haroldbkny
1yr ago
That's fair. I think you are right that the MSM was probably off here in their estimates either because they underestimated Trump, they wanted desperately to believe that he had no chance, or they wanted to try to influence others in some way to fan the flames of a culture war. Maybe I didn't communicate it well in my post above, or maybe I should have left that one point out of my post. I meant it as a more general point, I guess. It's just a pet peeve of mine that people talk about election probabilities in this way that does not really make sense from a mathematical perspective.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Square brackets first with text, then regular parentheses with your link following immediately, no space between the end square bracket and the opening paren. It's just Markdown formatting, if you look that up.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
(aside - I have to refrain from using the term "low-hanging fruit" at this institution).
What's wrong with low-hanging fruit? I did a quick google, and found something that seems to indicate some people may associate it with lynching, but I couldn't find anything indicating exactly what the relationship is.
Oh, wow. Now that you say that, I realize that the sites I Googled did sort of imply the reason the phrase was problematic was just because it contains the word "hanging". That logic is so stupid that I couldn't put two and two together, couldn't understand how stupid the link actually was. My God.
If we start banning words that in entirely different contexts could have something to do with something that is racist, that's a new level of banning, and I don't even know what would be left that we could say. Slave owners were known to eat food. Therefore we should refrain from mentioning food because we can't imagine what some people might feel upon hearing it mentioned.
It's an interesting question. I haven't read all the comments here, but if I were to try to provide a steelman, it might be:
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As others have argued here, the medium the ads are on are fundamentally being displayed on technology that the user is in control of. Therefore people have the capability to use ad blockers, and some portion, but not all, will
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Companies that buy ad-space know point #1, and they factor it into the price they're willing to pay. Lots of market research goes into whether ads are worth it, how much to spend, where to spend it, and the expected ROI for ads.
So basically, it's sort of a free market solution to the problem, in that the market should balance itself out. No serious company would buy ad-space if it was going to get them nothing in return. So basically, the system still works, even despite the fact that some people use ad blockers. If it didn't work, like if everyone everywhere decided to install an ad blocker, then the system wouldn't still be ongoing, and a new system with a new model would take its place. This is very similar to how I may argue that it's okay to change the channel on TV when a commercial is on.
As a further argument that the system works as is, websites and web tech really could be doing a lot more if they felt that ad blockers were stepping on their business model and revenue. Chrome could ban the biggest ad blocker plugins. Some sites already don't let you view their content if they detect such plugins.
And then there are totally weird and sneaky ways that sites could get around your ad blockers. Ever watch just about any free internet porn past 2015-ish? All the porn sites all do weird things to make sure you get those ads. Like for example, when you first click the video, it redirects your tab to an ad, and makes a new tab for your content. I assume it does this to fool the adblocker plugin, since such plugins are mostly looking for popups, not site redirects.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Along with the recent addition of Ivermectin to the list of possible effective treatments
Are you referring to the NIH page here?
You're not the first person I've heard refer to this as backpedaling, but I don't think it actually is backpedaling. They say in this post:
Recommendation
The Panel recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in clinical trials
If there's a separate CDC admission you're referring to, I'd be curious to see.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
My facebook has been ablaze with the War of the Rings of Power, and by that I mean Amazon putting out tons of propaganda to indicate that everyone is racist for not liking the the Rings of Power, followed by half of the people saying no that doesn't make us racist, and the other half saying they just don't like it because it's a bad show. A similar thing is going on for the Little Mermaid, too. Alas, that these evil days should be mine.
The thing that strikes me is that no one is saying the obvious. To me, and I'll guess to many others, I really don't mind diversification of media. Or, that is to say, I wouldn't mind it, if it weren't for the fact that it's now the norm, it's practically mandatory for any show that doesn't want to be cancelled by internet SJWs, it's crammed down my throat everywhere, and it's turned into a major moral issue where half the audience browbeats the other. I feel like I'm being subjected to someone else's religion.
But that woke audience always comes back to "Why are you against black people playing roles? What are you, racist?" Well, no, I honestly don't think I'm racist. But in the position I'm put in, I get that I am taking actions that a racist would. The only difference is that a true racist would be against black people being cast no matter what, and I am only against it being mandatory and moralized. But since we live in this world, where it is mandatory and moralized, does that mean that there's nothing that would really satisfy me short of black people not being cast?
I don't quite think so. Another point that the woke audience comes to is "They clearly just thought that Halle Berry was the best person to play Ariel". And really, I think the answer to that is, no, they clearly prioritize diversity casting. She is black and they want to cast lots of black people because it scores them points with the woke crowd (and possibly also because it drums up controversy, which may be good for business). And then on top of that, they thought she'd be fine for the part. I don't know how I can prove that, but it just seems evident to me that diversity casting for its own sake is something that is being given high priority. In some limited cases, it's possible to prove it, such as with Ryan Condal, the showrunner for House of the Dragon who indicated that they cast black people to play Valerians explicitly for the purpose of diversity-washing. However, I'm guessing that Condal regrets saying that outright, because it's not a good look. It gives the other side ammo and also casts doubt as to whether the people hired really would have earned the spot on merit alone.
At this point. I don't really know what it would take to convince me that most castings of black people are not just to fill a quota. But this puts me in a tough spot, because I don't really want to be racist in action, even if I know I'm not in thought.
Just as a point of clarification, it's Halle Bailey who's playing Ariel in The Little Mermaid, not Halle Berry. The latter is 56; casting her to play a character who's canonically 16, and whose teenage naivety and rebelliousness are her main personality traits, would provoke a whole different culture war fracas. (Bailey is 22, and 22 playing 16 isn't unusual by Hollywood standards.)
Haha, whoops! It did cross my mind that Halle Berry is a little old to play Ariel, though I didn't realize Berry was quite over 50, and I figured that, y'know, black people age very very gracefully. And like maybe mermaids in this universe stay young and naive longer or something.
Edit: Also, CGI magic is real, that's another thought that crossed my mind, despite the fact that upon reflection, it'd be ridiculous for Disney not to cast someone who's actually young.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Audiences appear 2 to want shows with characters that look like them. If this is true, which data suggests, then the inclusion of diverse characters necessarily makes shows less enjoyable for the majority.
Interesting. If that were strictly true, I'd think the opposite conclusion, unless the data suggests that people want shows with ONLY characters that look like them. Basically, by putting in black people along with white people, then everyone gets characters that look like them.
However, my instinct says that that effect is overstated, anyway, and likely overshadowed by another effect: people don't like being preached to, and people can sniff that out a mile away.
Yes. And it really bothers me that it's become so much the normal, such that woke folk consistently say "Wow, I can't believe you care so much about race that it bothers you if a character is cast as black. You're crazy!"
It's evident that the woke were the ones who were crazy and cared about whether a character was black in the first place. We said they were crazy, and now that conditions have shifted in this mostly unspoken way, they are throwing that logic back at us. But it's not that we care if a character is black, it's that we care that others care so much, such that it has become institutionalized.
Black Panther is, aside from being a better-than-average
I just thought it was painfully just under average. Painfully, because everyone acted like it was the absolutely most original and marvelous thing in the world... and it wasn't. The applause for the movie reminded me of the infamous Stalin clapping fiasco (I think from The Gulag Archipelago)
haroldbkny
1yr ago
So what's wrong with this anyways? If Amazon wants to cast more black / POC actors and actresses that's neutral if not good. I don't get the problem.
I think I explained this in my post. The why and when of what I dislike about this sort of casting decision is what my post is primarily about.
What if it was gradually becoming only acceptable to wear blue shirts? And if you make a comment about your brother wearing a blue shirt, saying that maybe it'd be nice if he wore a different color, then you'd be called out as a bigot? What if you really like wearing other color shirts, in addition to blue?
But people all really think that all existing shirts should be dyed blue, because if they don't, then it's perpetuating a "harmful culture where blue shirts are underrepresented". But then, later when only blue shirts are produced, due to the years of preexisting social pressure, people who were blue-shirt advocates start saying, "Well what's your problem with it? They're clearly making blue shirts just because people like blue shirts, so they sell better." The metaphor might be a little tortured, but I hope you get my idea.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Two very very different kinds of shit. One was "What the fuck was that guy trying to do? Does he even know his own material's appeal at all? Is he completely talentless and just got lucky before?"
The other was, "What the fuck was that corporation doing? Did they have no plan whatsoever?"
The latter is more typical of "the ghouls in charge of most of America's cultural legacy". The former was much more rare, I can't think of many other situations where someone ruined their own legacy like that.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Most people ate up her retcons, though, even if those people also thought they were a bit on the silly side. But a lot of her retcons played into the social justice narrative, so people were championing them.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Once again, I think you've missed the point entirely.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
And that access to porn is a bad idea, I've personally seen what crippling porn addiction can do to a man.
What exactly can it do? Make men that don't want to have sex with real women anymore? That doesn't sound like nearly the end of the world, other men will gladly step in to fill the gap. And for those men, does it create severe unhappiness, or just men who don't care to participate in the rat race of trying to get laid. Also, doesn't sound like the end of the world.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
The movie ended up being completely awful due to other reasons. They just let the women prattle on and improvise for hours like it was a Judd Apatow movie, and a significant amount of that made it into the final cut. That just does not work in this sort of movie.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I really like this review, if you've got an hour to spare: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AHUV8QLpEAc
It really probes into what went so wrong with the movie.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
That's really interesting. I don't know very much about the economy at all, but I feel like my instinct is somewhat opposite. The fact that we exported all of the manufacturing to China drastically drove down prices, probably because Chinese people were willing to work for a lot less money. This has enabled an age of technological marvels that non-blue collar workers have been able to take advantage of and bring in tons of money.
I can see where you're coming from, however, that large swaths of the country are in despair. I wonder if there's a better solution, though, instead of trying to turn back time. As noted above, I feel like the exporting of manufacturing was probably a good thing and advanced technology. I would think that a good strategy could involve both of the following:
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Major educational reach out to the middle of the country to get them interested at a young age in advancing and profitable scientific fields. This could take the form of either public sector (more public school funding for STEM classes or something) or even private sector funding (big tech companies getting involved in outreach both for publicity and to plant seeds which will become the next generation of great minds that come to work for them)
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Greater focus on creating automation and tooling that blue collar workers could use. I'm not fully sure what this would be, but maybe there would be a way to take processes that are not fully automate-able but also can't be easily exported to China, due to language differences, geographic boundaries, location-specific need, or even cultural differences, and create tooling to allow American blue collar workers to do it.
I know the 2nd point is vague, but I feel like as technology progresses, we're not optimally progressing technology and optimally allocating the economy if we just insist that we need to make jobs for people. I feel that jobs should be created based on a need for product, services, and technology advancement, not just a need for someone to have a salary.
Does anyone here have experience with heat pumps? I'm on oil heat and needless to say, shit's gotten ridiculously pricy lately. I feel like I should be able to switch over to something cheaper and break even within like a year or less, because of how much I expect to spend on oil this winter.
Most local people in my very progressive corner of the world keep talking up heat pumps like they're the best thing since the invention of the chimney. I find this suspect myself. I've never heard of this technology before really recently, and I'm only hearing about it from people who are really into green energy. And it sounds too good to be true. It heats and cools for less money than any alternatives, supposedly. But I really know close to nothing about them.
My culture war shenanigans sense is tingling, so I wanted to find out if anyone here, a place I trust has not drank the green progressive Kool aid, has experiences with or knowledge about heat pumps. I guess I just don't trust the people I'm hearing from, I think they're willing to stretch the truth for what they think is the greater good. Are they worth it financially? Do they work well without tons of annoying maintenance? What about if your state offers financial incentives for moving to heat pumps, are they worth it then?
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I somewhat agree. I do feel like if Trump or some outgroup leader were in charge, no one would let us forget that we're in a recession, because everyone loved to blame absolutely everything they could on Trump. But I also don't think the media is covering for Biden, I think that they're just not as focused on it as they would be were Trump in charge.
I remember seeing significant coverage of the recession earlier this year, like January through March. Then things got better for like a month or two, and then things got way worse again. I feel like since it's the 2nd time around in a short period, it just seems like old news. Everyone got their panic and worry out the first time, and now they're just either in silent despair or have come around to accepting or ignoring the bad news. I always feel like screaming at people, "Don't you care about your financial security??? Why is no one talking about this???"
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Wow. What part of the world are you in?
One problem here is that if you want to get the full state subsidies, you cannot have a backup gas or oil system. You need to be entirely on a heat pump system. So having a backup for the inevitable sub 0 days in January and February isn't an option, or at least not as enticing as an option.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Look at how most major indicies that closely track the market are doing, like DOW, for example.
Just before Trump was elected, Scott wrote a great piece called Tuesday shouldn't change the narrative. In it he talks about how the race between Trump and Hillary was very close, close enough that random fluctuations in opinion or random events like the weather could be the deciding factor in the race. He argues that people shouldn't change their worldview based on whatever the outcome is. I believe I see so many people falling into this trap though. It didn't take long after Trump won for people on all sides to start talking as if it was always inevitable, like "Trump won because he inspired people more and riled up his base, Clinton was an uninspiring candidate playing too safe" or "Trump's victory was inevitable because of the deep history of racism in the country", etc. I feel like (though I'm not sure I can think of examples off the top of my head) even Scott might fall into this trap a little bit.
People even took the victory as an indictment of MSM, since most sources said that Trump had something like a 1% chance of winning. I believe this is illogical, though, because even if he did have a 1% chance of winning, it could have been that 1% chance that caused him to win. It's not like whoever has the highest percent chance at the time of the election is declared the winner.
I'm just curious to hear people's thoughts on this, both about this pattern of thought of erroneously retroactively changing worldviews or thinking events were inevitable, as well as about the 2016 election. I think that Scott's article has a good lesson, and it'd do most people good to try to remember it more, before taking the events which have transpired as an indication that only those events could have ever transpired.
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