insidevoice
9mo ago
I just don't think those gaps are bad or need to be closed. I think the people have moral value even if they are low agency. They can lead happy lives with close friends and family. They can have low crime rates in their communities if we can muster the political will to police them. They don't have to live like me to have moral worth, they're all God's children.
insidevoice
9mo ago
I'm actually not being utilitarian. I think that the hiring manager is employed to make a good faith effort to attract the best talent that he can within certain ethical guidelines and spousal hires fall within those guidelines. Even if the hiring manager had some move that fell outside of those ethical guidelines to create higher utility or even if the hiring manager decided that he could create higher global utility by ignoring his task for the university, I would think that he should do what he promised to do when he took the job and hire the best candidate that he can get with the tools at his disposal to do so, and it would be dishonorable to do otherwise.
insidevoice
9mo ago
This isn't a manager hiring someone he's fucking. It's an employer hiring the spouse of someone they're pursuing as part of a compensation package. I don't think he difference is particularly subtle.
insidevoice
9mo ago
The Kosher meals are superior and valued in prisons. They can be traded for other goods.
That said, prisons shouldn't be doing custom diets. Prisoners can eat what they're given. If they're given the choice to do that or starve, their clergy can direct them on the proper course of action including providing them alternatives paid for by their ministry.
insidevoice
10mo ago
I agree, Reloaded (and even Revolutions) are excellent. I think the sequels in The Matrix suffer because the first one is a PERFECT hero’s journey with the perfect theme’s for its time and place in history. That cannot be topped. But all of the movies are quite good, and add meaningfully to the The Matrix universe, and present ideas that are challenging and interesting. Also, the first benefits from the egregious cribbing from The Invisibles.
insidevoice
9mo ago
I think that is a really interesting component of the game as well. Makes all of the movement abilities like psionic jump and mist walk feel rewarding and fun. I also quickly regretted not picking up feather fall thinking there would likely be no opportunity to use it.
insidevoice
9mo ago
I did the Seldarine drow, for reasons that currently escape me.
The Paladin and Warlock spells both benefit from charisma, and pact of the blade will make it my primary attack stat for physical attacks with the pact weapon. I also use the everburning blade from the nautilus, which is carrying me for melee attacks right now because my strength is only 10, and I need another level to take pact.
I've never played 5e before and honestly I find the multiclassing kind of clumsy (but I guess it always is). That said, the benefits of having a high charisma plate wearer who got to hit hard and do fun conversation stuff with intimidate and persuasion was too good to pass up.
insidevoice
9mo ago
Not making much progress as I've had a busy week, but I've been playing a Paladin/Warlock. I'm at 1 level on Ancients Paladin and 2 of Warlock, itching to get the third Warlock level for pact of the blade. I'll take Warlock to 5 and then Paladin to 5 and then decide how to finish from there.
The character is a lot of fun because I'm pretty strong in both melee and ranged. Reasonably tanky, especially with the incredible Warlock spell buffs. And, killer at conversation from high charisma. It feels strong enough to be fun without being so strong as to be broken.
insidevoice
9mo ago
Yeah, but it's all fake anyway. The correct way to deal with academia's fakery is to end the student loan program. The rest is just window dressing. This is like, the least offensive thing about academia. In fact it's somewhat endearing.
insidevoice
9mo ago
Maybe? Difficult-to-impossible to model this. It's basically an intuition or supposition. I'd rather top talent (insofar as it exists in academia, which I mostly find doubtful) get rewarded. Not all that worried if a mediocre psychology adjunct gets displaced by the wife of a brilliant researcher, even if that's her only qualification.
insidevoice
9mo ago
I've been working my way through the Labyrinth translation of Jorge Luis Borges. I haven't been this enthralled by a work of fiction in quite awhile. Every story is so rich with meaning and metaphorical possibility that I have to put the book down and dwell on what I've just read after each one. I don't know if it counts as sci-fi. I would almost call it a proto-sci-fi. Draws a lot from Edgar Allen Poe but with more of a fantastical realism bent.
insidevoice
9mo ago
what do you want to do? digital logic is just a more formal version of the logic that logic bros want everyone to use. it’s all and/or and if/then. you don’t lack talent for doing it, probably just practice. so if it’s the right path to lead to something you would enjoy then it’s worth it and you’ll get it with effort. the difficult part is to figure out what you would actually enjoy having not done those roles yet.
insidevoice
10mo ago
I considered this, but the scale of that conflict is on a completely different level and it’s also tightly connected to US foreign policy. But I agree, it’s the closest corollary.
insidevoice
9mo ago
I genuinely wish the biggest problem we had with the university system was too many undergrads getting knocked up by 140 IQ college professors. That would be an incredible blessing.
insidevoice
9mo ago
You're entirely within your rights to demand that and if your market value is sufficient to command it then they will acquiesce. What's stopping you?
insidevoice
10mo ago
I’m not certain. But even if the numbers are low, I have never seen even a small wave of protests in the US over a police killing in another country. Nearly every country in the world imports US culture war to some extent or another.
insidevoice
10mo ago
Here’s a list of international George Floyd protests, including Europe. Can you provide a recent European event of similar scope that inspired similar levels of protest in the United States?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_George_Floyd_protests_outside_the_United_States
insidevoice
10mo ago
I would liked to have seen this argument made. I believe the executive does have the power to collect or not on debt. This was Bernie’s argument when he was running for President. That said, the Biden camp did not make this argument. I think it’s likely the argument would have lost anyway, but I think it’s still the better argument.
insidevoice
4mo ago
Same, and basically everyone bought this story wholesale in the U.S. No shame in it, it's a very human condition.
insidevoice
9mo ago
Okay, I guess I'll spell it out for you. A manager promoting someone they are fucking (assuming it is not because they are the best candidate for the job) is presumably doing it as quid pro quo for the ass, to improve their own economic situation as they are sharing an income with the person they're fucking, and/or as a sign to future potential romantic partners that putting out pays out.
A manager negotiating a spousal hire as part of a compensation package is attempting to secure a business relationship that is in the best interest of the university and utilizing the various tools at their disposal to do so, including potentially that spousal hire. They aren't benefiting themselves except insofar as performing highly at their job (securing top talent) benefits them, which is precisely the purpose of their relationship with the university.
It not only isn't the same thing it is exactly the opposite.
When I look through your drawbacks there is only one that I find slightly compelling and it is that the hire could reduce the quality of researchers, but you've already admitted that to offer a spousal hire the university is at least landing one researcher who is above the caliber they would normally hire. What are the odds that their partner is sufficiently below average to drag the level of the university down?
The others such as someone feeling like it's unfair... well, whoever you hire that will be side effect so it hardly matters. Drama? Once more, drama will make itself. I doubt spousal hires move it much off of baseline.
At the end of the day, the university is trying to win in a market and spousal hires are what the marketplace demands. Most research is fake anyway, so why does it matter if research money is going to a superstar liar or a mediocre one?
The puzzles you offer to sharpen our intuition just further demonstrate that it's just a market problem. The answer to almost all of them is "is the demand for the candidate sufficient to justify this expense". That expense of course also includes setting a new norm and injuring the feelings of those to whom one would not offer these various forms of compensation. As norms can be slow to change, I doubt that these would happen quickly, but if they do I'm not concerned. If the researcher is getting his daughter hired at a university it just demonstrates he's being a protective father who puts his family first, and I'd like to see us back in a place where this is normalized and celebrated anyway.
insidevoice
10mo ago
Okay. So European culture is downstream from American culture. There was nothing to argue about because you agree and you’re just cranky and rude.
insidevoice
10mo ago
Here’s a relevant new top-level thread about American culture war in Europe: https://www.themotte.org/post/576/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/118884?context=8#context
Why are Hungarians fighting about Pride month (an American invention based upon events that happened in the US)?
insidevoice
8mo ago
Do you genuinely think that encouraging diplomatic solutions via tweet genuinely constitutes negotiating on behalf of the US government? What did he offer in these supposed negotiations?
iPhone resale is great. If you want to buy the asset that depreciates the least rather than the one that costs the least, iPhone will always win.
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