justmotteingaround
No bio...
User ID: 2002
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
Then we disagree about what is true. AFAIK ex-presidents cannot keep classified information. Perhaps this wasn't the case 53 years ago.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
I had my assumptions challenged. I thought the vaccines would be fine (ie a net benefit across all age cohorts), but when they were being recommended to children and young men I found myself to opinions other than the vaccines are the best/worst thing ever.
if there was even a small uptick in deaths and other complications, it would be a huge deal and unavoidable.
In a bunch of countries there is newish data indicating increased excess deaths not attributable to Covid. The confounders are myriad, but there is allegedly an unattributed signal to analyse.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
Great idea. My guess is general lament of the SC, accusations of racism and/or white supremacy, calls for solidarity. Certainty: medium. Time spent: 3 minutes.
Results: totally wrong. The top 10 reader picks seemed to endorse reform, make AA a class issue, and talked about the unfairness to Asians.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
When left-wingers make grandiose claims of moral and cultural authority
This isn't unique to left wingers. In a previous CW thread, OP posted an "excellent" essay by Jared Taylor in which the author ironically goes full smug
Our most powerful weapon is that we are right. The way we see the world is... morally unimpeachable. Ours is as noble a cause as history has ever seen. One for which a man would thankfully lay down his life. We must not destroy [our opposition] but enlighten and lead to the truth... This is the greatest challenge our people have ever faced. Together, we will fight in the greatest cause for which anyone has ever fought, and we will certainly win.
Simply responding to OP, Taylor, etc with: "Chekist/Nazi's/outgroup deserve only contempt" is antithetical the the goals of themotte.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
I'm sorry you're feeling troubled, spiritually adrift, morally uncertain, etc. I think these experiences the core issue. There may be a variety of solutions (religion, philosophy, exercise, meditation, a deep and abiding acceptance of these experiences as okay, diligent safe use of psychedelics, finding a group with common
interests).
Secular Buddhism and meditation suit me just fine, but I'm not sure if these would work for you. I have been heavily influenced by the works of David Loy (in particular Lack and Transcendence), as well as various meditation retreats. This epistemic universe attracts a disproportionate amount of wokies, lefties, and nonsense woo-woo. However, these things are not inherent to the philosophy or practice, and can be ignored/accepted with some effort. Buddhism and meditation are about not losing the balance of the mind in any situation. They seek to solve/dissolve existential angst and/or moral uncertainty by accepting them without becoming mentally or emotionally perturbed. For moral philosophy I've been influenced by Sam Harris (in particular The Moral Landscape, as well as Waking Up: A guide to spirituality without religion). As I said, these may not be a good fit for you, but I think they're neat. Importantly, they focus on reducing the experience of suffering, including feeling troubled by moral uncertainty. It's the journey to realizing you never needed an ark, or answers; of accepting being lost at sea, of being at peace with the fact that we all eventually deteriorate into worm food. The Waking Up meditation app is free if you ask. I've never used it, but I hear good things.
There are some contradictions or paradoxes in your post. I'm not criticising you personally. On the one hand you feel morally uncertain. However, you appear to be asking for moral reassurance to questions for which you already have rigid answers. You feel strongly about things, but are not sure if you believe them. You want something deep and rich, but you want it quickly. Ultimately, this is all fine. So long as it gets you looking for a solution to how troubled you feel. You may want to talk to various mainstream spiritual teachers. I think priests, pastors, and the like are open to talking with members outside their flock. Also, there are Unitarian churches which takes all manner of spiritual seekers, from atheists to Mormons. At a minimum, you could talk to a half dozen or so such people. I think you'll reap and immediate benefit of getting some stuff off your chest, and you may find the next step.
As as I said at the beginning, I think worrying about all this stuff to the point where it's eating you up is the core issue. I don't want you to feel this way for any longer than is necessary. Talk to some people. Try some new things. Best wishes on finding what's best for you.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
It was amazing how much that question pissed off my acquaintances.
Seems more highly predictable than amazing. I'd save such questions for a more appropriate social context (ie here, among a different group), even if they're interesting. To borrow an imperfect analogy from the imperfect gender debate: momness is a spectrum. If the kids, father, and law all view the stepmom as a mom, then yeah, stepmom is pretty much a mom. Self ID doesn't work here because so much of momness is contained in others. Steven Dubner of Freakonomics fame has talked about adopting a kid (after having many kids the usual way). The kid was adopted near birth, and he says it was just as special.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
I've actually wondered how public schools dodged the bullet of horrific pedo scandal that rightfully hit the Catholic church and the Boy Scouts.
It's probably way less common on a per-capita basis. For whatever reason, males commit ~90% of child sexual abuse. The younger the students, the more overwhelmingly female the teachers. And unlike schools, The Catholic Church and Boy Scouts have structures where the highest ranking authority figure can create significant alone time with children. The Sandusky scandal was similar.
Adding to your comment from a linked article:
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NYC has 3.8M city income tax payers
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Average burden to each of the 41k top 1%: $18,000
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Average burden to each of the 410k 10-1%: $1,141
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Average burden to each of the 3.3M 0-90%: $180
Those 3 points lay on a graduated curve, but still. Oooof.
The NYC budget for FY 2023 is 37B, so the settlement (probably paid out over time) represents 5% of this years budget.
Also notable: NYC/NYS spent over decade fighting the case. The state was detached at some point. The case originated in the 1996's, and became a class-action. The implied argument was that the test was not designed to be g-loaded, nor was it confirmed to be a predictor of classroom success, which lead to unfair disparate impact. In one item, applicants were asked to explain the meaning of an Andy Warhol painting. 90% of white test takers passed the 80 question test, while 53% of Blacks and 50% of Latinos passed.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
I couldn't find the link for this claim:
The U.S. Department of Education found that 5% to7% of public school teachers engage in sexual abuse of children per year.
It seems outrageous. 1:15 teachers sexually abuse kids? And only 20% are males? The a-priori likelihood is low because of the offender rate and composition of the institutions. Unless schools hire females with a 10x offending rate, AND churches (broadly) hire males with 10-100x lower offending rate (based on this averaged with this, accounting for this. Its a-priori statistically very unlikely for male dominated or 50/50 places, to have higher offending rates than 60/40+ males spaces. But its possible.
All that said, the offender rate comports well with a good article from a solid source. But definitions make everything wonky, conflating language with acts sometimes. So I don't really know with any confidence. Bayes makes me think sex abuse is always much lower the more female dominated a place is.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
First, how could they forget about Waylon Smithers; a man who thinks women and seamen don't mix. Second, the claim that cartoons influences sexual orientation is extraordinary. I'm skeptical. I had heterosexual romantic feelings and sexual fantasies as a 3rd grader. Is it because I internalized the "strike hard, strike first, no mercy" ethos of Kobra Kai? I have my doubts. Third, exactly how much health has been lost, on net, by gay cartoons? Its extraordinary to claim that "million of kids would have led otherwise healthy lives" if not for gay or effeminate cartoon characters. Lastly, where are the parents? I was a horny bastard as a teen. Thankfully, I had good parents, good role models, and health class. If horny gays had the same upbringing, what is the quantifiable additional risk, and most importantly, how much of that is due cartoon characters?
How many boys, bombarded with the images of Tinky Winky and other non-masculine characters on a daily basis, either adopted a gay lifestyle or began to see nothing wrong with the lifestyle?
My honest guess is that almost nobody was turned gay by cartoons. Whatever LGBTQ craziness is going on in the culture and in peoples lives, I think there are other well documented, more data driven explanations.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
Based on the source you provided it sounds like the outright majority of sexual abuse happens at school.
It does sound that way. And it might be that most sex abuse outside of family (most common iirc) happens in schools. However, my confidence on that proposition is proposition is quite low because of some bayesian reasoning. For example, the established prior is that men commit 80-90% child sex abuse. This is a high confidence, long standing datapoint. Because it's so heavily weighted towards males, any male dominated group should have dramatically more abuse. Like, my heart says the sources we have, but my math side says just default to maleness as a proxy.
Around the time of the Sandusky scandal I recall reading that some abusers spend years inserting themselves into professions which might have the ability to provide access, acting gregarious and helpful. Its all very frightening. The sources we have indicate waaaay to much abuse.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
This article is an semi-coherent jumble of truth mixed together with ludicrousness.
That's basically my take on everything I've read on amren. Extremely well written and inspiring, but the claims and leaps of logic that follow are indeed ludicrous. I understand the allure of the narrative, but trying to map it on to the world as I know it leaves be utterly bewildered.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
then it makes explanations involving hallucinations and weather balloons less plausible.
I think you're dramatically underestimating the likelihood and causes of misidentification. Extremely smart domain experts misidentify the benign for the outlandish all the time. Michael Shermer's old TED talk 'Why people believe weird things' gets into this. Also, youtuber Thunderf00t has several videos debunking UFO stuff, including more recent claims, with lots of examples of people mistaking the benign for the outlandish.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
I'm okay with any politician being thrown in jail for a decade for merely doing what Trump did on his call with Raffensperger.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
When the PODUS, or any higher ranking politician, calls someone to tell them "The ballots are corrupt and that's illegal... Its more illegal for you than it is for them. You know what they did and you're not reporting it, and that is a criminal offense. You can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you... And you're letting it happen. I'm notifying you that you are letting it happen. And all I want to do is find X votes" just put them in jail.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
When the POTUS asks someone to overturn election results immediately after falsely notifying them that they are committing a serious crime if they don't, just chuck them in a jail cell for a decade to teach them about reckless disregard for the truth, and intimidating election officials.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
he believed those "results" weren't legitimate at all!
And that illustrates why the legal standard of "reckless disregard for the truth" exists. Such concepts put limiting principles on credulity. Without such limiting principles a future president could claim they believe they are legally Emperor for life, while amassing functionaries to carry out that goal. If if such an attempt were to fail, they could hide behind "well my lawyers were saying it was true, and I sincerely believed them, so I declared martial law." Elites have enough power, and I'm fine holding all rulers to something like a "reckless disregard for the truth" standard. At a minimum, they should end up in court.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
That's great and I don't want to take anything away from a fantastic accomplishment. I do want to provide some useful info on your diet plan. There is lots of good published studies on which weight loss strategies lead to long-term decreases in fat mass (youtuber jeff nippard covers a lot of the science if interested). In short, you want to aim for an average weekly calorie consumption of about 10% below maintenance, with weekends eating at maintenance, and weekdays consuming 14% below maintenance, with 2-3 times a week resistance training, and protein consumption of 1.8-3g protein per kg bodyweight. Cardio is not strictly necessary. Low impact cardio is recommended. So that is a brief description on how to increase and keep lean body mass gains. I think calorie tracking apps are a good idea for the first few months. Keto is fine for many, but I would bump the calories, take the fat off more slowly, and do something to retain muscle. That way when you're done dieting down, you're most likely to keep the gains you made. Whatever you choose, best of luck and congrats!
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
IQ is no better or worse.
I would argue IQ is better as it substantially correlates to job performance in high, medium, and low complexity jobs. All else being equal, companies want a higher IQ programmers, mechanics, and window washers). Perhaps IQ is bet thought of as latent merit.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
how do you keep a strict diet without counting calories?
For me its getting really good at estimations after logging everything in a paid app for a couple of months. Now I just log my weight a few times a week, and the scale keeps me honest. Everything is a habit now. I cook most of the food I eat, and I think thats important. If I go out, I try to eat a filling snack before (veggies, fruit, low-cal smoothie, water, etc). I just assume the calories I consumed while out are double or triple my norm, so I just go hungry for a meal or two afterwards. If the scale is trending up, I just get more strict for the next week and see what happens. The key is never letting the weight creep back up.
so I figure 1g / kg will be sufficient; do you disagree?
I'd up the protein. Iirc the research shows that protein drives lean body mass and helps spare muscle. You may have more muscle than you think and probably want to save it as much as possible. I think you have a lot of headroom for additional calories and should be mindful of crashing, yo-yoing, and lowering your BMR for a few months. Whey and filtered milk (ie Fairlife)/water might be a good low carb protein and calorie adjustment; 40-50g protein, 6g carbs, and 250-300 calories. I don't know much about keto to say if 6g is too much. Also, I do know that people take keto supplements like magnesium for some reason.
I've thought about what you're trying; melt the fat then build back the muscle. The research convinced me to go the very slow route of 0.25-0.5% body-weight loss per week for 15-30 weeks. My base metabolic rate, satiety, and fitness should be exactly where I want it as soon as I'm done. But I love to cook and lift weights so it also suits me personally.
If you go for operation fat-melting, you should start a really dialed-in fitness routine when finished, which should take 4 months to figure out. Done correctly, that should stoke your metabolism. Then you can maintain easily (with keto or whatever). I've had friends that had success going this route. Eventually they found the keto too boring, but I eat a lot of repetitive meals so who knows. You'll gain water weight if you stop keto, which isn't something to worry about. Then just keep your eye on the scale. Best of luck.
As I mentioned before, I got most of my info from youtuber Jeff Nippard. He has a lot of videos going through quality research on diets, proteins requirements, cheat meals/compensatory overeating, rep-ranges, and progressive overload.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
I'm about 100kg right now, with a goal of 95kg. 250g of weight loss in a week means a net expenditure of some 1900 calories over the week. That alone is quite noticeable to me just from an appetite/ caloric budgeting perspective. In order to end the whole week 1900 calories under maintenance I have to try pretty hard. I don't have room for cheat meals, regular drinking, heavy drinking, peanut butter, empty calorie snacks, etc. I had to make noticeable changes just to get 1900 under per week. I eat so many frozen veggies and chicken breast now! Some weeks I come in 3800 calories under (or theoretically 0.5% bw), but they're the exception. With a calorie tracking app you know exactly where you land. There is random weight variation throughout the day/week, but I habitually weight myself after my morning piss and make a note. The trend is down about 4kg's in 10 weeks. I've got 10-20 weeks left to go. It's the slow and boring route, but time keeps on slippin into the future, and all I have to do is stay the course. At the end, my fitness should be where I want it, and I'll just maintain.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
I think the CW blowback will be in line with what you'd expect from decades ago: a career deranging storm lasting a year or so, echoing forever. He is a much less sympathetic case than Charles Murray, who can actually stand by what he wrote. According to Hannia, he wrote some vile and idiotic stuff up until his mid twenties because he was somewhat of a sexless, friendless, loser writing anonymously. He disavows what he wrote. His past motivations were to score political points - not to think things through - leading to a bunch of hairbrained "modest proposals". He explained all this, his journey to where he is today, and his motivations to prevent people from descending into the kind of unreason which captured his mind well into adulthood.
On the one hand, I can believe he is now writing honestly, and I see him as a valuable insider. On the other hand, I can see how people would be reasonably skeptical. I mean, he sincerely argued for the forced sterilization of ~80M Americans, an idea which doesn't portend a great thinker. To me, the sheer idiocy of his former ideas makes me believe him today.
I think his September book release will be heavily impacted and probably outright cancelled, although I don't know much about publishing. This would be a shame, although understandable from the POV of the principle actors. It's been blurbed by people with solid reputations who probably want nothing to do with the guy anymore. Its being published by Broadside Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, who are likewise going to want to distance themselves.
justmotteingaround
9mo ago
Well I guess everyone is opaque about "crossing the Rubicon". Assuming Hanania is honest, we don't need to guess about what he thinks because he responded to the huffpo piece on his substack. He finds his old views repugnant; largely explained by immature, emotional reasoning. His solution was intellectual advancement, and personal development. After looking at the data he realized hbd is true, and small-l liberalism is the best path forward.
I think this sums of where he was when he was writing anonymously.
A young LARPer with a tendency to get carried away with certain arguments, enamored by the romantic idea of grappling with supposedly suppressed ancient truths, simply couldn’t handle that level of nuance.
justmotteingaround
8mo ago
Give it a listen and see if it does anything for you: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
Honestly not much, but it wasn't written for me. Unlike the wonderful sound, the lyrics resonate like a laundry-list of complaints. It's too prosaic to be subversive. Plus I think it misidentifies the problem as rich men north of Richmond, and not the local power brokers enthusiastically elected and re-elected. But the song is overwhelmingly well-liked, so I'm glad for the artist.
Someone below linked the Antifascist Blues. While I found that song more catchy and clever, I have some of the same criticisms.
I enthusiastically support movements away from doomerism and towards a "can-do" sense of empowerment. I'm on the sidelines of the race consciousness game, and Taylors essay and especially OP provided useful inside baseball commentary. I felt Taylor kind of embarrassed himself in the closing. In an essay deriding the smug and self-righteous left, he ends by declaring
To be blunt, I view most identity politics as an intellectually confused mind virus. However, I don't care who engages in it to the extent it doesn't produce unreasonable negative externalities (ie baseless riots, race war, or, perhaps worst of all, a mandatory Robin DeAngelo seminar). But as Taylor and OP note, you get more bees with honey.
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