dr_analog
razorboy
No bio...
User ID: 583
Guns
This election we saw measure 114 in Oregon, which would require permitting for guns, which includes receiving consent from the local police department and mandatory firearms training. The measure passed by about 9000 votes.
I find this pretty outrageous; there has been both an uptick in crime in Oregon and also a reduction in police morale so there's this perfect storm of random deranged break-ins and confrontations and police who take 20+ minutes to respond.
I know movie plot threats / just so stories aren't a good way to do law, but I'm immediately reminded of this story: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oregon/articles/2022-06-29/eugene-woman-attacked-with-acid-for-third-time-since-march
She appears to be a non-white woman going to university here in Oregon that is being targeted with some kind of honor violence (acid attacks seem honor violencey), though she doesn't know the perpetrator, she just describes him as white. The first two attacks were reported to the police who (my reading between the lines), did not take her seriously. She came to Reddit to ask for advice; by the time she was attacked the third time the intruder tried to set her on fire in her home. She had a gun by this point, and went for it, and the intruder fled before she could fire at him.
I'm trying to imagine in an alternate timeline telling her, after her second attack, that no she can't have a gun yet. She needs to be a good girl and ask the police (the same police who thought she was making this story up, mind you!) for permission to have a gun, and then go through firearms training. Then she can have one. Hopefully the psychopath who is targeting you doesn't murder you in the meantime! It's for safety!
I don't own a gun myself and I don't fetishize them, but I do think they're an important tool for protecting yourself in a dangerous society and my heart breaks that we would be so condescending to tell decent people, who are in the midst of personal security crises like this, that they're not trusted enough to get the tools they need to defend themselves immediately.
Stated another way, politicians are doing a great job at convincing us that society is safer, and it's tempting to believe them. It's even more tempting to believe this because nowadays worrying about crime is racist coded. I don't blame people for believing it. Yet finally, something happens that shatters the illusion: you're the victim of violence or are being credibly threatened and ... in this worst moment we add insult to injury and infantilize the victims further.
dr_analog
razorboy
1yr ago
I would post this in my town's subreddit but anything to the right of Bernie/AOC is down voted to oblivion.
During the election this fall, Oregonians will be presented with ballot measure 114.
A "yes" vote supports this ballot initiative to:
- require permits issued by local law enforcement to buy a firearm;
- require photo ID, fingerprints, safety training, criminal background check, and fee payment to apply for a permit; and
- prohibit manufacturing, importing, purchasing, selling, possessing, using, or transferring ammunition magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds and make violations a class A misdemeanor.
Signatures were collected for this immediately after the Uvalde shooting.
I find this measure rather offensively misguided. I don't own a gun, though if I needed one it would probably be because I'm feeling very threatened. The last thing I want to deal with in those circumstances is a hulking and dumb nanny state demanding that I prove competency to their standards and can impress upon local police that I deserve to have one.
This law is misguided because it actually would have failed to stop the Uvalde shooter from getting a gun unless it was so overly broad that the police had discretion to deny anyone for any reason.
I'm not sure how its proponents expect this to work, unless they would deny him simply on the basis of appearing obviously poor, Hispanic and not fitting in at school?
The people advancing this law almost certainly believe, e.g. that the police implement systemized racism but that black people should be allowed to own guns. What makes them think police won't blanket deny guns to all black people, then?
Additionally, I think people who support these laws are genuinely failing to understand that guns are the only thing that reliably prevent the rest of us from being at the mercy of the strongest and most dangerous people.
There has been a noticeable rise in home intrusions in this town lately where women awaken to deranged men in their houses. Usually they're homeless meth addicts who are distracted enough by the woman waking up and screaming at them that they leave. But there was a case recently where a woman had acid thrown on her, then again where she woke up to the same guy setting her on fire. The police treated her like she was crazy and making it up until the media elevated the story.
If my daughter lived alone I would 100% want her to have a loaded handgun by her bedside. It seems outrageous that she'd have to prove to the police that she's worthy of keeping this gun, when the people breaking into houses don't have to meet any such standards.
Again, I don't own a gun, but the last thing I want to do, in the society we live in, where police take 20 minutes to respond (they didn't used to, they stopped responding quickly after 2020 for some reason) is make it more difficult for law abiding people to arm themselves.
Is this too "boo outgroup"? I feel like these are strong racial justice and feminist arguments for not making it difficult to get and keep handguns.
dr_analog
razorboy
7mo ago
, absolutely forbid any violence towards Israel
Isn’t this the “miracle happens” part? Aren’t the extremists going to question whose side you’re truly on? Won’t you be marginalized or assassinated as more moderate Palestinian leaders have been?
assume last paragraph is a joke
Not actually. It may be less detached from reality than expecting Palestinians to stop doing violence to Israel over the next 100 years.
dr_analog
razorboy
8mo ago
My default now is to assume the FBI is actually extremely incompetent. Therefore, if they proceeded to charge this guy, they would've had to reveal some embarrassing mistake made in investigating him so they're choosing to instead let him off with a wrist slap.
Somewhere in me I have an effortpost on why crypto, including cryptocurrency is bad for rule of law and that a sane society would have banned both. We've been pretty fortunate that everyone that has built DNMs so far are not competent or visionary enough to produce something high quality. The potential black market has not come anywhere close to being fully actualized.
The maximally dystopian horror example case is: onlyfans for live streamed child rape / snuff films with tens of thousands of men watching from behind Guy Fawkes masks beating off and tipping tens of thousands of dollars an hour. Everyone involved, the viewers and performers, completely anonymous and untraceable.
Yes, I am very familiar with the usual cipherpunk arguments for why crypto is an important tool for protecting people's security/privacy from criminals, and that also you can't trust police to protect backdoors in crypto systems and to also not abuse them. I'm not convinced the endgame world of maximally "useful" DNMs that could be produced wouldn't be a net worse world overall.
Seems like cryptocurrency is waning a bit so this future may be delayed for now.
I can't really justify it aside from aspirational thinking. One day you'll be able to add "become woman" to cart and click checkout and that will work perfectly and completely and tracking cis or trans will be meaningless. But until that day comes we'll just have to pretend really hard that it's already here, is the quiet part of those policies, IMO.
How aspirational can one get about this?There's a little mini lesson for kids where you tell them if they're ever lost, find a police officer for help. But that's not helpful because most of the time there are no police around. So, it's been modified to: find a woman and ask them for help.
That seems fairly uncontroversial. Women are less likely to be predators and more likely to help, by just the power of statistics.
Ever since I've heard this I've been deliberately sizing random men and random women up in public and trying to imagine how they'd react to my lost 4 year old going up to them. Seems to pass the sniff test. To be clear, overall even most men give me the sense they'd be helpful and not predators, but women even moreso (I run into zero homeless insane looking women, for example).
But, does this still work if it's a trans woman? I've never met a trans woman who has given me the sense that they'd react anything like the median cis woman would if they came across a lost child. I just don't believe saying you're a trans woman makes you less dangerous than a random male is to a small lost child. If anything I would move slightly in the opposite direction because of all of the other unfair associated baggage that comes with being unlucky enough to be trans in our society.
I am genuinely curious what a trans inclusive feminist would say here.
dr_analog
razorboy
3mo ago
Google, Facebook and friends mostly act on your private data in the aggregate, but the privacy advocates generate worry that your intimate conversations or pictures are being personally viewed.
If by "privacy advocates" you mean Ursula von der Leyen and all the other assorted EU / WEF / World Bank goons who want to have all the aggregated data for themselves, in order to turn society into a panopticon while pretending they care about "privacy", then yes.
Don't we live in the world where the maximum amount of information about you is widely available? Haven't we for 10+ years or so? The absolute worst that has happened from this is newspaper headline related freak events rather than stuff that happens to everyone. In terms of my personal life, it's telling that the only person I know who has suffered a catastrophic privacy breach is someone that was hell-bent on never trusting Google or Facebook and self-hosted the whole way.
This is a type of person.
It's incoherent to scoff at privacy advocates because actually all the data is aggregated, and at the same time laugh at their efforts to not be a part of the aggregated dataset.
I do scoff at them, independent of the avoiding aggregation claim, because in their efforts to protect their privacy because they're so paranoid about the ThE bIG tEcH ComPaniEs they leave themselves far more vulnerable. And effectively island themselves from social activities like, oh, sharing photos with friends.
Your photo-album could perish in a fire if you house burns down, that's not an argument for leaving it in some centralized repository where every bureaucrat working there can skim through it, access to it can be denied at their whim, etc.
I'm just here to say when someone tries to share a photo with me from their home nextcloud server and I wait 5 minutes for the account confirmation email to show up, and it never arrives, and I have to help them diagnose whether or not they fucked up their self-hosted mail configuration, it's hard not to judge them as being so conceited that they think a state bureaucrat gives a shit about their private life.
I suppose they could print their photos out and mail them to me. That would be a nice change of pace even. But could I convince them to put a printer inside of their home nowadays? Think of how much closed source firmware those things have which could be reporting every single thing you print to The Powers that Be.
I do think they goofed by not invading Gaza immediately, as if they were in hot pursuit. Perhaps intelligence suggested that they were walking into a huge trap.
Alternatively, I'd expect Israel to have antibodies to psychological warfare but I wonder if the 100+ hostages Hamas took is more leverage than we realize.
If the United States thinks that they don't, then why aren't we bombing them back to the stone age as part of the war on terror?
Are we planning to kill every Palestinian? If not, the survivors are going to have not warm feelings for Israel. What state will they live under? How will Israel deal with them?
I would bet you a fairly large amount of money SBF will get at least ten years in prison but we're anon, unfortunately. We'll have to settle for fake internet points (which, in the spirit of FTX, I will add to my personal balance sheet as a $10,000 asset).
It was an interesting experience in a few ways. None of the women I went on dates with struck me as gold diggers really. That was the biggest part of the head fuck I guess. Maybe they know to play it cool, but my pop culture impression of gold digging is that women drop hints constantly about wanting expensive gifts and going to exclusive places. Man always pays. Etc
I think they just generally found men less attractive if they didn't earn high income.
dr_analog
razorboy
1yr ago
Aella is a sex worker, and she is clearly being treated like shit by Eliezer. For a man who believes doom is coming, having a kid seems, at this point, frankly illogical.
Are these two sentences connected? Do they have a kid together? Not sure I understand what you're getting at otherwise
dr_analog
razorboy
1yr ago
Damning with faint praise. They failed to do the basic tasks of their entire purpose. They won a stupid prize from a stupid game.
This is the part that's sympathetic pitiful to me. Starting a business and failing at it badly enough that you lose customer money is just sad.
It's stupid, but not criminal. Unless you think criminally stupid is a thing.
dr_analog
razorboy
1yr ago
I hate to be dumping on EA like this and I've always thought the quokka meme was unkind and annoying, but it really does come down to 'everyone trusted Sam' and they did that because they were all EA and so of course they were all pure, high-minded individuals in this to do good for the world, right? Sam is one of us so we don't need red tape and regulations, his word is good enough, and he knows about iterated prisoner's dilemma, so he's gonna do right by us all:
This but I'll raise you. Even if the reputation was well deserved and SBF didn't have a malicious bone in his body, it's still a bad idea to trust any one person so much. It wasn't just the EA community. VCs and other investors trusted him too. Nobody demanded a board seat? Nobody wanted independently audited financial statements? Everyone was smitten.
This is bad. Even if you're a genius and even if you're a saint, you cannot be perfect all of the time. You can still make catastrophic mistakes. Being challenged, having a process where you need to justify your request, out loud, to another human, is healthy. At the very least it's a sanity check.
Any company that scales past a certain size quickly learns that one person shouldn't have the admin password for every single system in the company -- even if they're qualified to do all of the things. Part of the reason is security, but it's also because by being the admin it's possible there's nothing in place to ever force them to go through the gatekeepers that the company has stood up for good reasons. They might not even know there are gatekeepers now!
Absolute trust is bad. I expect if Elon ever flames out spectacularly for technological reasons it'll be over something similar.
dr_analog
razorboy
2mo ago
Mm, I'll take your word for it. I'm pretty unimpressed by SQLite :P
Drug dealers don't generally want to kill their customers as a general class. Some, specific customers, like ones that are extorting drugs from the dealer at knifepoint, sure, but as a general class no. Dead people don't buy more drugs, and drug dealers want to sell drugs.
No offense but have you met many drug dealers? Like everyone has their cool guy that hooks them up with the best LSD imaginable like it's some sacrament but that is not the norm at all. My Ayn Rand view of them was shattered when I bought drugs on the street a few times. They often don't know what they're selling, in the concentrations that they're selling. They don't particularly care about repeat business. They don't care if they kill you. They're also generally too dumb to even think about testing their stuff or weigh things. If they are smart enough to weight things they're probably not going to buy the $300 milligram scale when the whippet shop sells some that advertises milligram precision for $20. They may be addicts themselves. They are not rational economic actors.
Drug dealing doesn't primarily attract smart entrepreneurial people who to make a fortune. It attracts rather unsmart, not well people who have very few other options for making money.
showed them images of Gender Queer, and the page where the kid is giving another kid a blowjob,
In fairness, I just looked it up, and it's a strap-on.
Anyway, to your point.
I would find this pretty outrageous, but my default state is to be generally annoyed or outraged when our teenager tells us what he's learning about in public school. Be it economics, math or sex stuff.
dr_analog
razorboy
3mo ago
Do you think those murdered by their governments in the 20th century had "time to prepare", but simply chose to not to? Do you remember the borders being closed with no warning during covid?
So, what's the ground truth here? When you unbox a smartphone do you decline to log into a Google/Apple account so you can sync because you're worried that if you say yes there's a 1% chance that's how you end up in a gas chamber some day? If this isn't you, are you saying you sympathize with that view?
authorities believe this crime was committed and would like to view all of their encrypted data.
And how do you propose authorities do that if the device is turned off and the data has been securely encrypted at rest? Put back doors into every computing device to prevent this scenario from arising?
- Torture warrants
- Require device and crypto backdoors
I'm aware 95% of security researchers think #2 is a nightmare and makes security worse, but I believe they are simply revealing their libertarian-anarchist ideology. We just got through a period where enormous sums were invested in web 3.0 crypto-systems with outlandish ultra complicated architectures for everything from micropayments to whole network states (etc) and it was all pursued with doe eyed zeal. It is absurd to claim a system where law enforcers have a backdoor is not a solvable problem.
dr_analog
razorboy
3mo ago
Yes. His life is in danger. He thinks getting a gun himself will solve this problem. He probably actually needs fulltime private security, though I think he is not there yet.
He's a Bitcoin maximalist. There's not much I can do about it.
dr_analog
razorboy
3mo ago
I responded to this third party doctrine concern you raised on a different comment here: https://www.themotte.org/post/851/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/183485?context=8#context
But to recap
If Facebook has your messages, and you haven't encrypted them E2E, the government can look at them any time they want without a warrant.
This isn't exactly true. Things that neatly fall into the category of "communication" are protected, like 1:1 messages. Metadata and other content (like documents) are not.
You're also ignoring that for the government to look in your basement takes some effort. Looking at millions of people's data is trivial.
A different commenter also raised this. Addressed here: https://www.themotte.org/post/851/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/183482?context=8#context
Wholesale surveillance has been criticized as fairly useless to law enforcement by security experts for a long time.
dr_analog
razorboy
3mo ago
I believe Steven Pinker made the point that the death penalty has popular support in many Western nations and that the only reason the US hasn’t fully outlawed it is because (contrary to belief) it’s more democratic.
So, taken through this lens, the reason those other nations are so much less barbaric is because the civilized elites can successfully exert more of their political will.
If I was prowling a school with a gun and they announced "active shooter! all male and male identifying persons are encouraged to form wolfpacks and destroy anyone holding a gun that's isn't a cop. this is not a drill. show no mercy" I'd consider myself done. An entire building full of teenage boys given permission and encouragement to kill you sounds like you have approximately a minute tops before you're beaten thoroughly to a bloody pulp.
Why can’t the ID situation be solved by
- Must create account to view porn site
- Must complete crypto-style Know Your Customer challenge to activate account. Basically hold your ID up to webcam, then take picture of yourself on webcam in several poses to match ID
This is exactly what crypto exchanges are required to do.
It's pretty wild how much Americans are into guns.
I recently got into deer hunting. Game meat is really healthy, you know? Also it's more humane, I think? Anyway, It started with buying a bolt action rifle with a scope, my first firearm ever. Now that I have one, I need to go to the range to practice. This means I need glasses and also ear protection. Best to get the ear muffs that have loud noise cancellation so you can hear conversation. Oh, and there’s an aux input in case I hunt with other hunters and need a radio. Pretty cool. It even comes with two tone American flag velcro patch. Call of Duty vibe intensifies.
Obviously need a full assortment of camo to go with it. No no hunting camo, not like digital pattern camo don't be silly. Well, the military digital camo is cheaper actually, may as well.
Hey hunting deer is actually really challenging and the season is halfway over. Maybe I should branch out into wild turkey hunting. Oh, I need a shotgun for that? Well, why not. Should probably get slugs and buckshot, just for versatility.
While on some hunts I realized I was the only one without a sidearm. What’s the sidearm for? In case bears and cougars attack! Well shit, now I need to go shop for one of those. What will have enough stopping power? Let me head to the indoor range and rent a few and try them out. Hmm, yeah. I think the Glock 40 10mm should do, let me buy that.
Hey, since I have a handgun now, I may as well take a few extra steps to get it ready for home defense: add a silencer and light so I don't go blind and deaf shooting it indoors at night at an intruder.
Good good. Actually, why don’t I get a concealed carry license? May as well carry it with me just in case. It'd be super annoying to get mugged on the street when I have a perfectly good handgun at home. Probably I should take some classes on proper self defense though. Maybe also drill some tactics in case I end up in an active shooter situation. Again, it'd be pretty annoying to have a handgun with a concealed carry license but not know how to handle an active shooter...
Panoramic thermal/nightvision sounds like it'd be really handy for hunting, now that you mention it. Orienteering is probably a good skill to develop just in case I go too far off trails chasing wounded game...
I’m not sure how this gets to AR-15 ownership and drilling raids, but I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time.
Meal Team 6 is kinda wasting their time practicing with guns though. If you want to be ready for the war with the federal government you gotta be going all-in drone warfare.
I don't mean to dismiss the idea of systemic white supremacy completely. Cultural baggage is obviously real and doesn't go away at the stroke of a pen.
More like immediately jumping to 5 black cops exhibiting lethal brutality towards a black civilian = systemic white supremacy at work.
This is blaming every bad thing that ever happens to black people on white people. Both the victim and the cops In this case, sorry, it's a bit much for me.
It comes across as saying black cops in 2023 are still not responsible for their actions. Give me a break?
The first Untouchables that have equal rights are probably going to be pretty baggage laden. After, oh, I don't know, 2-3 generations of Untouchables achieving the heights of power I have less sympathy for the seemingly complete disavowal of ownership of decision making.
When do we get to stop kneejerk blaming every bad thing on systemic white supremacy? That's the roadmap I want to see.
More options
Context Copy link