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heavywaternettipot

Token Midwit

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joined 2022 November 08 14:07:24 UTC 

				
User ID: 1819


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
heavywaternettipot


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Token Midwit

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 November 08 14:07:24 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 1819


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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	 Hot Bump Bottom New Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Being frank, a good chunk of the US wouldn't trust this not to be weaponized against them. Given the institutional capture of psychology by the left, I can't really say I blame them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't like the Title 9 speech police and I don't like this any better. We should be free to criticize whomever we want without running afoul of thought-crime laws. This is a bad law and I hope the courts smack it down like the fist of an angry god.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is possibly better saved for a small questions Sunday, but can someone explain why is the federal government up-in-arms over Southwest's latest boondoggle to me?


I understand why Southwest is getting hammered by popular opinion and in the press. I wasn't personally affected but I know a few people who were (8 hour delays, last-minute cancellations, etc) and I understand their frustration. I absolutely understand customers demanding refunds on cancelled flights or compensation for excessive delays. This, to me, is the market reacting and correcting itself. Southwest failed to deliver what it promise and it is reaping the economic and PR whirlwind.


What I don't understand are promises from both the Secretary of Transportation and POTUS to "hold the airlines accountable", which just seems weird to me. Is there a regulatory or national security reason for the Feds, much less POTUS, to be weighing in on this? Is it a straight-forward consumer protection issue or is it just the straight populist look-we-are-doing-something-to-people-you-currently-hate kind of politics that I am currently reading it as? What am I not seeing/understanding here?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My friends in the military will talk, disparagingly, of we-be's: we be here when you got here, we be here when you gone. They're the civil servants that just loiter in a position or a department for years and know how to slow-roll or be maliciously compliant with any policy change they don't like (or that threatens their own job security). Since firing a civil servant in the federal government requires the same amount of work as a full time job (at least the way the people I know describe it) a we-be is nearly immune to anything beyond a slap on the wrist. The we-be's then shape policy and culture to suit their own ends rather than the ends of the organization / society they're allegedly in service to.


Edit: typos


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A lot of people are just mad that Musk controls their favorite toy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
(Mods, let me know if I need to delete this and repost in Small Questions Sunday.)


The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) hears Moore v United States today. According to SCOTUSBlog, at issue is "Whether the 16th Amendment authorizes Congress to tax unrealized sums without apportionment among the states". Since that's not very helpful, I'll quote The Atlantic's summary instead:




The story of Moore starts in 2017, when President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The law aimed to minimize the incentive for U.S. corporations to hoard money overseas by reducing certain taxes on foreign earnings. But, in exchange, U.S. investors would have to pay a onetime tax on accumulated foreign profits going back several decades—the so-called transition tax. Charles and Kathleen Moore are among the Americans affected by the change. In 2006, they invested $40,000 in KisanKraft, an Indian company owned by a friend. They allege that they never received any payments from the company because all of its profits were reinvested. The transition tax nevertheless stuck the Moores with a $15,000 tax bill based on the company’s retained earnings. The Moores countered that the transition tax is unconstitutional because it exceeds Congress’s power under the Sixteenth Amendment. That amendment, ratified in 1913, explicitly empowers Congress to tax incomes. But the Moores argue that unrealized gains aren’t income at all.




Mother Jones, NPR, CBS, and Foreign Policy (of all the friggin' places) are running articles breathlessly proclaiming DOOM! for the US tax code, or at least the ability of Democrats to pass wealth tax laws.  This Forbes article seems to be a pretty good explanation of what's at issue but I'll admit that I'm not well-versed enough in tax law to understand the full ramifications of what a Moore victory would mean for the ability of the federal government to raise revenue. On the other hand, I can't say I'm sad about the idea of a wealth taxes getting a bullet to the head. What am I missing or not considering as I read about this from the various outlets?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my darker (and less sober) moments, I wonder if there's an active campaign against beauty itself. On my local city sub-Reddits I often see people complaining about "wasteful" government spending on a modicum of ornamentation on anything. Faux stone veneers on highway support columns? Wasteful. Planting trees along the highway? Wasteful. Apparently brutalism ugly-ass concrete boxes is the only acceptable architectural form these days.


Edited for Gdanning's pedantry


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Lab-grown meat one step closer to sale in the US


I'm neither a vegetarian nor an EA animal suffering activist, but I consider this largely a good thing. If we can produce lab-grown meat that costs the same or less than traditionally-raised or industrial-produced meat and is equally tasty and nutritious, I see very little reason not to do so. I've tried the various meat substitutes and, frankly, they just don't taste like meat or have the same texture. This isn't to say they aren't tasty in their own way, they just clearly aren't meat. The best ones I've had barely rise to the level of "gas station sausage patty" in terms of flavor and texture. Likewise cutting down on cattle ranching in the US would alleviate a lot of environmental pressure and gives us the opportunity to rebuild healthy habitat for native wildlife populations.


What does give me pause is the further connotative removal of people from food production. A farmer I know has an anecdote about a well-to-do customer who pulled up to his farm stand to buy some produce and was appalled to find potatoes sitting in a pile on a pallet. The farmer swears the customer, without any trace of irony, asked for "potatoes that hadn't been in the dirt". I'm hunt deer and small game and the bulk of my urbanite coworkers normally react to this somewhere on the spectrum between bafflement and outright disgust, all the while munching on ham-and-cheese sandwiches or a fish taco. (I work in a pretty blue area, so that's probably coloring things.) I can see scenarios in which PETA and other animal suffering activist organizations use lab grown meat as an attack surface to further restrict hunting and fishing activities.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It is that if you are going to criticize contemporary architecture, then it helps to come across as knowing what you are talking about.




This is exactly the attitude that fmaa was talking about. Sorry I didn't learn the specifics of what various kinds of concrete boxes are called but that doesn't mean I automatically have to defer to the aesthetic tastes of someone with a better grasp of the vocabulary and jargon. Whatever you want to call it, it's ugly and I hate it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As a related anecdote, I visited LA on business a few years ago. One of my counterparties suggested I go for a morning jog at the Santa Monica beach. My enthusiasm for an early morning beach run was quickly snuffed out by the litter, the homeless guys bunked on the dunes, and the cops sweeping the beach for needles.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can't it be both? She faced an unusual threat but she was allowed to carry a weapon due to her prominence? If she was a business owner who faced a similar threat would she have been granted the permit? Were other people facing similar threats granted permits? It'd be interesting to review the permit applications to make an assessment but I don't think they're PAI. Feinstein says she voluntarily gave up her permit after she decided NWLF wasn't a threat to her (along with her cute little story about melting it into the cross for the Pope) but it rings a little hollow considering she had a tax-payer funded armed detail for her protection at that point.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I realize this is a deeply personal matter but have you considered a much longer effort-post on this? I've never heard of conversion therapy working before outside of some thathappened-style stories.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Being honest, I never understood why I was supposed to care about Thundberg at all. I didn't really care about her tantrum at the UN, I care even less about her opinions on the Palestinian issue. Is she really still influential enough that people care that she has a only-if-you-squint antisemitic trope in her posts?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for April 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Who are these people and why should any of us care?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They're also referring to things like women being barred from most elite colleges or being unable to open bank accounts or lines of credit without male co-signers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And Hamas hasn't allowed another election since 2008. I think we can be charitable enough to say that a rift between Hamas and the Palestinians might have developed a bit in the last 15 years.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
(I'm not sure if I'm one of the people you had in mind when you wrote this, so this might be irrelevant.) In our last exchange, you seemed content with being surrounded by physical ugliness because you can find beauty in a lot of higher maths and sciences. My objection was, and remains, that leave us midwits who don't have the g to see things the way you do out in cold. That doesn't mean I think all western society needs to be burned to the root, it just means I wish we didn't always go for the cheapest, blandest options.


Further I reject the framing of your hypothetical here too. I don't think it clarifies much. Why can't we achieve new breakthroughs in math and science while still making buildings that are at least inoffensive?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're not saying outright that I have to defer, but your statement "It is that if you are going to criticize contemporary architecture, then it helps to come across as knowing what you are talking about" certainly carries the implication that I ought to be deferring to those with the right vocabulary.


At any rate, I've edited my comment from "brutalist" to "ugly-ass concrete boxes" because that's what's getting built in my area. As I stated in my original reply to you, my city/county/state certainly isn't hiring Pritzker-nominated architects to design its public buildings.


Edit: Stupid auto-correct.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Interestingly, my state put up billboards and wall-ads encouraging gay men to get the monkeypox vaccine and get a PrEP prescription so they could "get your pride on."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
New research paper attempts to quantify which professions have to most to lose from the introduction of GPTs into the larger world. From the abstract:




Our findings indicate that approximately 80% of the U.S. workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of GPTs while around 19% of workers may see at least 50% of their tasks impacted.




The results vary by models but mathematics and math-related industries like accounting have the highest risk. The researchers overall found that "information processing industries (4-digits NAICS) exhibit high exposure, while manufacturing, agriculture, and mining demonstrate low exposure" (pg 15) and "programming and writing skills...are more susceptible to being influenced by language models."


I find myself wondering if "learn to code" from however long back will shortly become "learn to farm" or some such.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
From my limited interactions with French people, the French seem to have an unshakeable faith in the superiority of French-ness that exceeds us Americans for national pride. French food (wine especially), French art, the French language, French architecture, French fashion, French philosophy, French culture overall is the pinnacle of human achievement. I wonder if this conviction drives French lack of patience for Islamic antics in a way that more oikophobic countries can't replicate.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't feel good about it, but I can't say I disagree. Like @Rov_Scam said, the medical staff is there to provide medical care first and foremost and you probably don't have the capability to make Hamas go away. This situation isn't too much different that what Doctors Without Borders or other medical NGOs face in a dozen different geographic locations wherever there's an ongoing civil war or armed insurrection. There's almost no way you're only treating innocent civilians without providing medical care to guerillas too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Very interesting that reddit native americans are so hostile toward 'pretendian hunters' as a perceived attack on the sovereign right of each tribe to decide who counts as a member.




I don't know about Canada, but in the States there's often a financial question involved (casino royalties or whatever). I used to live near a rez and would occasionally overhear stories of tribal political squabbles when someone had a few too many beers. This lady over here gets her second cousin on the tribal rolls for a scholarship, this guy over here gets 30 people who've lived on the rez their whole life purged from the rolls because everyone gets an extra 30 cents a month or something trivial. Shit gets stupid.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think @bro is asking which tactical objectives were pre-planned and which were simply targets of opportunity. For example, did Hamas decide to attack the nightclub months ago or did they only learn about it after the breach and thought "YOLO LET'S GO"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't say I'm all that bothered by a decline in the number of humanities major. As you said, humans will continue to do art, philosophize, and reflect. We were doing it long before there was such a thing as a university or even a college.


That said, I have taken some online courses and I think there's something lost doing a class via Zoom or whatever vs doing one in person. I found the discussions in my in-person classes much more productive than in my zoom courses. (This may also be a function of investment, I'm willing to be persuaded here.) I took an ethics course and the online video sessions were dull and boring, hardly any debates. The professor had to start calling on people to get responses. I even tried taking on the role of shit-stirrer, giving answer I knew flew against the conventional ethical wisdom of the group, just to see if I could things moving but to no avail. By contrast, the in-person courses I took at this same facility with some of the same cohort were much more lively and animated.