hustlegrinder
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User ID: 719
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
First, I’d appreciate if you pointed me towards a more detailed discussion of these regulations — what do they demand the CEO does; how is the compliance checked; what is the mechanism of enforcement?
Second, what do you think are the policies of the ideal world? Suppose you removed all the affirmative action laws — what do you propose to do next? Surely just doing that is not enough, the pre-affirmative action America wasn’t a place free of racism; in fact, quite the opposite.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
All the non-authoritarian states are supporting Ukraine, that’s true, but the problem with the good vs. evil mindset is the Ukrainian state itself which isn’t good by any reasonable standard
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Web advertisement itself is a great thing. It solves a big, important problem - connecting businesses and customers, at low cost and awesome efficiency. Besides, the narrative about all-powerful, mind-controlling demonic ads really needs to go away, Dall-E or no Dall-E. I suggest anyone who takes this seriously to switch off the ad blocker for a few minutes and go watch some actual ads, "touch the grass" so to speak. What you'll most likely find is a picture of the product with a price sticker superimposed on it, and maybe some kind of a product description. If you're lucky you may stumble upon an ad that's a bit more creative. Either way, it's not a hypnotic pattern devised by a malicious AI superintelligence with the purpose of injecting irresistible desire to buy into your head.
The real value here is about matching the product ad with the people who actually want it to buy it. The ad networks collect all kinds of data from the user, then use it to decide what ads to show him. That kind of thing allows you to find a paying customer for a few dollars. It's a nice, valuable service that solves an important problem. Try it sometime. Build something useful and sell it on the internet - you'll grow to appreciate the ads. Improving ad network capabilities, that are by the way vastly overestimated by many people including yourself, would be awesome. It would mean that instead of garbage ads peddling things of no interest to you, you'd see ads for things you really need right now (also no, a facebook ad cannot make you buy something you don't want to buy). It would also mean that it'd be easier and cheaper to start or scale a business.
If we don't want to devolve into a horrid anarcho-capitalist future
The sad thing about the advertisement industry, however, is that in all likelihood the ads aren't leading us into a capitalist paradise. The side effect of collecting user data for the purpose of serving better ads (the good), is that a whole lot of user data ends up centralised in an ad network's data centers (the bad), and then one way or another ends up in the hands of the state surveillance system (the ugly). The amount and nature of that data is such that it can be used to trace it back to you as a person. There isn't anything remotely "anarcho" about that.
Perhaps we can re-engineer the ad industry so that it doesn't have to collect that much data about the user. I don't think the ad companies would be against that, provided that the quality doesn't drop. That's not a problem that's going to be solved by regulation, though, for obvious reasons.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Yeah, what I would like to see are the concrete stories, requirements, laws, court decisions, etc that would make me see red — it’s the specifics that interest me. I’m well aware of the general argument
Back to the intent of the original post, I don’t intend to argue against the principle of freedom of association — I support it wholeheartedly, and am interested in ideas that reduce racism and at the same time do not go against the spirit of such principle.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
A few argue that the fetus is an entity with moral standing but having pregnancy or baby is such an imposition on the mother that abortion is ok. I still understand where these people are coming from. I absolutely don’t agree (although I do think we should work on making life easier for the mother), but I still understand. I am quite sure that this argument would never take with the general public, despite its attraction in academic settings.
But there’s one common take that has baffled me for a long time – the one that goes something like this: “Yes, abortion is killing an innocent baby and wrong, but I don’t think it would be right for me to tell (other) women what to do/choose/decide.” This had always baffled me, until I recognized it in the past few months as the domestic violence defense.
This is essentially the same argument isn’t it? Abortion may or may not be morally wrong, but forcing a particular choice would violate the mother’s bodily autonomy, so we think it’s for her to decide.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
The point is not so about you defecting against the state, but rather about preventing the state from defecting against you.
every leadership, regime that has severely impugned on this right has failed or collapsed, so there is that. There is a balance.
That’s correct, but it’s of little comfort to you personally, if you have no plausible option to walk away from it — which is exactly my point
Not really. nationalism does not imply you cannot pick your stuff up and move elsewhere and even be accepted in your new country (like how Russian Jews assimilated well in the US)
US is not an ethnostate, and ethnonationalism is a different thing compared to the US nationalism — in this post I’m arguing mostly against the former.
Then again, nationalism of any sort is antithetical to the paradigm of shopping for countries that offer the best terms for you and your businesses.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
GPT 3 is really good, and you don’t even have to fine tune it, just provide a good prompt and you’re good to go.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
That is what you would do were you in the state's position, is it not?
No, I don’t generally violate the NAP even if it’s profitable for me to do so — I am a principled man and I value these principles.
What if the ongoing benefits of of your participation in the economy, are less than the perceived costs? You say "value a country receives out of my residence in it extends far in the future" but how can that be if you leave?
First, it’s simply not the case, in a viscerally evident way — the state makes money on taxes and also my participation in the economy of a country means that something in it is getting done well — this is how I get my capital in the first place.
Second, I think you haven’t really understood my perspective of seeing this as fundamentally a business relationship. Suppose you are subscribed to Netflix. You pay them 10$ per month, and in return you can watch movies there. If Netflix feels they are providing you this service at a loss, they can raise the prices (let’s call them “taxes”). Then you are free to either accept these prices or to switch to a different provider.
Similarly if a state feels they spend more value on me than it gets back, well they can raise taxes and then I can decide whether or not to relocate my enterprise after that.
Ideally this all leads to a mutually beneficial arrangement where I provide value to the state, and the state provides value to me; indeed the state can provide valuable services — protection, arbitrage, infrastructure, and so on — I am not opposed to paying for them. It is only fair.
The difference is of course that the state, unlike Netflix, can use force to compel me to accept a deal that I wouldn’t have accepted on my own free will. Some things, like liberal institutions, make it harder, so I support them; some things, like proliferation of nationalism, make it easier, so I oppose them.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
No, the reason I personally am opposed to death penalty, and legalised euthanasia for that matter, is that I don’t want to give the state any additional ways or possible covers to murder people
An inconvenient person is framed for a crime -> quickly trialled, sentenced to death and executed -> public finds out the accusation is made up -> "oops, justice system error, sorry but it happens sometimes unfortunately"
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I wonder how much of it will be implemented?
Pretty much none.
All these lamentations by the "good Russians" about how every Russian is now tainted with an original sin of the war in Ukraine and is destined to be hated and shunned everywhere, are by and large self-imposed. Just go to Western Europe or America, as long as you have no ties to Putin’s government you’ll be absolutely fine.
These days I travel all over Europe, do business, raise investments et cetera; so far I haven’t encountered any significant obstacles, hostility or lost opportunities due to me holding a Russian passport.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Propaganda can manufacture any other cause and work with it, they’d just say the Ukrainians planned to retake Crimea and roll with that.
Or remember the time they invented an insane conspiracy theory about NATO plotting to attack Russia with biological weapons developed in secret bio labs in Ukraine? That would work too
Putin doesn’t need a proper casus belli to start a war. He doesn’t need democratic approval; international legitimacy is a lost cause for him, so not a factor too (contrary to Hitler w.r.t. Sudetenland, for instance)
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
That’s a different concern.
Fair enough, however you should also see that using adblockers in that capacity is not sustainable - essentially you are using something that was supposed to be paid for by ads for free. Eventually as the ad blockers gain adoption, content creators are going switch to some other revenue model, like directly charging you for content e.g. what the news websites started to do. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but YMMV
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Of course you are allowed to be a nationalist, in fact I think you should be allowed to subscribe to any worldview, however wrong or extreme it might be. Freedom of speech and all that
It’s just that I won’t support you in doing so, and will back up people who work in opposition to these ideas.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
You still should be concerned about stopping your unscrupulous employees making hires and promotions based on race and not on competency
And you still should be concerned about not hiring talented people held back by racism in their previous history, someone might have worse GPA or worse employment history but actually be a better hire
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
But having said that the obvious counter argument is having admitted that you feel no particular sense of loyalty and are only shopping around for who ever will give you the best price, and will ditch them in a heartbeat should a better deal come along, why should anyone give you that deal?
Why, for the same reason people give me all other kinds of deals; doing that brings them value.
I mentioned that I see my relationship with a country as a business transaction — I pay the taxes and follow the regulations — and in return the state allows me to operate on the territory it controls and provides a range of useful services. As an honorable businessman, I uphold my part of such a deal.
It’s also not true that I’d ditch them in a heartbeat. First, there is value in a good long-term relationship, and second, moving assets and processes is not without cost.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
The argument that it's all just a business transaction is a double edged sword.
You thinking it’s not just a transaction makes it easier, not harder, for the state to take your stuff when the time comes, right as you’d stare at the process in disbelief, denial, hoping for the better and taking seriously the state’s shallow excuses for doing so. I’ve seen this happen many times. Sentimental feelings towards a country prevent people from cutting their losses early on.
If all you have to offer is the value of your stuff why shouldn't a country just take your stuff?
What I have to offer are the yearly taxes and the ongoing benefits of my participation in the economy, the value a country receives out of my residence in it extends far in the future.
Also most of the "stuff" we’re talking about consists of control over businesses and processes, that wouldn’t fare well after being seized.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
That is also my perspective.
Except why condemn the cynical western backers in this particular case? For all we know they might have the same assessment; surely it’s unreasonable to expect them to broadcast it in their media right as they supply Ukraine with armaments and promises
The amount of otherwise reasonable people who seem to have drunk the coolaid in earnest gives me a pause too, though
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I don't even know how you'd compute "most" when comparing financial and non-financial stuff. How would you compare, for instance, teaching CRT in schools to taking $X in taxes, and how would you compare either one to taking $Y in taxes, but using the money for things most people object to?
Well imagine if someone paid you one billion dollars, on a condition that your children have to listen to let’s say a course of ten 1-hour CRT lectures in school. Would you agree to it?
If yes, then there is in fact a value of $X that compares to teaching CRT in schools, and it is somewhere between zero and one billion.
It may be hard to estimate precisely, so in real life you should just go with what your intuition tells you is a better option.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
For many places national identity is useful precisely as a form of resistance to overweening state power . This is obvious in colonial regions. Even regional "nations" use this; Quebec has won concessions due to the unity that they've managed to cobble together in the name of their "nation".
Interesting point. What concessions?
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
This is certainly true, as I nodded to in my original post advertising is actually excellent for a market, but similar to banking, needs some sort of strong regulatory framework to be best used. To be clear I'm not advocating for full eradication of advertising, I'm advocating the position that advertisements are currently highly effective, and they will become far more effective in the future. We need to have a discussion about where we draw the line, preferably before the line gets crossed. That may be at the level of advertisement we have today, it may be at a different spot. But too few people know or care about how effective ads are.
Consider that your opposition to ads, is in fact precisely due to the ads being not as effective as they might be. The average CTR rate for an ad is in the ballpark of 1%. Average conversion rate in e-commerce is about 3%. It means that for 10,000 ads you see there are like 3 products you are going to buy. 9997 of them end up useless. 9900 of them you wouldn't even click on. The average ad ends up just cluttering visual space for you.
And then imagine a world where say at least 1 out of 10 ads actually suggests something you might want to buy.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
… maybe?
If at some point the baby can be "aborted" via C-section, I don’t have any objections to mandating it be done that way.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
If you work on gene modification then of course it’s your job to do that, I for one can only commend this valuable line of work
I am merely saying that it’a morally bankrupt to apply anything other than the individual approach when dealing with individuals, even if it is not always practical to do so
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Putin has repeatedly used ethnic russians as pretexts to intervene, or threaten intervention, around the region. Much of the pre-February rhetoric from Moscow on multiple fronts could be leveraged against Russia's more northern neighbors, which was one of the reasons Europe reacted as strongly as it did when Putin followed through with his threats with actual invasion. Just from this angle, significantly increasing the Russian national population in the border states- who are almost certainly going to locate themselves to the ethnic russian enclaves- strengthens an ethnic-based framing of a future pre-conflict narrative.
I think this is a non-issue that gets propped up as a convenient justification for visa bans, and has no real significance whatsoever.
Wars are fought with soldiers, planes, tanks and missiles, not with flimsy excuses. Providing or withholding such excuses does nothing to help or harm the enemy. Suppose there were zero Russians or Russian-speaking people in Ukraine this February. Would it stop Putin from declaring the war? No. Would it make things harder for Russia on the international diplomacy angle? No. Would it stop Russian tanks from rolling into Ukraine? No. Would it make harder for Putin’s propaganda to boost support for the war among the Russian citizens? No; in fact it would make things easier because an important anti-war thesis is that the Russian army is essentially bombing Russian-speaking cities.
You see, I view all the HBD stuff as a motte and bailey thing. Obviously there might be some population level differences, but then still, one has a moral duty not to draw Bayesian inferences out of these statistics and instead evaluate every person on their own merits, disregarding traits like race, nationality or gender. As long as you do that any proportion you get is fine. That said, obsessing over genes or IQ differences or whatever is always sus. It’s a thoroughly uninteresting topic, unless when used to provide flimsy justifications for racist practices. I don’t care whether or not Blacks have better or worse IQ than Whites on average — I’m dealing with people, not with averages.
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