faceh
15hr ago
Broad question:
Who is worth rooting for?
I mean, what humans alive right now represent "the best of humanity" without some laundry list of skeletons in their closet.
Someone who has talent, charisma and, critically, an unimpeachable moral character. A 'wholesome' sheen is optional but not necessary.
To compare and contrast, the models (limiting it to celebrities) I have in my head when I think of this are guys like Mr. Rogers, Dolly Parton, Weird Al Yankovic, Steve Irwin, Robin Williams, and maybe Keanu Reeves.
And contrasting examples where they cultivated but didn't live up to the image: Billy Cosby, Ellen DeGeneres, Will Smith, Ashton Kutcher. (I'm not pretending their behaviors are equivalent, mind).
I've talked in the past about how so many 'role models' failed to live up to their hype. Here, though, I'm talking about something even more basic. Not necessarily someone you want to be like but someone who you want to see succeed because the virtue of their goals and their character is so 'pure' that its inherently inspiring.
Someone who makes you think "I want this guy to do well, I want him to win, I want him to overcome every single obstacle he ever encounters" because that person's success would restore your faith in humanity as a whole.
This question partially inspired by all the memes around PewDiePie literally winning at life and nobody can level an actual critique of his character. Yes, we all know about the bridge incident, that's almost the proof positive that he'd stored up such large reserves of goodwill that people implicitly understand he's a heckin' decent human being. Jontron also seems to have his his happy ending. Isaac Arthur is one for me, personally, but for my more narrow interests.
Is there anyone currently coming up through the ranks that seems to represent this semi-heroic archetype?
faceh
15hr ago
Yeah.
Unless something is very wrong about my understanding of physics, we have beautiful technological solutions for almost every civilizational problem just sitting there, if only we can solve the coordination problems necessary to use them.
Although I do start to worry that we don't have a sufficient supply of competent people to coordinate around even if we could. The main disconnect from optimistic/utopic Sci-Fi from the past, including Older Star Trek, and the current reality is a ready supply of smart, driven people can work together to solve any pressing issues in front of them.
faceh
3d ago
That'd be a decent outcome. "Congress can choose to just sit on its ass if it wants, but it can't just delegate all its power over to the Executive and then let him decide what to do, it has to declare the actual authority in advance."
faceh
4d ago
Its an interesting point.
I genuinely figured we'd have gotten trade deals in place for tariff reduction by now.
But the timing will look better if the Tariffs come off in 2026 and this does in fact relieve some economic pressure in the leadup to the midterms.
I'm not even saying Trump intended to restrain economic growth specifically to release the restraints later, but its the sort of option he could exercise.
And I expect him to exercise any and all he can to help the GOP win, since he has a LOT to lose in this cycle.
...you say that, but Trump has clearly had some influence on when they decide to end them.
At least, THEY give him credit.
Is it just possible that those other countries take the existence and nature of the U.S. President into account in determining their military activities?
faceh
4d ago
I've correctly predicted like 8 of the last 0 serious crashes. (okay I technically called the Covid one in advance, but did NOT expect the snapback recovery).
I think the balancing act can be maintained for 1 more year, incidentally.
I do believe in the GOP's ability to shoot itself in the foot, repeatedly, though.
I've learned how futile it is to attempt predicting election outcomes a year out these days.
And just for comparison's sake, Tennessee had 3,090,161 voters participate in the 2024 election.
Yesterday's apparently amounts to About 178,000 between the two candidates. That's vastly smaller than Trump's previous margin of victory, itself.
My money bets that GOP voters, noting that this was not a particularly close race, opted to stay home for the most part. The very fact that a 'blue mirage' could emerge during the process indicates the 'error bars' on how representative this election is were pretty huge.
The Prediction Market on this election never dropped below 85% chance of Republican Victory (I profited on this one because it seemed obviously underpriced overall, incidentally).
I do think a problem that the GOP hasn't solved yet is how to get their voters motivated to show up when Trump isn't on the ballot. But I currently have purchased prediction market positions in favor of an overall GOP victory in the midterms because I think they're underpriced currently. I am prepared to lose on this due to the aforementioned difficulty of predicting, I'm mostly hoping to trade on some volatility.
faceh
4d ago
Uncharitably, most lefties I talk to seem to be studiously ignorant of it.
I used to use Norway vs. Venezuela vs. Saudia Arabia as a case study in why Socialism doesn't cause prosperity, but sitting on billions of barrels of oil (or similar natural resources) does, and even then socialism can ruin it.
I'm unsure, myself, as to whether Maduro intentionally permits gangs to thrive or just partnered with them out of convenience/desperation, but I do believe it is all tied up in a giant Kleptocracy.
The steelman for the "Drug dealers = Terrorists" position is that it isn't the drug dealing that makes them terrorists.
Its all the other violent activities they do that are incidental to dealing drugs which are pretty isomorphic to terrorist activities, even if motivated more by profit than ideology.
I think that in fact has been the argument since Tom Clancy wrote a fictional take on it in 1989.
The Justice Department, for instance, charges cartels with "Drug Trafficking" as a separate offense from "Narco-Terrorism" and "Material Support of Terrorism."
According to court documents, since its inception the Beltran Leyva faction has been considered one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations to operate in Mexico, engaging in shootouts, murders, kidnappings, torture and violent collection of drug debts to sustain its operations.
So its not so much a 'novel legal theory' as one that hasn't been rigorously tested before a Judge.
faceh
4d ago
Two additional wars did in fact kick off during his tenure.
And he did in fact escalate our involvement in those conflicts. And of course the ongoing joke that U.S. tax dollars funded both sides of Israel-Palestine.
No problem granting credit where credit is due, but let us not pretend that defense contractors were starved for business due to an unprecedented outbreak of peace and harmony from 2020-2024.
If we wanted to really push the point, the Biden admin can be attributed with a lapse in military recruiting. I'm interested in perspectives on whether this is good or bad for the antiwar position, but one possible explanation for it is people expected that we might get into a shooting war which makes military recruitment less appealing when the homeland isn't at stake.
Anyhow, don't want to get dragged into the weeds on this just yet. Ample time for Trump to get us embroiled in, e.g., Venezuela or Taiwan or some heretofore unexpected conflict.
There's "Anti-War" in the sense they studiously avoid military activities of all stripes... then there's "Anti-War" in the sense that they will happily perform a handful of sharp, limited engagements calculated to avoid a protracted conflict.
I still prefer the Ron Paulist 'non-interventionism' approach, but yeah, he's been avoiding any boots on the ground actions and he seems to love few things more than brokering a stand-down between rivals that minimizes further violence.
If he manages to get the Ukraine war stopped, in a way that doesn't effectively cede Ukraine to direct Russian control, he's objectively the most deserving candidate for the Nobel Peace prize since Gorbachev (i.e. since 1990).
And you damn well know he's gunning for that prize since Obama has one.
faceh
5d ago
My priors on a struggling petrostate trying to make up lost funding by becoming a narcostate are pretty high.
The only other viable explanation would be that Maduro has lost significant control over his territory to gangs, but for obvious reasons wouldn't want to admit that, so this is in fact just cartels acting with impunity and they consider the occasional drug mule being obliterated as the cost of doing business.
Its just possible that the boats getting ganked are intentional diversions from, I dunno, actual submarines or some more surreptitious shipping methods.
faceh
5d ago
Personally, I think these guys ARE state actors, but Venezuela has obvious incentives to never ever claim them, so they're acting under the flag of no nation, and thus its hard to see why we shouldn't call their bluff and just treat them like pirates until Venezuela actually complains.
We're also at the point where the U.S. response to sending these boats has been made clear. I'm sure there are also backchannels where its communicated "if the boats keep coming, we're going to keep blowing them up."
They keep putting the boats in the water. What precisely are they EXPECTING. "Don't worry brother, they will surely detain you for a fair trial if you're caught in the act. Pay no attention to the reaper drone circling overhead."
faceh
5d ago
It seems just a tad goofy to go through that rigamarole of formally capturing these guys, bringing them to the U.S., trying them, then sentencing them to imprisonment (at our expense) or deporting them back home where... they might do the same thing over again?
Which gets into the whole "what is 'due process' when removing an illegal immigrant" debate we've been having sporadically.
This is due in part to Venezuela doing the thing where it apparently sends gang members and drugs at the U.S. with official approval from Maduro, AND doesn't want to claim its boys so it says nothing when they get wasted. So its not a 'war' but its definitely an active campaign of sorts.
Suffice it to say, I don't think they should count as 'civilians' under any fair definition, and if Venezuela doesn't want to make this a formal war, then its... "silly" to think the rules of war need to be strictly observed. If they're going to keep them in that weird grey area, then treating them like pirates until proven otherwise seems fair.
faceh
5d ago
That's my moral intuition, as well as the fact that it allows the possibility of a 'miracle' to intercede to save their life. If they're not immediate threats, I go with Batman Begins logic.
I feel similar but not identically about end-of-life Euthanasia, too.
faceh
5d ago
Oh absolutely.
But I'm definitely questioning the need to double-tap the dudes. Okay sure if the specific order was "kill all of them" then the admiral in question might feel the job incomplete.
Or just... wait a bit and see if they even try to swim to shore.
Hence I give a bit more credence to the argument that the second shot was to sink the boat to deny the opponent the ability to retrieve it later.
I am quite skeptical that its maritime law that is going to successfully bring down Trump where every other approach has failed.
faceh
5d ago
Well that's why I'm asking 'in vacuum.'
Its like a trolley problem where the only options are "hit this button to kill them more or less instantly, therefore minimizing suffering, or don't hit the button and they die anyway, but hours or days later, maybe in agonizing pain."
One could argue that the latter might add some deterrent effect, which is arguably the TRUE point of doing this at all.
Anyway, my argument is that its up to VENEZUELA to stand up for their citizens if they think some international law was violated. But then they'd have to own that they're aware of these drug shimpments.
The fact that U.S. citizens and Politicians are the ones pushing for sanctions on U.S. troops... while Venezuela just goes through the motions of prepping for invasion is such odd optics.
Seems kind of obvious, in retrospect.
I don't know where precisely the boat was intercepted, but if it was far enough from any land mass that a survivor probably couldn't swim to 'safety'... they were most likely going to die anyway?
Why waste a missile to double tap doomed men?
Unless the actual objection is now that the navy should have sent a rescue crew out to pick up anyone in the water which, hey, I'm willing to entertain, but that's a different question.
And on that topic, if there are survivors of a strike like this, is it more humane to leave them floating in the water to most likely die of exposure, drowning, or shark attack, or to do the double tap? Like, in a complete vacuum, which is more ethical?
I also note that the claims that these could be innocent fishermen or something have apparently evaporated.
faceh
5d ago
I don't mind doing some light sparring with a female. But my favorite demo at that point is to shoot for the legs, then bodily lift them off the ground and remind them that now, I can simply slam them to the ground and the fight is probably over.
Then show them a few ways they can 'cheat' to make it a little less lopsided.
Today I was showing a quite young, very athletic, but petite female student how to wrist lock when the opportunity presents itself. Then I showed her how hard it is to land a wrist lock on a guy (me) that is giving more than token resistance. So final lesson: "IF you can do it, then you go in with the full intention to break the dude's wrist as quickly as possible. Don't depend on pain compliance. In fact, don't even assume snapping his wrist is enough. The longer the fight lasts the worse it is for you."
Best general advice I can offer them is "use the bigger muscles of your body against the (relatively) small muscles on theirs when possible." And God bless her she has internalized the "groin kick first, ask questions later" mentality.
Yep.
Technology fixes social problems which, I would argue, allows social 'rot' to spread underneath since now certain traits that were selected against on the population level are now still present but less noticed since we just use the tech solution (apply this logic to AI if you wish, lol).
When I first moved to my current area, 10 years ago, I was in the cheapest apartment I could find that still allowed pets. This was my first apartment after living in a College Town.
After years of no problems with Amazon deliveries, I started getting about half of my packages swiped off my stoop. I wondered for a bit if it was Amazon Delivery drivers being incompetent, but nope. I did the classic approach of filling a cardboard box with trash and leaving it out, and that, too got taken.
But a few months later, Amazon introduced An Amazon Locker at my local mall. So I could ship items there and pick them up at my leisure.
Problem solved! Except now it was a 15 minute round trip to pick up stuff, so I would have to schedule it around my other errands. The whole POINT of Amazon delivery is to NOT have to leave the house!!
And of course, I had to live with the knowledge that some of my neighbors were wanton thieves, which was the real issue. Can't leave my door or my car unlocked ever, knowing that. I did own a large dog at the time so I was relatively certain they'd not try to break into my unit.
(They've since added a locker at the convenience store w/in walking distance from that apartment. I have to assume they track package theft and use that as a basis for where they put the lockers).
Yes, I'm GLAD that technology solved a social problem... but it didn't actually solve the problem. Just routed around the symptom. I VASTLY prefer my current neighborhood, where not only can I leave Amazon packages sitting out for days, the Neighborhood facebook group will actively coordinate to find misdelivered packages and, if packages are going missing, immediately use the doorbell cameras to figure out if there's a thief about.
And we do that without using that classic bit of technology known as a gated community, so I can feel reasonably good that my neighbors are actually being neighborly.
One way to determine if a piece of tech is an 'unalloyed' good or if its just a hack borne of 'necessity' is whether people still choose to use it/pay for it when they genuinely don't have to do so. I never use Amazon lockers these days since the technology of bringing items to my doorstep in two days is the one I actually want.
faceh
6d ago
In a hypothetical future age of abundance, how much better can things really be?
I can imagine claiming some largeish planetoid in the asteroid belt and converting it over to suitability for human habitation, and have a couple Aldrin Cyclers that can drop off and pick up visitors.
Fuck a house in a nice neighborhood, I want my nearest neighbor to be 400,000 km away.
That's what I'D do with an AI-induced boon.
Buying comfortable solitude might be the next frontier in that sense, There's only so many private islands out there, although we can certainly build more.
I think much of the decline is explained by the cost and time of travel being reduced. Disparate populations are still easy to reach, but before we had mass communications, information about unsavory individuals might propagate slowly.
Snake Oil Salesmen are a well known trope in Westerns, where it was possible to arrive in an isolated town, scam the relatively trusting townspeople, leave before they realized the scam, and arrive in another such town before word actually spread.
Even today, it can be hard to punish a scammer if they stay mobile. Or simply operate outside the jurisdiction of the people they're scamming (oh look, India again).
Dunbar's number is probably pretty closely correlated to the largest community you can operate the runs solely on trust, rather than introducing contracts, mediators, and other dispute resolution systems.
Still, there is something 'magical' about being able to leave your garage door open, your car unlocked, and expect to find your Amazon packages left unmolested on your doorstep, and likewise be pretty certain that if someone DID try to take your packages or steal your car the neighbors would either intervene or call the police, who would in fact take it seriously enough to try to catch the miscreant.
One thing that has really stuck in my craw in the modern era are TSA agents stealing items from luggage. It was (is?) an epidemic, and I really can't see how you maintain trust in a system when the people tasked with enforcing the rules are the ones violating them flagrantly. And, oh dear, I have to note that A Majority of the Security Screeners are nonwhite.
I guess that depends on how efficient you think "The Sort" has gotten.
My general perception is that if some person (in the West) possesses real noteworthy talent at a marketable ability, they will be identified and absorbed by some talent-hungry institution, AI Lab, Quant Trading Company, Pharma, etc. etc.
Although I could believe the hypothesis that there's a lot of guys with talent but limited discipline/drive who are ascertaining (correctly?) that beyond monetary rewards, the incentives to go out and use your talents are kinda dulled. You're not all that likely to find the love of your life, have kids, have a fulfilling long-term life and avoid burning out by age 40, so hey, smoking weed and playing vidya with the bros is an acceptable substitute.
What would do we think would cause the U.S. to try and draw forth from such a 'latent' talent reserve?
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