I’m assuming that the aliens are actually biblical angels or demons.
You’re right, I should be doing that. I’m imperfect. I’d equate actual knowledge of the reality of aliens with Moses seeing the burning bush, Noah talking to god about a flood, or Mary being visited by an angel.
Not necessary for my point but: I actually do spend pretty much 100% of my waking time with my wife and children. We are both effectively retired and structured our life in this way on purpose. We also do go to church at least once a week and spend quite a bit of time talking about theology and our beliefs.
Edit: now that I think about this more, I think that covid was a sort of “seeing god” moment for my wife and I. Neither of us would ever even consider trading time with our children for a job. I guess my thought is that knowing the truth of alien life would have an even stronger effect, so my assumption is that because I don’t see any of the people who would know the truth of this acting like they just talked to god, that they probably haven’t met him.
firmamenti
4mo ago
If you were introduced to the interdimensional demons, and wanted to chop wood and carry water afterwards, what type of work would you do?
firmamenti
4mo ago
I’d spent every waking second with my wife and children, and probably spend a lot of our time together in Church, praying.
firmamenti
4mo ago
I think the strongest evidence for the fact that they are not secretly aliens or demons or inter-dimensional travelers in contact with us is that the people who supposedly know keep on with their lives.
Allegedly members of congress know of all this, and yet they still continue seething and coping about January 6th, Ukraine, late term abortions, etc. if you knew for a fact that biblical demons were in fact interdimensional intelligences phasing through our existence, would you still put on your suit every day and go to work to argue with people?
firmamenti
4mo ago
Something that has always annoyed me about "satanists" is that in the Christian mythology, Satan is literally a standin for evil. It's not "here are some things, and the ones we think are bad are the ones Satan likes", which would allow the atheists to be like "no you were wrong, the things you don't like are good, actually!".
Within the Christian framework, the very concept of evil stems from Satan. It's darkness, absence of love, absence of joy, eternal torment. The way that you experience this evil might look like fun (hookers and blow), but the order that these people seem to want to have is reversed. It's not "we looked at hookers and blow and decided it's evil" it's "the very embodiment of evil is leaking into our reality and it is manifesting itself as hookers and blow."
Evil -> hookers and blow.
Not: hookers and blow -> evil.
So when these people say things like that they are "satanists" who believe people should be allowed to do hookers and blow because restricting them from hookers and blow is oppressive or whatever, they're just...wrong about the order of operations here. Maybe an argument could be "hookers and blow are not actually a manifestation of pure evil. WE are the pro hookers and blow group and think that hookers and blow is good". It is just completely nonsensical within the Christian framework they're trying to work in to try and say that Satanism could even possibly be interpreted as anything other than a pointer towards "true evil, regardless of what you might currently think true evil looks like".
I wish I could say I hated these people, and I wish I could get riled up to want to smash this statue because it embodied something I am theologically opposed to, but it doesn't. I hate this stupid statue because it is cringey. I would feel approximately the same as if people wanted to put up a video game or marvel avengers shrine in the capital. A funko pop of a video game character would probably have more validity than this absolutely cringe "baphomet" statue..
firmamenti
4mo ago
Whoa. In case anybody didn’t read the link:
NA, $90,000, to buy a year of his time. NA is an experienced Australian political operative "on a first name basis with multiple federal politicians". You might remember some of his comments and stories from the ACX comment section, where he goes by AshLael. He's interested in using his expertise to promote effective altruism, either by lobbying directly or by training EAs in how to produce political change. I have no idea what to do with him right now but I am going to figure it out and then do it. If you're in EA and have a good idea how to use this opportunity, please let me know.
firmamenti
4mo ago
Has there ever been an example of a professional sports organization being held liable for the riot after a team won or lost a game, and the fans damaged parts of the city?
firmamenti
4mo ago
The Georgia thing feels pretty much identical to the "very fine people" comment, where he supposedly called neonazis "very fine people", but in context actually said the opposite.
In the call where he was supposedly pressuring Brad Raffensberger to "find votes", he is very clearly saying that his team thinks there is fraud, and is asking for permission (or help) in investigating that fraud. The "finding" votes he's talking about is not a euphemism; he is literally saying that if fraud is investigated, that there will be at least enough to flip the state.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/03/politics/trump-brad-raffensperger-phone-call-transcript/index.html
This seems so blatantly inbounds ethically that it amazes me that this is what they're going after him for. Even the wikipedia page (not exactly unbiased) seems to clearly state that the was trying to get fraud investigated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_phone_call
Sure he may have been pressuring Brad Raffensberger to do something, but the something he was pressuring him to do doesn't seem illegal, or even questionably ethical.
firmamenti
4mo ago
Lol. Lmao. Maybe that's what your friend personally believes, but that's nowhere near representative of the actual reasons.
Yeah I'm not a Hindu and admittedly know nothing about the culture. Some googling does seem to suggest that Hindus aren't particularly charitable, though.
firmamenti
4mo ago
I asked almost this exact question to a (native) friend while living in Mumbai. We were driving past this dudes skyscraper and I asked him how people feel about the fact that this super rich guy has a skyscraper to live in but it’s surrounded by absolute filth and poverty. Isn’t he at least embarrassed?
He said it’s because of the Hindu belief in Karma and reincarnation. Basically: those people living outside of the skyscraper fucked up in a past life and this is their punishment. The rich did well and this is their reward.
Personally I would assume that cleaning the streets would be a karma earning thing to do. If I was rich and wanted to secure a good life next go around, cleaning the streets and helping the poor would be high on my list of priorities, but this could just be me assuming me own, Catholic, culture as the default. A little googling backs this up; among religions Christians are more charitable than Hindus (or Muslims): https://www.jstor.org/stable/41940751#:~:text=the%20relationship%20between%20religion%20and%20philanthropic%20behavior.,%2C%20Hinduism%2C%20and%20Buddhism).
Yeah I didn’t know that BJ coined the term. I have no idea what the second part of your post means though. GeoHot was the first time I heard it.
I guess I was wrong.
What I meant by obvious parody account is more in line with like Bojan Tunguz, or BAP (not that these two are in any way related), where everything seems to be said with a heavy dose of irony or injoking.
firmamenti
4mo ago
Food waste you mean carbon sequestration? Do your part, don’t eat that tart!
But seriously is anyone really complaining about food waste? I personally haven’t really heard that.
Maybe compare it to Tylenol? I didn’t realize it before having kids, but Tylenol is a life saving medicine as a fever reducer, and costs effectively nothing.
I don’t think GeoHot is laying out a full business plan here, just speaking in broad terms, and I do generally agree with him.
If every malaria vaccine costs $0.01 to make, yippee! I can sell them for $50 and make a huge return!
And when they’re abundant and cheap like Tylenol, other people will sell them for 49.99, 49.98, 49.97, […], 0.01. Nobody will want your $50 malaria pills just like nobody wants $50 Tylenol.
firmamenti
4mo ago
George Hotz talks about it here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DdZmZJHEVUc?si=g7z3yB_V_pvqc6-q
To paraphrase: no we aren’t going to give food away, there is just going to be abundant food that’s so cheap that nobody can’t afford it. No don’t start a charity to give away 100 malaria vaccines, start a company to make the malaria vaccines cost $0.01 each and make them abundant.
Isnt Beff Jezos an obvious parody account? I don’t think he “founded e/acc” the way Forbes is saying here (maybe there a joke I’m missing). I thought the term was made as a joke by George Hotz when Lex Friedman asked him about effective altruism.
Edit: I was wrong. BBJ did coin the term.
I’m definitely in that sphere as far as I know. E/accs are like: we want more nuclear power, more rockets, better stuff through technology. AI is definitely a part of that, but in the sense that an e/acc person would point out the potential good things that AI could bring instead of worrying so much about the more theoretical (imo) bad things. There has been a huge push in the last few years to do hardware or “hard tech” startups, and a lot of the founders talk about “accelerationism” as a bit of a tongue in cheek rallying cry.
I had actually seen a lot more e/acc talk around space, energy, and manufacturing startups than around AI. I would expect and e/accist to be more comfortable in front of solidworks than in front pytorch, although now that I think about it GeoHot was talking about AI, and is doing an several AI companies right now.
I guess put me in for: this is a good term actually! BBJ was a parody account don’t let him poison the term, please! take my h200s from my cold dead hands though. (Just kidding I’m poor. Please talk slow Im autistic running this on an ancient 1060.)
Here’s the geohot clip I’m talking about: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DdZmZJHEVUc?si=g7z3yB_V_pvqc6-q
firmamenti
4mo ago
Just go back to some of the very old CWR threads from the SSC sub. Low effort posts were policed, sneering was removed, and tons of good discussions were had.
Sneering is bad, rdrma, KIA and whatever cesspools are obviously a model for what not to do.
Wow cjet, I disagree with you on something, and when the topic comes up, I say that I like brevity and provide that side of the argument for it.
That makes me a leech and a parasite on the good discussions of others?
Absolutely unnecessarily mean and hurtful. Yeah that’s the only comments you see from me because they’re usually replies to you when you’re being a jerk to somebody.
firmamenti
4mo ago
People keep complaining about it because it’s a legitimate problem.
If we’re just going by: how annoying are they to scroll by, then the long, low information density posts are worse (by a lot) than what call low effort posts. (I think these long low information posts are pretty low effort too). At least with short posts I know if I’m interested in it in a few seconds. Long manifestopoasting might take a couple of paragraphs before I realize what garbage I’m reading.
+1 for banning the blogposters at least as much as you ban the link posters
+1 for please please please just bring back the BLR please.
firmamenti
4mo ago
I understand the point you’re trying to make, I just don’t agree with it.
If you want to live in some absolutely free of any regulations whatsoever place, then I also encourage you to move somewhere and create that place. My suspicion is that it will look more like Dharavi slum than San Francisco circa 2005, but I still encourage you or anybody else to try it.
My neighborhood, enacting the policies you don’t like, has been successful. People want to live here, and the success of the policies we have enacted is, I suspect, the thing attracting you to it.
What I’m asking is that if you want to try this new plan, just go do it somewhere else. There is TONS of land in this country which is empty. Go build your utopia!
firmamenti
4mo ago
I’m saying that there is an obvious logical difference between compelling and prohibiting an action. This isn’t just me saying this; I’m asking you to cite some examples because it is also appears to be a standard by which laws are written.
My beliefs are derived from both a naked, immediate self interest in securing a safe and happy existence for my family, and also an interest in there being a reasonable, logical set of rules for a society to follow that exist in such a way that they are understood even if they have not all been individually read. The term for this, which you already pointed out, is coherence. A specially carved out law which would allow property developers to bulldoze my house so they can build condos is incoherent. No reasonable person could intuit this from an existing set of understandings about laws. It’s also stupid, and would have obvious destabilizing effects on society. The idea of individual property rights is, and I hate to keep using this term, but foundational. You own your property. there are laws which can restrict your use of the property, but not generally laws which compel use of the property.
If you want to build condos next to my house, me and the other homeowners can petition the government to restrict that use, but it only goes one way. The property developers cannot petition the government (generally) to compel me to bulldoze my house.
It is absolutely self interest. I believe I said this in the very first post I made.
People should be allowed to advocate for their interests. This means individuals, neighborhoods, towns, states, and countries.
My point is that once you have accepted that (as you appear to have, and I have!) then trying to say "It only applies to people building X, not demanding we tear down Y" is logically incoherent because limiting people to building X must have an enforcement mechanism of tearing down Y if they build it anyway.
We have different definitions of coherence. You even made the point here. The people being forced to tear something down that was built illegally is different than changing the laws, then forcing them to tear down something which was legal.
Can you find any examples of what you’re describing? A law changes and then homeowners had to tear down their (previously legal) homes?
There are many, many, many routine cases of people being fined for building illegal structures, while I’m sure there are some examples of buildings that escaped a grandfather clause, I suspect that they are extremely rare.
I have searched and found no examples of what you’re describing, but of course many many many many examples which follow the logic im laying out here.
firmamenti
4mo ago
I’m not going to keep explaining this over and over. I think you understand my (relatively simple) point, and at this stage are just trolling.
If you own a house: it’s your house. You can collectively organize with your neighbors to protect your interests and do things like prevent zoning changes. You, as a resident, have more rights over what happens with the neighborhood than non residents.
No this doesn’t mean people can bulldoze your house. It means that if they become residents, and want to petition the city to allow them to build a condo complex on land then own then they are free to do so. If the other residents don’t want them to, then the likelihood of this succeeding is low.
You’re getting into pretty basic “active vs passive” actions type of philosophy/ethics questions here.
It’s perfectly acceptable, at least in the dominant moral structure of the west, where we both presumably life, to say: you cannot shoot somebody. Shooting people is illegal (aside from edge cases like self defense).
However we don’t have laws like: it is illegal not to prevent somebody from being shot. If I see somebody about to get shot, and can’t prevent it, we see this as different than if I had shot them myself.
Similarly: we can pass laws that say “you can’t build that here”, but don’t pass laws (generally) that say: “you must [un]build this here”.
Laws can prevent you from doing something. They can’t ([1]generally) compel you to do something.
There are obviously some exceptions to this. Taxes, the draft, child support are a few.
There are some very rare cases of “condemning” a building and forcing its destruction. Is that what you mean? Do you imagine that a property developer should be able to come to a neighborhood and force the condemnation of some of the homes of people living there so they can be bulldozed? (I doubt this is what you’re saying)
firmamenti
4mo ago
How are you making a jump from “people can decide to bulldoze the houses they own” to “people can bulldoze the houses that I own”?
Yes eminent domain is awful. Down with eminent domain.
firmamenti
4mo ago
Yes exactly. If a bunch of people move into the neighborhood and then all collectively decide that they want to bulldoze the houses they own and build condos, that’s what they get to do.
And what a perfect analogy for immigration this is! And why limited, careful immigration policies are so important! An Irish Catholic with 3 kids and a mechanical engineering degree who wants to move to Texas and work at SpaceX to work on starship? Come on in, buddy!
A single 24 year old Muslim man from Somalia who thinks we should execute gay people, has no education whatsoever, and calls himself a refugee? No probably not, specifically because the first guy already shares the culture of the place he’s moving and won’t really change it, and the second guy doesn’t and will.
What happens in these states if Trump wins? They’re claiming that Trump is ineligible to be the president. Will we see some sort of president in absentia?
This seems like pretty naked secession behavior. Legitimately terrifying.
And just because we’re really beyond words meaning anything: how is this not “disrupting an official proceeding” -> an insurrection?
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