coffee_enjoyer
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User ID: 541
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
The poll is to show influential people what the masses really think about it. Musk rehiring him is more defensible when a million people think he should be rehired. When an investor or politician presses him he can say that he asked the people, even if it’s not actually a fair sample size.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
Netanyahu doesn’t have it out for the random maid staff that the White House employs. It is just as free if they do laundry in Israel. It is either saying that America launders the dirty secrets of Israel or that Israel’s “dirty laundry” goes through America. Its either criticizing America’s intel sharing or showing symbolic dominance over America such that we do their dirty deeds for them.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
Do you really think that Netanyahu, worth $14m, brings his laundry all the way to America to save $6, when his own assistants undoubtedly do laundry for him back home? If this is a genuine belief, why would you think this?
Israel’s Netanyahu brings his dirty laundry to Washington. Literally.
Over the years, the Israeli leader has developed a reputation among the staff at the U.S. president’s guesthouse for bringing special cargo on his trips to Washington: bags and suitcases full of dirty laundry, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The clothes are cleaned for the prime minister free of charge by the U.S. staff, a perk that is available to all foreign leaders but sparingly taken advantage of given the short stays of busy heads of state.
“The Netanyahus are the only ones who bring actual suitcases of dirty laundry for us to clean,” said one U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the details of a foreign leader’s visits. “After multiple trips, it became clear this was intentional.”
The officials who confirmed the past uses of laundry bags included both political and career officials spanning the Trump and Obama administrations.
Dirty laundry of course being an idiom which means “questionable activities that one wants to remain secret, but which someone else may use as blackmail.”
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
When Trump says the “Gaza thing has never worked” in reference to Palestinians going into Jordan, and then says that they should get “a good fresh beautiful piece of land”, I think he is talking about the permanent transfer of Gazans to elsewhere. He is not talking about a temporary dwelling while they fix Gaza.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
(I think this was intended for a comment above mine by the way)
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
I’m not so pessimistic. I think Somalians would enjoy living like kings in Somalia, it would just require a “safe zone” in the country that makes migration attractive. Such a safe zone could conceivably be procured through diplomatic means and pressure campaigns on the Somalian government.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
If Finland deported the Sami, yes. Or if Denmark deported the Greenlandic indigenous. For Swedes, it depends on if they are citizens. If they are not, then it’s a policy choice to deport. If they are citizens, it is better to encourage them leave through (1) monetary enticement and (2) permitting Swedes full freedom of choice in businesses and institutions to exclude them if so desired and (3) enhancing native birth rates (which Israel is doing right now in Israel proper, and I don’t criticize this). It would be honorable for Israel to open up a pathway for Gazans to expatriate, and to pay them an honorable amount for loss of land both now and during the Nakba. How about $1,000,000 each? But would I want America to forcefully deport Native Americans to Mexico, where they are more similar to the indigenous by blood? No, that’s crazy. Not even America at her worst thought they should do that. The amount of land given to the indigenous is about 10 Israels worth in square miles.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
Trump was given the number 1.7 million presumably when he asked his intelligence advisor — conferred with all of the intel of the American Empire — how many people would need to be relocated from Gaza. The advisor gave him the number of living people in Gaza, not caring about “unaccounted for” or anything besides being alive. I think this number is accurate, because he has said it on different occasions now and because it’s the exact thing his brain is trained to remember. (He literally encodes it in his memory as a real estate project, you can tell by how he speaks about it, this is his savant-level skill and it’s a simple number to remember.) Determining how many Gazans are alive is a trivial task for the America intel community — use drones and satellites and movement tracking. They’ve wrangled them through corridors, they look at aid dispersal, the population isn’t exactly in hiding.
that's assuming the initial numbers (2.3m)
It’s the Lancet... we can assume it is trustworthy on this number.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
2.3 million before the war, 100,000 known to have left. Trump on more than one occasion now has repeated that there are 1.7 million in Gaza. This means his advisors have told him this number. (Former real estate tycoon, he knows how to remember numbers briefed on, probably his deepest skill).
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext
Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259
Now the old are dying naturally and less are born than before, but from what I can tell there are still births and Gaza’s population pyramid probably means that the births and deaths are approximately equalized.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing
https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethnic-cleansing
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attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups
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the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous
The Likud party platform calls for the Jewish state’s control over Gaza. Le Monde’s editorial board calls it ethnic cleansing. From the BBC:
Under international law, attempts to forcibly transfer populations are strictly prohibited, and Palestinians as well as Arab nations will see this as nothing short of a clear proposal aimed at their expulsion and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.
Ethnic cleansing is a term developed in the 80s, so it is obviously not defined by events before that. The assertion that Trump is rebuilding if for Gazans to return is… more than fanciful. If Jewish Israelis want to ethnically cleanse Gazans, they should do it themselves — with their own blood, money, and reputation.
(1) Making America complicit in ethnic cleansing is a moral stain on us forever, occurring in the 21st century where every nation should know better — this is not the mid 20th or 19th century; as Trump’s continual 1.7 million remark tells us, there are 500,000 dead in Gaza, and if America goes in these bodies will be placed on us and not Israel — the history books will surely be written so that we the ones who did it; (2) Hamas is still in operation, so American blood and resources will be spent on Israel again; (3) if you think Western culture bears the blood guilt of WWII, consider how Arab people will look at us for the next few hundred years — meanwhile, Jews being responsible for displacing* Palestinians would at once delete the holocaust from our whole collective storehouse of political metaphors, as it almost has now for the Left; (4) it’s naive to think America will ever “own” it, we will be responsible for trillions in rebuilding it for Israeli settlers, and then a president will come along whose donors / influences push him to give it away to Israel.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
Tariffs are a cost on every consumer, but the revenue of the costs can (hypothetically) go only toward reducing the lower and middle class tax burden. So the cost is compensated only for the < rich. Also, wealthier people are the biggest consumers, and the things they buy cost more, like Canada Goose.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
If we want to help Africans, we can invade Africa, redistribute the resources of their war lords, save more lives and profit at the same time. Would Scott support this? If the notion of subsidiarity supersedes the interest to invade, then we can just as easily argue that the notion of subsidiarity supersedes our interest to help.
some of the foundational tenets of Judeo-Christian morality
This is really just the Parable of the Good Samaritan being abused by bad exegetes imo
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
Is Scott implying that if his child were depressed, he wouldn’t spend more time helping his child than a stranger’s child? Or if his own child needed tutoring, he wouldn’t tutor him more than another child? Or is he saying that saving a life is the ultimate criterion of value, thus it dwarfs everything? It’s not actually clear. The example further doesn’t make sense because (1) his scenario implies the child is a community member, falling squarely into the ordo amoris worldview; (2) what we witness first hand compels our moral instinct in ways that data does not, and rather than meaning we have a mismatch between intuition and logic, it means that the pain of not helping the child is more severe and the absence of moral response is more damning when it occurs in front of us — this is part of our design, it’s not a bug. It’s like, if you see a crying puppy in front of you, and you just bought a steak, there’s a big chance you give the crying puppy the steak, because your body is designed to experience distress when not helping someone whose distress you witness. This does not imply that you must now buy steaks and distribute them to hungry puppies worldwide. In fact it doesn’t even imply that you ought to give the puppy the steak if you were somewhere else and someone merely informed you “a 6 month old canine would like your steak”.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
Genius. Reduce the lower and middle income burden with tariffs, especially for luxury goods, and you can redistribute resources from the wasteful wealthy to Americans who need it. Even if it doesn’t revitalize American industry, it improves QoL at the expense of no utilitarian harm.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
He was elected. We elected Trump and Elon’s presence is Trump’s will. Elon was important for getting Trump elected, too.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
What other predictions did you find particularly prescient or wrongheaded?
People were convinced that Israel would minimize civilian casualties. The Lancet study from a few weeks ago estimates ~65,000 deaths by traumatic injury in the first 8 months of the war. Haaretz interviewed Israeli soldiers who testify to war crimes. One of Britain’s top surgeons spoke to the House of Parliament about drones targeting children. So there is evidence of Israeli disregard for civilian casualties. Hopefully after the war, interviews can be conducted throughout Gaza to determine the extent of this.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
The word stochastic terrorism is rightfully derided, but what do you call this kind of speech, which received 42k votes?
To my fellow Feds, especially veterans: we're at war Announcement
We watched this goon try to overthrow the government on live tv four years ago. Now, we are witnessing him try to overthrow it from within. We are the last line of defense against fascism.
We are being led by the same types of people our grandparents fought against in
They want to harm you. Do not give in to this nonsense and remember your oath to the constitution and the people of America. I don't know what the future holds, but I refuse to bow down to this fascist authoritarian elite class. Nobody is coming to save us but we have strength in numbers. It's time to buckle up, and continue protecting freedom and democracy.
Edited for brevity. If you convince a person that they are at war with Hitler, and in fact the last line of defense against Hitler, what do you think the end result is?
I would argue that Harry Potter is the perfect story to use as a foundation for philosophy. I never got into HP or HPMOR, but at the turn of the 21st century Harry Potter occupied a position among our elite children similar to the Odyssey among the Ancient Greek children. The Odyssey was written to be entertaining and compelling in order to motivate Greek boys to participate in sailing expeditions and behave prosocially. This was its first and primary objective, because this was the first and primary objective of the community. Harry Potter motivated young Western boys and girls to enter elite academic institutions and eventually the PMC class, and it accomplished this wonderfully, with higher-ranked institutions being the first to establish Quidditch clubs. How did Harry Potter do this? Briefly,
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Every aspect of “elite life” is exaggerated in the Harry Potter universe, made into a super-stimuli of sorts, which winds up enhancing interest in their real world equivalents. The letter of admission to the institution becomes the owl (wisdom personified) delivering a beautiful letter, which rescues the half-blood boy from a life of antisocial obesity-ridden mediocrity among those of inherently lesser ability. The half-blood boy’s real family and community are actually among the qualitatively superior wizards, where he belongs. The stupid “muggles” are no match for the pull of the elite institution. 12yo readers are actually sad that they never got their admissions letter, because children are delusional, and this disappointment becomes interest in academies later on.
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Book-learning becomes magic learning; formulae become spells. (This is actually a device used to make medieval priests interested in reading books, too; close to all of the “magic” books in medieval history were written by and for priests, and they made extravagant promises of ability-enhancement from magically finding a thief to summoning a demon. Now, none of these worked, and there isn’t even any symbolic truth in them; the point was to maximize the interest of the priest for books, which will make him more interested in the Bible longterm (especially when he realizes the magic doesn’t work lol)). Paintings with history become “talking paintings”. Etc.
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Hogwarts is, of course, written as a super-stimuli of elite institutions in the Western tradition. It uses aspects of Oxford, Cambridge, the monastic institutions, all blended into one.
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Every aspect of Bildungsroman is associated with Hogwarts. First time friend picks you up in his car? It’s a flying car, and of course you crash into a tree (no, no, on top of a tree…)
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Social issues like institutional corruption and racism also make an appearance. Voldemort is bad, even though wizards are objectively superior and their blood objectively superior; the fear one experiences saying his name is the same as saying the N-word. Draco and the Slytherins? Etc.
Okay, so Harry Potter is the defining book of the 21st century aspirational PMC child. (The PMC is Potter Mania Culture). Now let’s sail back to the Greeks. Greek philosophers applied an allegorical interpretation on top of the Odyssey, for educating elite children. Byzantines as late as the 12th century were using the Odyssey as “hooks” for their ideas. This is really what it’s about: mnemonic hooks, no different than in a memory palace. Hogwarts is one enormous memory palace to be exploited by philosophers. The story is sealed into the child’s mind, and then after that you can use his memories to add philosophy. This isn’t unique to the Pagans either. Philo interpreted every primitive part of Old Testament as an allegory of Greek philosophical ideas, which were genuinely completely retconned into the stories. The Church Fathers did something similar. If you want to be blasphemous, Jesus is the beginning of philosophy on top of the Hebrew Canon, reinterpreting and repossessing previous information in light of greater wisdom, and his story was written to be compelling from a number of different angles, eternally compelling. Jordan Peterson today is trying to use Old Testament stories for his ideas. TheLastPsychiatrist, an old favorite, used both popular culture and Greek myths.
Are philosophical treatises more “serious”? Frankly, I think they are completely unserious, because no one serious reads them. It would be one thing if our philosophers resided in an Ivory Tower on our community, and the crumbs of their wisdom dropped down to us as table crumbs drop down to dogs, but they seem to reside in an ivory tower on their own private island. Almost nothing of what they do will ever actually influence the lives and minds of even our elites, not just the normal and more functioning Americans. Because wisdom needs to be relatable to mainstream culture in order to be consumed. It needs to be digestible, easy, tasty. Because we don’t have a landed gentry, we have stressed elites who don’t have infinite time, and the children of our super wealthy are also retarded. Wisdom is like a small amount of leaven that a woman took and hid in 60 lbs of flour, and it leavened all the bread, blended into it, making it lighter and easier. If your wisdom isn’t relatable it’s not really wisdom.
(Replying also to @Corvos)
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
This is definitely evidence against the theory. Did you find it minesweeper peaceful?
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
I’m familiar with the Halo franchise. People played the solo campaign as the key feature of the game. There was also a split screen mode. But the campaign was enjoyable as a social validation simulator.
sudoku
This was huge during the sudoku craze around 2004, reinforced by “sudoku is good for your brain”, but I don’t know how popular it still is. It has been squarely defeated (pun intended) by the much more social NYT games. I wonder if any kids play it. Perhaps even sudoku was socially-mediated: news says solving it means you are smart, also it’s popular, you feel smart and popular when you play and win.
curiosity, attention, and the little thrill one gets from a solved puzzle
I used to think this, and it falls in line with the Flow theory, but I’m starting to doubt it. Curiosity and attention seem to be profoundly shaped by social forces. Do crows solve puzzles for fun or do they do it for food?
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
The phenomena are different. Someone who has played chess for a decade socially, but who can’t when alone, will play against a bot to increase his skill for his next social game. The win, as a mental phenomenon, is also saturated in the social memories of previous wins. (Imagine a kid practicing a soccer shot and who images cheers as he makes it.) Additionally, chess is a game with uniquely salient social validation, being the “smart persons game”. Tetris as a single-player game doesn’t have any of this.
What I’m wondering is if a game truly devoid of social validation and valuation will be played. So imagine that only you have access to the game, only you will ever play it, and you can’t share anything about the game with anyone. I suppose Tetris and snake are the closest thing? But then I do really wonder if anyone would play this if they had no way of making their experiences social. Historically people shared their high scores.
coffee_enjoyer
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4mo ago
Most of the common PvE games have features that introduce artificial social validation, RPGs being the most obvious, but even survival games have elements of accomplishing things whose value in real life is socially-mediated (“I built a base, farm, house; I found gold.”). Halo is single-player, but takes you through a guided story of social validation. It’s quite hard to think of one that doesn’t. You might consider that a skateboarding game could be fun without including social validation, but the interest surely lies in being able to do things which you know (intuitively or through skateboarding literacy) are impressive in real life. Civilization games, well, you are the leader of a civilization and future global hegemon.
Others have mentioned online chess, and that people used to (?) play against bots. But these bot-players have surely been acculturated to believe that winning a chess game is socially validating, and they may also play challenging bots if it means training against playing a real life friend in a week. Even a game like Heroes of the Storm, okay, if someone plays it offline they are still the hero who is killing people and destroying a base.
US government agrees to confer ‘minority’ status on Jewish-owned businesses
Tribalism is here to stay. I cannot actually find much information about the total amount of benefits that Hasidic Jews will reap from this ruling. The Minority Business Development Agency considers Hasidic Jews to be “socially disadvantaged”, which means that they would be eligible for the $50,000,000,000 in yearly benefits allotted to Small Disadvantaged Businesses. Harris increased Black SBA loans to 1.5 billion in 2023.
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