By comparison we are fine nowadays. There is always going to be a low background noise if violence and murder in a country this size. Certainly sucks when it's you or someone you know that is the victim. But as long as you are staying out of certain cities and areas you are unlikely to be that victim.
What sets off ugly civil wars is being forced to choose sides. "Help me find the rebels or I torture you until I'm satisfied you don't know" vs "Help me hide from the government or my friends come back and kill you and your family". It doesn't start that bad, just a case of ping ponging escalating consequences.
cjet79
2mo ago
Scott's post begs the question though: what does he think reform of the institutions looks like? I think what we are seeing is what we should have expected.
Governing institutions in a democracy cannot survive by being only trusted by one political party.
What will it take to restore most Republican's trust? Either gutting those institutions entirely, or reforming them with punitive measures until they seem cowed and fully cooperative.
Thatcher and Reagan in the 80s are some of the more recent examples of this phenomenon.
The left isn't capable of reforming institutions, just like the right isn't capable of reigning in their strong-men (and women). They need each other to play those roles. And obviously if you identify more with one side than the other you don't like having to be the side that reigns in the other. My side's honest mistakes and forgiveable excesses, are the other sides willful maliciousness and unforgivable escalations.
I recently spoke with my mother who has worked on cancer research contracts with NIH. She is a lifelong moderate Democrat (pro choice). She had spoken in fearful tones about Trump and Doge. But recently when Doge began taking an axe to medical programs she sounded pretty happy. Apparently they cut some kind of dog cancer research program that my mom always thought was dumb (there is some joke in there about DOGE's meme name sake, but I'm too lazy to find it). Her words were basically that they cut the things she would have cut.
I live in the northern Virginia area. I know many people who work in government. The common refrain is that "yes they definitely needed to trim the fat and slim down government, but this just seems crazy the way they are doing it". But there was an opportunity to trim the fat during the Biden administration and they didn't take it. They were too busy starting dog cancer research programs. So maybe this is the only way you cut things, with a side of bad ideas from a strongman willing to do it.
cjet79
2mo ago
I grew up in the 90's and 00's. I always had the sense that women did not enjoy sex and barely tolerated men. This somehow came up in a drunk conversation with my mother at some point and she was a bit horrified. "No I never told you that! Women like sex! Your dad and I..." I cut her off at that point, didn't need to hear more. But it feels pretty clear to me that I picked up this idea from media sources. And yet I can't point to a single particular example.
I can't imagine how things have gotten even worse since that time.
I do feel that putting the onus on parents to either raise better men or women is misplaced. I'd first turn to Hollywood or other culture makers and say "stop making such shitty culture". I have memories and can point to specific times when my parents took the right approach with me. My dad telling me that he was never willing to have sex with a woman he didn't want to have a kid with (he seemed to want kids though, so I don't know how much of a restriction that was), and him making jokes about not sticking your dick in crazy. My mother being concerned for my emotional well being after silly breakups in middle school, and her insisting on us watching a discovery channel show that was basically sex ed. Them telling their kids that they wanted grand babies, just not while we were in highschool or college. I remember them showing signs of affection towards each other, and forgiveness after they fought with one another.
TV shows and movies still managed to do a number on me, and on those around me. After all I can't count on how other kids are raised but I can usually count on them having a similar cultural soup they grew up in.
From a practical perspective applying the social responsibility to cultural producers also seems easier. It feels like they've weaseled out of that responsibility somehow. I'm happy to reward shows like Bluey that have good parental figures. But they seem like rare glowing exceptions instead of the rule.
Should we expect all parents to explain to their teen kids how Chani's love in Dune seems slightly off, or should we lean on Dennis with criticisms of the film that his interpretation of love sucks. Of course we can do both, but the latter seems fat more effective for the level of effort involved and reward expected.
cjet79
3mo ago
This is one of the topics that really broke my trust with the medical 'experts', along with the covid stuff.
There are some basic common sense things to know about medicine and if someone is going to make a claim contradicting it they need to have a lot of evidence and some damn good explanations.
The idea that halting a major development milestone would be harmless breaks every bit of common sense about child health. The idea that infection with a sickness does not grant any kind of immunity is also insane.
cjet79
16d ago
Getting arrested for trespassing seems normal, and that would ultimately be the charge.
cjet79
1mo ago
There does seem to be a huge range in health outcomes, so that might be why it sort of gets tabooed. We have a neighbor in her early thirties that just gave birth to her 5th kid. She did it at home in a rental bathtub thing. She says her pregnancy was great, and aside from the discomfort of having a bowling ball in her uterus was otherwise totally fine. One of my wife's best friends growing up got a form of blood poisoning during the pregnancy and she died along with her second child.
My wife's pregnancies have slowly gotten worse and more difficult. We are both pretty sure we are done after our third just arrived a few months ago. Two of the pregnancies have been "geriatric" pregnancies, and the rates of complications start going up a frightening clip at these ages. For that reason alone I've become way more against more pregnancies.
You mentioned being in your lower thirties, my only advice would be to avoid geriatric pregnancies at all costs. If you think you'll really desperately want a kid later, then have one now instead. If you are already gonna be in geriatric pregnancy realm (35) I'd suggest stopping while you are ahead. 3 kids is great.
cjet79
15d ago
I'm not in favor of crazy people having guns, but I'm not sure I fully trust the system to draw the line on crazy people.
If the system was accurately drawing the line of crazy people I'd be fine with having them all institutionalized. If you are considered too dangerous to own a gun then you are a danger to society in general, after all knives, vehicles, and lighters are still easily accessible for these people.
cjet79
1mo ago
I think it is more of a symptom of the breakdown of communities. Shame works pretty well for someone within your congregation.
Someone with no attachments to others? No family, no religious community, no coworkers, etc. it's gonna bounce right off them.
cjet79
1mo ago
I'm in favor of the libertarian paradise option.
There are two failure modes of the FDA:
- Letting bad drugs through that on net injure people.
- Slowing or stopping good drugs that on net help people.
The natural and personal and business incentives already heavily align towards getting good drugs out there, and not taking bad drugs.
You seem well informed, I'm surprised you even mention a drug killing a 100 people. I would shrug my shoulders at a thousand. FDA drug delays have estimated kill rates in the hundreds of thousands for some heart medications.
Optimal situation in my mind would be to switch FDA over to a certification regime rather than a licensing regime. This is basically the same thing I say about all government regulation, but I say it about everything because I think its a good idea. Certify that a thing is safe and not harmful, but do not require that certification for selling or consuming of the substance. Companies can submit their drugs to be certified, and the FDA runs those tests. They also run some number of public interest tests every year, like for fish oil or whatever.
And yeah, who knows wtf will happen with JFK at the helm.
He also just released The Evidence That A Million Americans Died Of COVID.
I went and looked into the death rate a little more. Found this graph of the trend. Here is a fun game: spot when covid starts.
There has been a year over year increase in the death rate by about 1% starting in 2014 and hasn't started shrinking much until 2024. What the hell is going on?
I have a suspicion that old people have just been getting older. And that those old people are dying more during flu season. And that the excess death chart from 2018-2019 would line up pretty well with an excess death chart from 2020-2021. But that would probably take a lot of effort to figure out. I dont even know where to get month to month death numbers, tried asking some AI to help me find it, but sounds like its not publicly available.
edit: data i found is bad, nybbler has better data below.
cjet79
2mo ago
The Dream, 1947 The Dream was Churchill’s fanciful short story about conversing with his long-dead father in 1947. In it he explains all that had happened since his father died in 1895. The full text is available. Referring again to the Holocaust, he spoke of the two World Wars:
“Papa,” I said, “in each of them about thirty million men were killed in battle. In the last one seven million were murdered in cold blood, mainly by the Germans. They made human slaughter-pens like the Chicago stockyards. Europe is a ruin. Many of her cities have been blown to pieces by bombs. Ten capitals in Eastern Europe are in Russian hands…. Far gone are the days of Queen Victoria and a settled world order. But, having gone through so much, we do not despair.”8
That wasn't hard to find.
cjet79
17d ago
If it was anglo names that would help with memorization. If it was mainly non-anglo names I think I'd be just as screwed. I've learned from reading translated works that only anglo names actually stick with me. And I fear in today's culture it would be lots of non-anglo names.
cjet79
2mo ago
I admittedly laughed when I saw the Trump in a pope outfit and a headline about what he said.
Hard to explain humor. It was just someone ridiculous doing something ridiculous.
I can also understand that plenty of people might not find it funny at all.
cjet79
2mo ago
I think I'm a little bit broken in my set of preferences for certain art forms. For a long time I've lacked the ability to understand and explain why. Video games have helped, but music might have the best metaphor, even if it doesn't apply to me.
First, imagine that there is an objective ranking for how good a piece of music can be. The ranking stands regardless of individual preferences. More sophisticated listeners who can appreciate music better will have their preferences more in line with this objective ranking.
Second, imagine you have some unique ears, and the sound of string instruments just really bothers you. So you prefer any music without string instruments.
Most of the best music includes some string instruments, so you end up not liking most of the "best" music. The best rating doesn't require string instruments, its just that it makes some things easier in the course of crafting the music. A theoretical best song could be crafted that has no string instruments, it would just be much more difficult. Your tastes end up looking very unsophisticated. You gravitate towards an amateur community of song writers that share your hatred of string instruments, and some of them are just bad at writing any songs with string instruments. They write songs that are relatively bad on the objective ranking, but it removes string instruments at least, so it becomes more tolerable than mainstream stuff for you.
Something like this has happened to me in regards to reading and literature. There are common story elements like certain foreshadowing techniques and certain character development tricks that really grate on me. And there are story settings that I dislike, mostly modern and non-magical settings are boring to me.
I've ended up in a weird spot, like the stringed instrument hater. I can only really enjoy the other authors that also hate stringed instruments, or the amateurs that can't even write stringed instruments into their music. I am probably reading stories and literature that is "objectively" worse on some cosmic literature scale, and I'm well aware that it makes my tastes look unsophisticated and "bad" to the elites of the literature world. But I can't stop and won't stop, because I have some subjective preferences that entirely override the importance of the objective scale.
cjet79
3mo ago
Or you end up with something like the Jones act and basically destroy the industry by making sure they never compete and they turn into parasites.
cjet79
1mo ago
I think I remember some IRS rule going into effect a decade ago that said that if you renounced US citizenship you get taxed on all your assets as if they were income for that year.
I only knew about this because I studiously have followed libertarian arguments for a long time, including "if you don't like it you should leave" and the rejoinder now being obvious "ya and have a third of all my wealth stolen for the privilege of leaving, thanks assholes".
I think there was a lot of people leaving right before this rule went into effect.
I feel like these burdens should get their own category. It's not really onerous. It's actually very easy to meet the requirement to upload a picture of my driver's license. It's just stupidly dangerous for my well being.
It would be like if airport security asked you to stick your hand into a wood chipper that sporadically turns on to get your fingerprints. There is a helpful little red and green light to tell you when it's safe, but damn I'd rather not trust my fingers to this machine run by minimum wage employees. And of course if my hand gets mulched I'm allowed to sue the judgement proof employees, or the shell company wood chipper manufacturer, but not the government that put the requirement in there in the first place.
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