johnfabian
23hr ago
But I am careful not to let it become a fully general counterargument. Surgery for cosmetic purposes is not as qualitatively different from working out or getting a nice haircut as it seems (and the latter does involve cutting off parts of yourself). You can break your back at the gym. A bad diet can give you brittle bones. Once you have broken it down into risk versus benefit, then there is little else to add that isn't moralizing.
I would disagree that there is little qualitative difference; I'm not inclined to psycho-analyze otherwise I might wonder at the glibness of comparing surgery to a haircut. But I would also disagree that moralizing is unimportant, or is irrational, or actively harmful.
Even more important is that self-image and self-regard are not the only pertinent metrics. If I end up depressed again, I'd rather be fit and depressed. If I'm suicidal, I'd rather be hot and getting laid while feeling suicidal. As I've insisted, I am neither depressed or suicidal right now (and you better believe I'm grateful for that).
This rationale will persist after your first surgery. You could still be depressed and incrementally hotter, should you get just one more. Think how many more chicks you'll score with that extra edge. Who knows how your life will be transformed tipping yourself from the 84th to the 85th percentile in looks?
johnfabian
1d ago
If a friend came to me and said "I want surgery to change X part about me" my concern would not be based in this notion that looks don't matter, or that one is necessarily wrong to have issues with self-esteem, or that I am somehow blind to my own charms and blessings.
My concern would be that for someone who gets up in the morning and doesn't like who they see in the mirror, that surgery will not fix what ails them.
Are you being honest with yourself that you could just get one surgery, and then you would be happy? That it would remedy what gnaws at you?
I may be somewhat biased as I have seen a relatively large number of people who obviously could not stop at just one. Maybe I have been blessed with whatever set of nature/nurture impulses to have arrived at the point where I wake up and like who peers back at me in the bathroom. I am perhaps lucky to fit into the right social/demographic niche such that I am not bombarded with messages telling me I must find myself inferior to my better peers all day. Yet I cannot convince myself that I am wrong to have this base skepticism that (outside certain specific instances) surgically altering oneself will lead to greater happiness.
johnfabian
10d ago
I think it's a good heuristic for young men too. The manias are different but the causes are the same.
johnfabian
10d ago
Because of its euphemistic use on censored social media spaces, hearing someone described earnestly as "highly regarded" never fails to make me smile.
johnfabian
10d ago
I'm not thrilled about the age gap situation. The trouble is that it's just so hard to find a woman in the West who is (1) not obese; (2) not a single mom; and (3) not into woke progressive nonsense. Sadly I am not 6'2" with a chiseled jawline, so I have to compromise.
Whatever your degree of "compromise" is, it's not nearly as significant as the compromise the woman marrying a man 30+ years her senior is making.
johnfabian
18d ago
My point was that SS thought they were "kangaroo courts", which was ironic (and displayed his ignorance on the subject) because they convicted no one.
johnfabian
19d ago
I don't quite understand; why would traffic be rerouted from the Strait of Hormuz be going around the Horn of Africa? That's what you'd expect if they were trying to avoid pirates/Houthis in the Red Sea or if the Suez was closed. The Strait of Hormuz isn't a general global shipping lane, it's specifically for ships going to/from the countries with ports there. I'm questioning the premise of this.
johnfabian
19d ago
My point is that the Truth and Reconciliation commission in South Africa cannot have been a kangaroo court in any definition because they convicted zero people. That was very fundamentally not their concept or purpose.
johnfabian
19d ago
How many people were convicted by these "kangaroo courts"?
johnfabian
19d ago
And they apparently name their capital ships after racial justice courts!
I'm not surprised that someone who is Jew-obsessed sees Jews in every piece of media, but I'm really curious as to what you think "truth and reconciliation" means.
johnfabian
22d ago
As an anecdote, I was talking to my sister the other day about some work her friend is doing. She (the friend) is studying the effects of education on social mobility among women in India, and apparently because of the increasing gender gaps in India in terms of educational attainment, it's becoming increasingly common to see new strange reverse-dowry arrangements. Because girls are so routinely outperforming boys in school, parents will for the purpose of an arranged marriage of their failson to someone else's smart daughter, pay for the foreign education of that girl in the hopes that the boy will be able to emigrate with her and work in a higher-earning (ideally western) countrey.
johnfabian
23d ago
There are limited insights into how the US military performed because they're being unusually taciturn, but at the very least you can identify that a point of criticism is that they were not adequately prepared for Iranian counterstrikes.
johnfabian
23d ago
I think ostensibly they can (are supposed to?) but certainly in my hop across the border from Canada last month I didn't get flagged for anything.
johnfabian
30d ago
Postmodernism doesn't entail that it be byzantine and unapproachable. It's just often the nature of texts that see deconstruction as their main task.
johnfabian
1mo ago
I think when the neocons wanted war with Iran, it certainly wasn't this kind of war.
johnfabian
1mo ago
98th percentile, weakest on aesthetics (as I expect many of us are).
johnfabian
1mo ago
Also, rather importantly, the Nakba was (for the most part, albeit this is controversial) Palestinians fleeing their homes willingly because of the war, and then later being refused right of return after Israel's victory.
It is a lot messier to force people out of their homes when they do not wish to leave of their own volition.
johnfabian
1mo ago
Even for the Americans the submarine arm was the deadliest branch of the armed forces - around 25% of American submarine crewmen in WWII died.
johnfabian
1mo ago
The other half of those survivors weren't of those crews that were sunk, it was of those that returned home safely. So 70% of Uboat crewmen died, another 15% were captured, and only the other 15% made it home safely.
johnfabian
1mo ago
The Battle of Hürtgen Forest was a pretty unambiguous American defeat.
johnfabian
1mo ago
They also fined Morocco for some of their infringements, like, uh, having their ball boys steal towels and water bottles from the Senegalese goalkeeper.
This is incorrect: they actually lifted/reduced some of the fines that had previously been imposed on Morocco for their conduct.
It really is an incredibly outward display of corruption.
johnfabian
1mo ago
According to the author's bio he is the creator of an AI wingman "dating assistant." I'm sure he views himself as not part of the problem, but...
johnfabian
1mo ago
My classic strat for economic advantage in RTII was to build up my railway to a profitable network. Then when I had enough capital I would invest in the really killer advantage: "tunnels" you could build by using the lay track feature to change elevation of terrain. In this way you could cut through mountain passes to lay flat track that would in time be massively profitable, but in the short term cost your company millions in losses. If you sold all your stock before doing this, the effect on the stock price of your company seeing losses in the millions in a given year would instantly crater it to $1, at which point you could easily rebuy all the shares. Then going forward your company would be even more profitable than before because the one-time loss incurred in "tunneling" through the mountains would be repaid by the much faster and flatter route.
Once I had dominant control of my own company I would then pause and create subsidiary companies with my excess personal funds (every two years was the minimum) to create AI-ran companies which would just run low-profit goods to my stations and use the AI bonuses to make money. Then I would without unpausing be re-elected chair of my main company.
johnfabian
1mo ago
2, I think. Though I know some people say OpenTTD is now the best version of a railroad builder
Because I think there are moral truths; whether you see them as absolute or society-contextual doesn't matter overmuch. And sometimes people need to be reminded of them. It may be rational in some situation to do X and there is no argument against it except that it is wrong.
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