georgioz
10mo ago
Victimless crimes that harm no one should not be crimes.
This is just a slogan, not an argument. It is exactly what I mentioned with the first principles thinking. Plus it is interesting that you say this right after you talk about how jury can convict somebody who did something criminal under influence. Victimless crime, right?
georgioz
1mo ago
I read a lot about the male loneliness crisis, or think pieces on why men are dropping out of the dating pool and I can’t help but draw nebulous connections with these experiences.
I always found this weird, as mathematically for every lonely man there has to be one lonely woman and vice versa. There are some confounders, like that women can have one night stands or situationships. Or that men can pay for prostitutes as a substitute for one night stands. Or that there is more lonely women especially in higher age due to them living longer than men. In any case for each man that lays his head alone in his bedroom, there is a woman somewhere doing the same. It is intrinsically linked phenomenon and it does not make sense to talk about it separately.
Maybe one thing that is different is that in general men who are alone are more aware of it not being ideal situation and they talk more of despair. Even MGTOW community talks about loneliness as preferable to other types of suffering, not as something that is preferable to fulfilling relationship. While on the other side when people are talking about lonely women it is more linked with some sort of empowerment and other positive vibes.
georgioz
10mo ago
Legalization of marihuana brought into my view something that I myself have not seen before. And that is the fact, that many people just support it from first principles, you have these liberal or libertarian assumptions about the world and legalization of marihuana is just part of it. It is first principles thinking - people should be able to do what they want and therefore legalization of marihuana is good. That's it.
Since then I had some discussions with pro-legalization people and they are kind of stumped by a simple question: what good will legalization of marihuana bring to the country? What benefit will you have if your plumbers and doctors and teachers can go about their lives high as kites without any legal repercussion or stigma? What I found was that they do not even think about it this way. Weed should be legalized, because legalization of weed is "good". Smoking weed is just some apriori human right, no matter what. At best, they can point out to a good caused by people not being fined/jailed for making it illegal. Which is generalized argument for legalization of anything: if you legalize murder, then murderers would not have to suffer in jail. That is an argument I guess, but what good will legalization of murder bring to the rest of the society besides people engaging in this activity?
As for what I was wrong about, count me into weed legalization as well as many other liberal causes. I thought I was the enlightened one, smashing old superstitions and bringing new light to humanity as some avatar of Prometheus. I was wrong, I did not realize that I was implicitly holding religious adjacent beliefs, and that I used semantic stoppers such as "X is human right" without actually understanding where I am coming from. I thought I was above mere mortal faults, while I was the most gullible of all the people, because I did not even stop to think where my moral premises such as "human rights" and myriads of slogans such as "taxation is theft" come from and how are they grounded.
There is something to the concept of the "woke right". To simplify, they accept all the woke theories, but just switch the morality on its head - sometimes trying to even to flip the narrative of oppression. Yes, men did form patriarchy to oppress women and it was is a good thing - just look how shit the world looks like when they rule now. We should go back and repeal the 19th. Yes white supremacy is the boogeyman that woke activists describe. And we can become powerful again and rule the world, even woke people envy that power and want to take it for themselves. Why give them that?
This was always the problem with any victim-victimized ideology, especially if it wins the culture war: why assume that people will sympathize with victims? It is just slave morality, embrace the narrative and reclaim the power from the rabble.
It is a slogan as it just steers the discussion into what is crime, if it has to have some violent or social impact component, what is victim and all that. Plus I am unwilling to accept the premise of your slogan before we even begin the discussion.
I put it into GPT and apparently trespassing, prostitution, gambling, public intoxication, loitering, public nudity, vagrancy, unlicensed hunting or jaywalking are all examples of "victimless crimes". So yeah, I will bite the bullet and just admit that actually victimless crimes should be crimes. Because I do not want to have a society where intoxicated nude vagrants trespass and loiter on streets outside of pedestrian crossings, hunt local birds and sell their gambling scams and their bodies for everybody else to see. Go bark your slogan up somebody else's tree.
I don't see any upsides of legalizing weed, there may be only hidden downsides. Exactly how Scott Alexander now realized.
I am honestly a bit baffled by the reasoning in your post.
Sure, let me help. This was my original post as a response to quoted part. What are you baffled about exactly?
It's trivially true that the current war in Ukraine could've been avoided had the Kievan Russ welcomed Moscow as liberators and acquiesced to their rule instead of choosing to fight.
It absolutely is not trivially true, in fact it is trivial to prove the opposite. People in Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea welcomed their Moscow liberators in 2014 and ended up being conscripted as cannon fodder for Moscow's new war with Ukraine in 2022.
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So Russia has recent history of using conquered peoples to wage future expansionist wars. What is the bafflement again?
Why do you care about what he cares about? So what if somebody has a chat about poor body hygiene of somebody else - what is it to you? Do you often go around snooping on conversations you are not interested in, so you can deliver some petty sermons about the fact, that you do not like their conversations and that they should talk about something else?
georgioz
1mo ago
It does not matter, the genie is out of the bottle and people will not believe the government. In fact I think that in this case your argument is completely the other way around. People advocating for lockdowns as an open policy is similar to somebody making apologetics for Nazis. Maybe their government has been wrong when it comes to Jews. Mistakes were made and German government apologized for it. But who knows. Maybe sometimes in the future there will be a need for government to lock some portion of the population into concentration camps. We do not want to have such a strict no more Holocaust policy. What if utilitarian calculation of government experts shows that locking people against their will and marking them as pariahs with martial laws and all that is necessary and will save a lot more people?
A VAT applies equally to foreign and domestic goods. It is not similar to a tariff.
It is similar to tariff, as VAT on foreign goods is used to subsidize domestic production. Revenue from VAT is used to subsidize domestic infrastructure, healthcare and other benefits for domestic workers and companies, or they can even provide direct subsidies. None of these are available for factories or workers from foreign manufacturers who get nothing from VAT imposed on goods they produce. So in the end domestic producers reap more advantage compared to what they pay as a tax.
Whether applying a retaliatory tariff (harming both sides) in order to kick the first side into dropping their tariff is a quantitative question that can easily differ from one situation to the next.
Okay, so what are these quantities and what are costs or benefits to that? If retaliatory tariffs are beneficial then under what conditions? What if these conditions are met when you are the one enacting the tariff as first mover - should you do it?
georgioz
9mo ago
Per Wikipedia, Mariupol was conquered by Russia in May 2022, months after the Putins special operation had been begun.
What do you even know about the conflict? Are you not aware of siege of Mariupol, one of the most hard fought battles in the war?
Either your soldiers now fight Russia in your neighbors territory, or they fight them in a year in your own country, or they end up fighting someone else for Russia in two years. So the least-bad option would be to support your allies in a conventional war.
Exactly. Why even risk invoking article 5? Don’t you think?
If you are such an expert, you know about Suwałki Gap. Russia could invade Poland using Ukrainian stormtrooperzz in order to protect the 40 miles gap while simultaneously marching into Baltics thus connnecting enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast with motherland, achieving its strategic goals. Exactly the reasoning why they invaded Ukraine to protect Crimea.
And what would be the response from NATO? Article 5 is weak,
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
So yeah, in alternative universe Russia gets Ukraine, invades Poland and Baltics in 2025 in order to protect Russian minority from “nazis”, and makes it fait accompli - just like with Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast and Zaporizhzhia oblast and Kherson oblast, that Russia already officially annexed. Germans would send helmets to Poland and US agonizes if sending Himars can cause WW3. Was not NATO expansion in 2002 grave mistake provoking Russians anyways? Nobody has to do anything.
Basically all the stereotypes about X or Y European culture being rude/unfriendly/etc. are false.
Interestingly enough, I have exactly the counter view of US culture, especially related to restaurant service. I find US waiters as rude. First they impose themselves upon me as if I care about their name or their stupid questions about where I am from or why am I in the US - as if I cannot tell that they don't give a shit. Then they constantly interrupt me and my friends with inane sales pitches - and if god forbid we go under some invisible sum of $spending per minute, then they actually slam the bill on the table and just kick me out as if I am some hobo. So much for friendliness. To me US waiters are bunch of fake stupid clowns putting on clownshow for US patrons, who for some reason like that shit.
Nevertheless despite this rant, I put up with it when I am overseas and act accordingly with fake smiles and everything - each country has its own thing and US people like their waiters to be clowns for some reason, it is what it is. I am not there to reeducate them about proper continental way of "invisible" manners of waiting staff. But it would be good to have some basic respect for other cultures as well and not take your own manners as the etalon everybody in the world should aspire to. For instance Japanese people are polite, they do not like to be touched and in general like their space. People in Brasil on the other hand love to touch each other, so if somebody comes to me and taps me on my back he means no disrespect or sexual assault or whatnot.
georgioz
10mo ago
It's not such an easy to do thing as with breathalyzer, in fact legalization of marihuana makes drug testing for manufacturers very hard, as they can no longer have zero tolerance policy as it is hard to analyze if you had a dose an hour or a day ago.
But again, this is even besides the point. What are those incredible positives this legalization brings to the society?
georgioz
8mo ago
It may be statistically correct, but it doesn't justify restricting my liberty to make my own choices.
Of course it may justify it, there are situations where your choices are limited exactly on these grounds - like with myriads of other illegal drugs and many other illegal activities, that limit your liberty to make many choices. What are you talking about.
Maybe you reacted to dozens of "rude" cues of waiters who want to remove you from the table - after paying the tip of course - so they can sit down somebody else who will consume some more. If you ignore those hints, then the service can get really nasty. Try it sometimes.
georgioz
9mo ago
This absolutely misses the point of what attorney is supposed to do. The criminal system is based on the fact, that everybody has right to their own attorney. In a sense attorney is there not to only represent the defendant, but also to defend the whole system of justice. Let's say we have "obvious" murderer, but the prosecution used the most heinous tactics such as beating confession out of him, planting evidence or manipulating and threatening witnesses. In such a case it is the prosecution fault that they mishandled the case and the defendant was let go. Similar with any other issues, such as claiming insanity etc. In such a case it is a problem of stupid experts or laws that let these people out, it is not a problem of attorney that he used such loopholes.
Do rationalists believe that there are moral commitments that are more rational than others? My assumption would be that rationalists would consider moral commitments to be axioms and therefore a requirement to even discuss morality, and that to be morally rational would be to derive positions from your moral axioms in a consistent way.
Rationalists subscribe to utilitarianism, which in and of itself is incoherent moral philosophy. It has two main problems:
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Inability to define utils. Utils are mired with inconsistencies, it is hard to put against each other suffering vs pleasure. Many rationalists evade this as principle of minimizing suffering, but even then there is a problem of comparison: is sand grain in an eye of 1,000 people worse than broken arm of one person?
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Time inconsistency of utils. Actions that decrease utils today may increase them tomorrow. Existential comics has a good example for trolley problem in that vein.
To be rational is to rationally extend ones moral principles rationally. Why would it be irrational to behave in line with ones moral principles?
The word "rationally" does a lot of heavy lifting here, as it assumes utilitarianism. Let's say I subscribe to virtue ethics, which says that I cannot commit murder. But then a rationalist comes and says "hey, if you kill Hitler in his crib, you will prevent countless murders in the future". Wrong, this is not going rationally about my moral assumptions, it is assuming completely different moral system.
georgioz
9mo ago
Sure, but this makes my point - it was an analogy. We do not legalize murder just looking at what murderers have to go through in prison. We look on societal impact and other things. So the question is again: what good will legalizing and normalizing weed bring to the country? To me there are no upsides and only downsides, like Scott and others now also admit.
You get it, if you reduce and equate “human life” with medical system in your assumption, then the rest of the stuff follows. You treat the system as human life, so everyones perogative is to serve the human life medical system. I refuse this equivalency to begin with.
But I am not surprised that for instance utilitarians think this way, it is the same idea to sublimate/identify values into something else like utils, and then just follow the calculation to its inevitable and logically sound monstrosity.
georgioz
10mo ago
most Christians I've known are content to live and let live
I have no problem with live and let live, but they should keep their heresies outside of Catholic church. Catholics acknowledge three pillars of their faith: Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and Sacred Magisterium as opposed to protestant sola scriptura. Catholics accept the authority of the church, this free-for-all shit that is happening in constantly fracturing protestant churches so they can just vibe with Jesus on personal level does not fly.
There are 45 thousand wet markets in China according to my google search. How likely it is, that novel coronavirus comes from the market literally only a few miles away from a lab studying novel coronaviruses? At least 1:10,000 let's say. Let's even say that Wuhan is a huge hub, not unlike another 113 large cities with population over 1 million in China. Again, how likely it is that a new virus appears in Wuhan and not in any other large city? And I am not even talking about other facts such as that China is notoriously opaque communist dictatorship falsifying uncomfortable data.
Nevertheless even if you are convinced that the virus is of zoonotic origin, the lab-leak could never have been anywhere close to conspiracy theory realm. In fact it would require some conspiracy to explain this away - such as bat > pangolin > human transmission in Wuhan chain of events to explain zoonotic origin. That one is more complex. Additionally even if we accept wet market theory, that one is is still compatible with lab leak - such as let's say infected bat carcass being sold on wet market for profit by some careless employee in charge of incineration inside famously corrupt Chinese environment.
The fact that even reasonable rationalists mocked and suppressed this theory is wild to me.
I'm no economist, but my understanding is that tariffs harm both parties.
Sure, but then the question is how and why. Details matter in this case as reasons may bring more light into the whole issue of tariffs.
Moreover this to me seems quite a different statement: any country that refuses to trade with us under any circumstances except of condition of absolute free trade, is harming us and we will retaliate. This is quite a statement, especially when it then comes to oxymoron of mandatory "free" trade. You would probably not deal like that with an individual.
Also there is more to this type of thinking. In this framework Trump is then also right regarding VAT/Sales tax. If country A has sales tax of 20% and uses this tax for instance to provide free health care, then it is using taxes on foreign goods to artificially bring benefits to its domestic workers. Country B with sales tax of 0% is thus "harmed", right?
This is why details matter.
I do not understand this whole discussion about daylight, mostly because how huge the timezones are. As an example the sunlight difference for Central European Time (UTC+1) timezone is around two hours - so as I write this the sunrise in Northern Macedonia is around 6:50 AM while in Northwestern Spain it is 9:00 AM. Even difference between Berlin and Paris is 25 minutes. You will never have ideal amount of sunlight in the morning for the whole timezone, unless you are specifically hunting for a location that suits you specifically. In my experience many countries softly adapted to this, for instance in Spain many people do live till later times, in summer they can have sports matches late in the evening. In the east it is on the other hand normal to have 8-4 or even earlier shifts.
But I agree with you that changing time is actually good for more stability, especially to have more light for whatever time is usual to go to the office in that country. So I am absolutely for keeping time changes twice a year.
georgioz
9mo ago
I am not disputing the fact, tattoos may have different meanings in different time and places. In the past, sailors got tattoos indicating if they crossed Atlantic, or other deeds. Prisoners got their own tattoos and so forth. All useful signals for judging people. In modern time, some girl has a tramp stamp or flower tattooed on her ankle, somebody else can have some other patterns tattooed. However it still is a signal of some behavior. I do not have interest to now have PHD style post analyzing all the tattoos, I will generalize.
In fact I can go even deeper. What if I find tattoos stupid, disgusting and weird. That is my judgement and I do not care why you got them or any other excuse. That is my judgement and I do not give shit about what you think in the same way people with tattoos often claim that they themselves do not give a shit what other people think about their tattoos. In fact it may be a lie and maybe the think that my disgust with their tattoos is also some sort of signal and they will judge me for my "bigotry" or lack of empathy or whatever.
In the end the argument stands: people do judge other people and I do not see any problem with that.
It is interesting how self-unaware this comment is. You are doing what you incorrectly accuse the OP of - only worse.
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