jkf
20d ago
This is a bit regional -- pickups are more common for rural tradesman than urban -- partly maybe for high/low trust society reasons as you touch on, but also decreased feasibility of having materials delivered to the jobsite leading to an actual need to, uh, pick things up yourself.
jkf
21d ago
In order to be logical, the arguments must hold up when replacing words, such as "immigrant" by "native", and they do not.
This lemma is not sound -- governments exist to protect the interests of their citizenry; no such obligation exists for people in other countries.
AFAICT the rest of your points rest on this assumption -- which is certainly something you can argue is a good idea a la Caplan, but is ultimately a moral/emotional argument -- so you don't get to privilege your own moral intuition over that of others by claiming to be using 'logic'.
jkf
23d ago
So you're avoiding a vaccine which stopped a global pandemic that killed millions because four out of every million (that is, 0.0004%) people who get the vaccine develop a heart condition because of it?
It was more like 4/10k if you happened to be in the susceptible group (young males) that we know of -- it's absolutely a possibility that low-grade heart damage was quite widespread, as only the severe cases would have been noticed/recorded.
And assuming that he's in that group (and doesn't also have cancer or something) his odds of dying from covid were essentially zero -- so the behaviour was pretty rational, really -- unlike your popping out of the woodwork to criticize his personal decisions.
jkf
24d ago
You really can't think of any logical reason for somebody to oppose high levels of immigration? It's not a particularly important issue to me, and I can easily throw few lines of argument in the ring:
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<insert country> is overcrowded already -- bringing in more people is creating an inferior experience for the existing people in terms of overcrowding, cost of living, increased crime, etc. -- and is therefore undesirable to the current populace.
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If we are talking about immigration from less developed countries to richer western ones (which we usually are), and the pro-immigration interlocutor believes that AGW is a significant threat to the global environment (which he usually does), then bringing large numbers of people from a poorer, less carbon-intensive lifestyle to a more consumptive place where they produce more GHGs seems like an obviously bad idea.
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More spicily, if one considers the existing culture of one's country to be generally superior to that of other countries, then importing people from other cultures would dilute the existing culture, which would be undesirable. If this one is not logical enough for you, you will have no trouble at all finding somebody around here to make a similar argument based on extensively cited research around HBD -- it's not an argument I care to make, but seems to meet your criteria. (other than containing ideas that you undoubtedly disagree with of course)
jkf
26d ago
The OG Macintosh GUI toolkit was absolutely excellent -- a real revelation to a young programmer, and an intro to O-O done right in my case.
A port/replication of the application side of that would be an interesting OS project -- I doubt the codebase is available, but the IP issues (which led Windows down its monstrous path) should be gone by now, and it was extremely well documented.
jkf
26d ago
He does say that he doesn't actually bench press these girls, so I'm not sure the mechanics there -- I can certainly lift cooperative average-sized women (or children) off the floor by the waist (from a standing position) without using my legs much.
For a bench-press equivalent, maybe they could wear a belt with side-handles, and crouch over one's chest? It would be about like pressing a large kettle-bell, and no need for the woman to be also capable of a plank or whatever. I'm pretty confident I could lift >200 lbs this way, and I'm not as fit as I used to be -- I get the feeling this is a larger lady than he has in mind?
jkf
26d ago
It has the added benefit of ironically warding off accusations that I should go to the gym more.
I mean -- how much do you press anyways? I wouldn't actually get anywhere near 300 these days, but certainly well into fattie territory unless you also only like really tall girls. My current spouse I could have lifted when I was like 14, and she's pretty average height and weight.
jkf
27d ago
So far we've been beating CoL inflation, so the trend lines look good (even modelling the inevitable slowdown in wage growth with age).
You may be beating CoL inflation in some basket-of-goods sense; you may even have more than doubled your salary (starting from a pretty low number) in the last ten years -- but you still can't afford a house, and the average home price in Toronto has been quite consistent in doubling every ten years since well before you were born. How much more than twice your current salary will you be making ten years from now, that you will be able to afford the house that you can't afford now?
The best and highest paying jobs are in Toronto.
This is... mostly false? O&G in Calgary offices pay quite well. Not "Bay Street Investment Banker" well, but it sounds like you are not that.
Especially because I can always sell a Toronto home and move to Calgary later
You don't have a home to sell -- you can't afford one and your rent money is disappearing instead of being (partially) stashed away as equity. This is unlikely to change for you in the future.
I liked Austin so if Calgary was cool I'd deal with the awful governance
Says the guy from Toronto
Soy-jacking aside, I love the vibe of big cities, and the absurd fun and convenience they provide.
"I like having fun, I can always have kids later" is... not a really unique attitude, but not a long walk from "I don't really want kids that bad".
Finally, all my friends and family are in Southern Ontario. Most of my friends live a 15 minute walk/5 minute bike from my apartment. If we moved 3000km to have a kid, we'd be completely isolated from everyone we know (which isn't a permanent issue, as you make new friends, but damn...)
And now you want to inflict this pain on your own (hypothetical) kid -- you need to break the cycle somewhere man.
jkf
27d ago
For me, the pleasure of the sex seems dependent on if I can bench press her or not.
Somebody needs to spend more time at the gym! (it isn't that hard to bench press 300)
jkf
27d ago
And as a carrot on the stick in front of me, that answer changes to "definitely yes" come out household income increases another ~$50k annually, which is hopefully only a few years and job hops away...
A few years from now the COL in Toronto will have increased a commensurate amount, and you will be saying the same kind of thing.
If you want kids, you have two options:
- Vote different, and convince a lot of other people in Toronto to do the same -- at all levels
- Get the fuck out of Toronto -- Calgary is nice this time of year
jkf
28d ago
Signalling turns more or less all the time is probably good for this reason -- but you should not be changing lanes unless you capital-K Know that there is nobody in your path.
I'd much rather be in the habit of double-checking my 'blind' spots everytime I change lanes than be in the habit of signalling and then pulling right into the car next to me that I didn't check for if he doesn't take evasive action -- which seems like a pretty common freeway habit these days.
"Any logically correct argument needs to be robust under switching the variable 'A' with '¬A' or 'B' " is quite a take, logically speaking -- I understand the argument you are making, but it is not a logical one.
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