faceh
39m ago
I'd guess the reason we can't currently do both is the sheer amount of enforcement resources that are tied up in dealing with the active interference from protestors and state officials.
In theory, it should be simple enough to identify the largest employers with large numbers of illegals on the payrolls, throw the book at one or two of the CEOs, and let incentives take their course.
faceh
53m ago
I'm committing to finishing up my first read of Wildbow's Worm, and I am up to the point where Taylor becomes Weaver.
[Spoilers]
Okay, I think I hit my limit of disbelief on "actually, insect control is OP" writing. You have one of the most overall indestructible Capes, who is also a tactical genius w/photographic memory on top of it, and she's somehow not able to defend against "insects jammed into your mouth" attack.
A tactic that Taylor has used ample times anyway.
I accept the premise that getting foreign matter lodged in her lungs (or drowning) would be a killing stroke, I accept that Alexandria was trying to goad this precise reaction from her... but its both hard to believe that Alexandria wouldn't think of "close your mouth and nose" as a defense, or that standard-issue bugs would actually be able to force themselves down her airway.
I was barely hanging on as Taylor is using bugs to dial telephones and manipulate the wiring in the walls to get doors opened, but "I stuffed her lungs full of roaches and spiders" was seemingly a different level entirely.
It works for the plot, and I'll keep reading, but that was the first time I groaned at Taylor being able to punch far above her nominal weight class through creative insect usage. It didn't even have the 'rule of cool' justification like when she's in a drawn out fight.
[/Spoilers]
Still beats most mainstream stories that are out these days.
faceh
1hr ago
Let’s round up the illegal immigrants (kindly) AND prosecute the employers that employ them (kindly).
And if the state in which the persons in question reside not only refuse cooperation, but actively interfere, can we also go after the officials who are thwarting any enforcement at all?
Can we also arrest them?
I just want to know where the limits of 'accountability' stop and why it should extent to employers but not state actors.
faceh
1hr ago
Side question, is there ever, in the history of EVER, been a game designed explicitly around trying to teach a player some "prosocial" (as defined by the developer), that has resulted in a meaningful uptick in that prosocial behavior?
To ask the question is basically to answer it.
But that actually makes the point that there is no UPSIDE to making such a game, it won't achieve the intended result, but significant possible downside if you accidentally give players something to rally around for mockery.
This reads as nonserious when we JUST had a reveal and discussion of billions with a "B" worth of dollars being fraudulently appropriated for essentially fake businesses run by various immigrant groups, with one standout being the Somalis.
Largely in blue states.
Targeting employers would ignore this particular flow of tax dollars into dubiously legal immigrant communities who have seemingly separated themselves from 'legitimate' society and operate insular networks with outsized political influence.
That seems like a pressing matter that can't be ignored.
So you see, I will amend my beliefs and correct errors.
Ayyyy. Glad to see it.
we've talked before about your expectations of women and how you feel society puts too much responsibility on men and not enough on women.
I would amend that to be that society heaps responsibility on men and hampers their ability to fulfill it. This is what the individual 'bootstraps' dialogue hits on. "Its nobody else's responsibility to help you." But whose responsibility is it when they're actively interfering with you? Young men can't be to blame for EVERYTHING wrong with society... but if they try and blame anybody else that just invites further criticism.
not enough on women.
But I always get angry responses for not blaming women enough.
This would be a touchy point. Responsibility/Authority and blame are two sides of the same coin in my book. You CAN'T blame someone for something they weren't responsible for.
If women want to accept more responsibility (and the rewards that come with it) they also have to accept blame if they screw up.
But there's clearly a tendency to avoid blaming women for various outcomes, and treat them like they are not responsible for their actions.
And I only see two ways to resolve this:
Either many women as less responsible for their actions than the average men... but then we really need to adopt legal and social standards that recognize this (like with children).
Or, women are indeed responsible for their actions... and thus they should be held to the same standards as men. I'm just a girl is not a defense, then.
And 'held to the same standards as men' means holding them at least partially accountable for the collapse in gender relations/marriage rates/fertility.
I don't see how we can both say women are fully agentic and responsible for their own actions... but also blameless when those actions have predictable negative consequences.
But saying women aren't fully agentic and responsible for their own actions is... not very nice, is it?
but one way to reliably annoy me is to call me a liar. I believe what I say I believe.
Having explained your position more; I retract any implication that you're lying. I see why you would conclude what you did.
And I sincerely did not want to offend, and I see how you would have taken offense. I apologize if I goaded too much. I'm now certain you're not an intentional troll, which seemed like a possibility for a bit.
faceh
3d ago
You post surveys and magazine articles that reinforce your opinion.
See, you seem to think I search out these studies specifically because I already formed a belief.
You can look back through years of posts and you might notice my opinion is the result of finding dozens upon dozens of various surveys, studies, anecdotes and data that all pointed to where I'm at now.
The data is the reason I developed this particular opinion.
And I will develop it further if you, or anyone else, can give me some reason to reach a different conclusion.
It DOES reinforce my opinion when I tell people who disagree with me that I am willing to look at their data and change my mind and they don't provide any.
It STRONGLY SUGGESTS that you are forming your opinion from... what, exactly? What feels better to believe? I have a few hypotheses.
But the longer you go without providing any data in response, the more I conclude that contradictory data does not exist.
Because I've looked.
when you stop confidently declaring that people don't really believe the things they say because you disagree with them.
That seems to be the standard you're applying. I'm game to play along.
I think you don't believe that I'm disappointed with the 'injustices' allegedly heaped upon me or that I have some deep-seated bias against women, because I can assure you I have never said any words to that effect, and I've often said the opposite.
I've never claimed that the world owes me, or that something I'm entitled to has been taken, or that I blame the opposite sex for my misery. Also, I'm not miserable. If I felt that way... I'D SAY IT.
I understand if it seems frustrating, but you're in one of the few places on the public internet where one is expected to stand by their beliefs as stated rather than hop back and forth between your true beliefs and the beliefs that are easy to defend.
I'm stating exactly what I think, why I think it, and inviting the attacks on it. I can even lay out pretty specific terms for what would change my mind on this issue.
We could try that chicken/egg argument. (Which phenomena came first? Would guys turn to drugs, gambling and video games if they believed they could land a wife by not doing those things?) I'll stipulate that there's a feedback loop. I will not stipulate that if men were to quit drugs, gambling, and video games that women would find them attractive by default.
Once again we have that data I just posted. Non-college-educated women tend to have 'reasonable' standards. But there are more college-educated women than before, so on average women's standards have risen.
There are also more college educated men now than there were before. If we think men have gotten worse, then that's suggesting that college education doesn't make you a better partner.
And if you make that argument, then explain why women getting college degrees makes them want better partners.
So no, I'd say, in the education department, men have generally gotten better on average.
And the blaring piece of evidence where obese women won't settle for obese men.
I think that's the obvious asymmetry. Both genders have (on average) gotten less physically appealing. Only one isn't willing to adjust their own standards to this fact.
faceh
4d ago
Well, there are caveats.
Likewise, sports gambling and gambling ads were banned for a long time. Tobacco ads were banned in living memory b/c of health implications.
Me, I think it would be simple enough to just mandate that every social media site that hits above a certain userbase size must open-source their algorithm.
To a degree this is similar to mandating 'Nutrition Facts' on food. People are consuming content from a source that is completely opaque about how that content is selected and curated.
Hard to see a 1A concern there.
faceh
4d ago
Ding ding ding.
You also have to obscure your motivations... which makes you behave even sketchier!
"Oh no, I just REALLY like discussing early 20th century Gothic literature with this lovely group of 30-something ladies. It has NAUGHT to do with the two hotties sitting over there in the corner wearing the black lipgloss, my thoughts are as pure as the driven snow."
Because as you say, if they dislike the attention, then they have the option of saying "don't invade womens' spaces just to date them, you have to respect their boundaries!" and exiling you without fanfare.
Doesn't matter is some subset of the women absolutely would accept your advances.
That said, I find it painful to dive into activities where the sole motive is trying to partner up. If the activity isn't enjoyable by itself, then I'd just rather not participate.
Your "data" is not meaningful
I don't think you're the one who determines that, actually.
You could convince me otherwise, but that would require laying down some kind of groundwork.
But what you like to believe is things that reinforce your sense of injustice inflicted upon you by the world. You construct just-so stories that reinforce a particular narrative, you take surveys as "data" and you dismiss any other model of human behavior because it doesn't fit your priors.
This is so wildly incorrect about my mode of thinking I can't even take offense to it, its like you threw a rock at my head but it flew off into the thicket of trees about 100 feet to my right and scared a Bobcat.
I genuinely have no sense of 'injustice inflicted upon me by the world.' Its just people, treating other people in ways they might not want to be treated in return, if anything.
Its rather interesting, however, that you think my data about large scale social trends leads me to wrong conclusions...
But you think your assessment of the inner workings of another person's mind is going to be spot on based on limited interactions.
Genuinely, explain your epistemic philosophy that lets you make confident conclusions about individual psychology whilst ALSO denouncing data-based analysis of trends. I want to hear it.
My personal thesis is that its the algorithms, not explicitly the phones (obviously the phones are a prerequisite).
Early Facebook was fine. It was a chronological feed consisting solely of what your friends posted.
Early online dating was also fine. You could navigate and search out people you thought were compatible, message them directly.
The rise of curation via opaque algos is when we saw things shift towards optimizing attention, ad dollars, and ragebait and brainrot. And in dating they removed the ability to filter directly and just gameified it and blew up the 'organic' nature of the environment entirely.
This is reaching an apotheosis now with gambling integrated in everything we do.
Twitter/X just open-sourced their algorithm, and I've been seeing people pointing out some of the direct factors in there that would lead to 'toxic' feedback loops and demolition of organic communities.
Have to assume its the same on every other site, too.
faceh
4d ago
The huge irony is that my boss is a woman, and my workplace overall is slanted towards female employees. But since she's an utterly remorseless businesswoman who grinds it out in the trenches alongside her employees, she is EASILY the most meritocratic employer I've ever worked for.
I don't rock the boat politically (thanks to having an outlet here, I suppose), I put in the work and bring in the cash, I keep my personal life separate enough that it rarely bleeds over.
My friends in White Collar corporate jobs seem to be navigating byzantine labyrinths where the goals are ever-shifting, the ability to progress uncertain, and the actual rules for personal conduct are opaque in places. Loyalty doesn't exist, of course. Thankful to have avoided that for most of my life.
faceh
4d ago
If the data were based solely on matchmaker reports sure.
But its in the survey data. More women are college educated these days. College educated women are VASTLY more picky.
Its literally women saying it themselves that they can't find partners who meet their expectations.
When the data, the anecdotes, the personal observations and the testimony from 'experts' end up all pointing at the same direction, I am just inclined to Occam's Razor that they're probably pretty accurate.
Been reading some insistent advice on twitter that you can meet women out at dance classes or in book clubs.
I've tried the dance classes, and the gender ratio tends to be skewed towards males... and the women tend to bring their own partners.
So you've got a small pool of available women with a circling school of dudes trying to elbow in. I can see why that'd be daunting for single women, and potentially drive some of them away.
The book club... that's asking for quite a bit of commitment for something that has very small odds of working out, and has some small chance of backfiring.
And even if those were two viable options, its still an indictment that we've so severely narrowed the acceptable arenas to meeting others outside the apps.
faceh
4d ago
Almost as convincing as your old OKCupid survey.
Still waiting on data to contradict it.
Have you seen the extremely comprehensive data from tinder that shows basically the exact same thing?
Here's a youtube video based on that data if that's more appealing.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3pvkgUc9Zbc?si=Tktvaz4PBg-Vsr5K
Your personal disappointment over my lying eyes, obviously we will both trust our respective sources.
You can keep saying this, but I sincerely suspect you don't actually believe it.
I just like to believe true things.
faceh
4d ago
I just do not believe that all of it should be blamed on women wanting an unrealistic fantasy.
Can we blame the social forces/media that women are susceptible to for inculcating those unrealistic fantasies?
Maybe regulate those factors a bit?
faceh
4d ago
It could be a lack of trying on the male end.
Sure.
Incentives have to be sufficient.
If the reward for 'trying' is you get rejected 90% of the time, ghosted another 5-9% of the time, and the 'win' condition is you get a woman who is overweight, in debt, doesn't know how to cook, and is iffy on if she wants kids.
Where's the appeal to putting in the effort?
I think a lot of guys are accurately assessing that their odds of winning a real prize are lacklustre, and so efforts spent on themselves pay off more.
You could meet someone through work, but many might consider the risk of drama to not be worth it.
This became a fairly explicit minefield after #metoo. Even if the woman is welcoming the advances or even advancing herself, HR is going to try to kibosh it to avoid their own liability/publicity issues.
faceh
4d ago
Reduces arterial plaque, and a few other little benefits too.
At the 10,000 FU dose level, which I ran for about three months.
Brief discussion of it here:
https://www.themotte.org/post/2732/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/357853?context=8#context
I started it after @thejdizzler recommended and my cholesterol did indeed see significant reduction.
faceh
4d ago
I don't think any of the older kids have the juice to fill his shoes. Barron is shaping with potential but obviously the age thing.
faceh
4d ago
I think there's a (relatively thin) slice of Blue Collar skilled professional who has made out extremely well due to a relative dearth of competition for a smorgasbord of work in the trades. Lot of dudes getting rich off working in oil fields or, more recently, Data Center construction.
But... we can't ignore the immigration surge exerting pressure on e.g. construction work, trucking, unskilled trades.
So different pressures... but still impact that would fall primarily on males. And still arguably coming from the same source (political favortism for groups other than white males).
Anyhow, they're still struggling on the partnership front.
https://wng.org/roundups/study-shows-working-class-men-arent-getting-married-1749503094
faceh
4d ago
...the other factor is that she's presumably willing to defer to the Father's judgment as to who she should date and marry, which gives dad a large say in selecting a worthy man and scaring away the Lotharios.
After all, he has an EXTREME amount at stake and thus has incentive to help her select the best as possible... and possibly to punish those who do commit abuse.
We still do that whole "Father walks the bride down the aisle and 'gives her away' to the Groom" at weddings. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS?
faceh
5d ago
Something approaching half of them are projected to be single by 2030
If that's not a result of 'refusing to settle' en masse then what could it be.
And my basic reminder, I am more than happy to look at data you present that contradicts my point, or accept any argumentation pointing out where my analysis is flawed.
Anyway, here's testimony from a matchmaker (also a female) about the standards put forth by a 31-year-old single woman. "There are a decent number of profiles like this."
My abject guess:
On the top level its an optics thing.
On the rubber-meets-the-road level, good luck proving that a CEO or anyone in C-Suite was "knowingly" approving hiring of illegals, especially if the immigrants in question were able to produce sketchy but minimally sufficient papers to prove legitimacy.
Sure there's probably some who put it in an e-mail that you can uncover, but these are the guys who can afford quality legal representation.
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