justmotteingaround
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User ID: 2002
I've read the Skrmetti case and the amicus brief, and I really hope the petitioners fail.
That said, I'd bet money that the amicus brief (an inherently one sided argument) is broadly accurate in its claims, and is far closer to ground truth that the current US medical consensus. IMO the APA, AMA, and WPATH are completely out to lunch with regard to gender care, peddling harmful anti-science bullshit. I think trans insanity is waning slowly but surely, but the remedies proposed in Skrmetti set a precedent I don't like on principle. And principles are occasionally bitter pills to swallow, otherwise they're not principles.
If Skrmetti prevails (and I think it will), the effect will be a long standing precedent in case law that legislatures can eschew a medical consensus. Science will be decided in the courtroom; then the legislature. Granted, I think the US scientific consensus is wrong in this case, but I'm hewing to my principles, which sucks big fat amputated cock in this case. I want doctors, not legislators, to determine medical care. I don't want legislators deciding if mifepristone is safe, if my doctor/psychiatrist can prescribe me therapeutic ketamine, testosterone, MDMA, a lethal dose of whatever if I'm terminal, etc.
I loath safteyism, and won't clutch my pears and "think of the children" because other avenues of justice are available, namely torts. Suing doctors for negligence will change medical standards without opening a wider door permanent legislative intrusion. Torts have worked before. Anyone remember when fake tits were (erroneously, in retrospect) deemed unsafe for a period in the 90's? (In re Dow Corning Corp, 1996).
justmotteingaround
7mo ago
As I said, its clearly an extemporaneous conversation. They shoot the shit with their guests. They warn listeners repeated not to get their info from them. They have no pretense about being news or doing research. Its just stand up comics shooting the shit and occasionally googling things, often for as little as 30 seconds. This is what makes them enjoyable. I like the format. I listen to them all the time. The real novelty (and value add imo) is the long format and lack of editing. Its awesome. In some ways I find them more illuminating and informational than short news segments. But they're distinct from comedy news shows which have production budgets and teams given at least a week to craft a narrative and write a (hopefully) comedic script.
justmotteingaround
7mo ago
Just read about the limitations of a steelman. For example, its possible to steelman creationism or flat earth science. That doesn't make it an illuminating endeavor. Many or most Americans do not (more likely cannot or will not) see anything wrong with Trumps handling of the 2020 election. When asked in a 2019 survey, about 40% of Americans don't see anything wrong with asserting the Earth is less than 10,000 years old either.
justmotteingaround
7mo ago
The evidence on chess and IQ is mixed, with several studies finding no correlation between IQ and Elo within players. However, this meta analysis found huge correlations (~0.25). Still, lots of room for other factors. Many top GM's are adamant that chess players aren't particularly smart. Perhaps they're all being humble but it makes a lot of sense. Chess ability is comparatively narrow compared to IQ testing. Magnus has the best brain for chess, but much of that might not generalize to IQ. (iirc Magnus has given interviews where he tries to dispel the notion that he is a genius, stating that he was never at the top of the class academically).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289616301593
justmotteingaround
7mo ago
Those were comedy politics shows written and produced by teams of people that covered politics. These are podcasts hosted by stand up comics who just talk to people extemporaneously about whatever. It'd still be a valuable cultural commodity if people could open the NYT, or WaPo, or watch CNN or Fox News, and go "yeah, that's probably true enough".
justmotteingaround
7mo ago
But society does need genuinely trustworthy, credible institutions. Trumps has been going on mostly comedy podcasts. They might be bigger and better than the dying MSM, but they're not a solution for what is needed.
justmotteingaround
7mo ago
Trump has been riding the podcast circuit recently (Theo Vaugh, Logan Paul, Andrew Schultz, Lex Friedman). They're all very, very soft, but he comes out looking decent from what I have seen. Rogan is usually a bit longer, but he is likewise in business of making his guests look good and to show them a good time. They'll probably have a lighthearted chat about things Rogan is interested in: corona, wokeness, men in womens sports, aliens, pot, veterans, the UFC. Rogan won't offer any pushback when Trump makes asides into how everything he did was the best ever; everything his critics do is the worst ever.
justmotteingaround
7mo ago
If you truly want a steelman you have to be maximally charitable, so a premise that Trump was "dumb or crazy" for his possible sincere belief that the election was stolen is a non-starter. Imagine asking for a steelman for the Earth being flat. A premise that flat Earthers are just dumb or crazy, and therefore shouldn't be doing science, doesn't steelman the assertion that the Earth is flat.
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Trump sincerely believed the election was stolen. At the time, he found Sydney Powell, Mike Lindell etc more convincing the Attorney General, his Chief of Staff, White House council, the head of election security, etc
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Armed with their information, Trump and Chesebro formulated a plan to make sure the true winner was certified. They proactively organized uncertified electors as the state governments had certified electors based outcome determinative fraud.
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So the fake electors were intended as a contingency plan. Trump and his team truly believed that, by the time everything was sorted out (perhaps with some more aggressive fact-finding or legal victories), these electors would reflect the actual will of the people; the state certification being erroneous.
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When Trump informed Raffensperger that certifying the votes with Trump losing was illegal and likely to cause problems for Raffensperger, this was simply true. This wasn't norm breaking, but ensuring election integrity by exhausting every means available.
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When Trump pressured Pence, it wasn’t a violation of norms but rather a push to consider what might have been the correct electors in the contested states. After all, if Pence had simply agreed, it would have allowed more time for states or the Cyber Ninjas to review and verify their results. Trump’s belief was that this action wouldn’t have overturned the election but simply delayed it for the truth to come out.
justmotteingaround
7mo ago
The influence of US media narratives on crime has been especially distorting outside the US. Total gun deaths and police shootings between the UK and US are almost impossible to compare as the rates are respectively 60x and 150x less common in the UK.
I haven't heard of this case until now, but was there any claimed reason he didn't just get out of the car? Do I have the facts correct: the car and plate number were reported to have been involved in a shooting the day prior, the car was registered to someone other than Kaba, and nothing was found in the car? When pulled over, rammed several cop cars and tried to run the shooter over. Unsurprisingly he had been charged with attempted murder days prior.
justmotteingaround
8mo ago
‘cannot afford to subsidize ventures that are not delivering the promised speeds or are not likely to meet program requirements
I think basic Bayes would clear things up and remove political bias. Not delivering promised products is undoubtedly a common pattern for Musk (FSD 10 years ago, humans on Mars by now, rapidly (they said 24 hrs) reusable rockets, roadster 2, a 40k cybertruck with 500mi range, fleet of robo taxis 5 years ago). SpaceX took 4.5B in govt money for a human moon landing system to be delivered in the next few months, but they are still at or near step 1 of the Gantt chart. You get the idea.
So the strong man is that Musk frequently overpromises and underdelivers (which is not mutually exclusive of all his fantastic delivered successes). So, knowing nothing, the claim "starlink is not delivering what is promised" is a good prior. I know nothing about starlink. In fact I assumed starlink was fine and useful given its role in Ukraine and the reviews I've seen. However, this is why Baysian reasoning is so useful. Not delivering on promises is good prior and a workable strong man.
justmotteingaround
8mo ago
TSD has always cut both ways. People literally think Trump was sent by god to stop pedophiles and prevent the obvious communist takeover of America or something. Of course he has all the normal age related cognitive decline for a 78 year old. Honestly, I think he's beating the median.
justmotteingaround
8mo ago
Don't confuse the map for the territory. IQ tests are a construct that is inherently less reliable at the extremes. In order for Einstein to be Einstein, its was necessary but not sufficient he have a high IQ. All of his collogues likely had similar IQs (von Neumann is the only person I've read about where this might not apply, though he did die somewhat tragically young, which is fertile ground for mythmaking).
My guess would be that enough variation is preserved in the short term. There would be a new norm with the same standard deviation. But that's just a guess.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
So, like, the worst part about Humbert-Humbert is that he he didn't intend to marry Lolita?
I don't think "feminist notions of consent" have anything to do with protecting minors from their own voluntary decisions. The legal basis is cognitive. 12 year olds can't legally quit school, buy legal drugs, leave home, sign contracts, etc. But this is not because of feminism.
Would you be okay with a 19 year old having sex with an 11 year old? An 8 year old? And so on...Provided they intended to marry?
Its an interesting perspective, but I see some small potential for abuse.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
Absolutely. Assuming you are not a citizen, you can be deported. Not germane to the point I'm trying to make.
I'm responding to OP's claim that its "obvious" deportations can be done much more rapidly and cheaply, making an analogy to the death penalty.
Im pointing to the system we have, the tradeoffs made, the reasons behind them, and the traditions created. I'm arguing that the costs are inherently high because of our Constitution, laws, and history. The USG is free to pursue mass deportations, but rarely has, and I find that telling. Oddly enough, the last few administrations to campaign on it don't do it, and those that campaign against it end up deporting even more people. Strange
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
There is the explicit principle of providing for the general welfare of citizens to counterbalance, but this has always been a justification of power. Perhaps I should have been clearer: the US was unique at the time for explicitly protecting people from the government. Fully half of the bill of rights is dedicated to - stated uncharitably - "protecting criminals". The whole system created new tradeoffs. There are no stongment to carry out easy solutions to problems. On the other hand, its harder for governmental caprice to crush people.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
The justification for the high costs will be similarly analogous. For the death penalty, you want to execute as few innocent people as possible. In principle, no innocent people would ever be executed. In real world practice, a legal death penalties always puts innocent people do death in rare circumstances (governments are incompetent, Juries composed of Everymen, etc).
Likewise, the real world of deportations are far more complex than a simply wishing that the correct people are deported in the correct way. Laws are frequently squishy. A few million cases a year are clear, and people are quickly deported (roughly 10k per day). The others have to be argued. Removing barriers before understanding why they are there is an understandable impulse, but a dubious policy.
Granted, in both circumstances activists are incentivized to run up costs. That seems like more a feature than a bug. The US government is set up to protect people from the government.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
For thousands of years all languages have mutated in this way, so a causal link to contemporary movements is provincial and unlikely to explain much. Of course, politics tries to exert pressure on language. If everything is racist, genocidal, tyrannical, grooming, then nothing is.
I think what you have valid concerns over is word skunking. This video expresses those same concerns, and documents skunking and definition change in the case of bemused (perplexed,confused), ambivalent (extreme interest in opposing ideas), literally (literally), decimate (a modest reduction), etc.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
At what point will the cultures, artists, and creativity of Europe be crushed under a mass of a billion immigrants, a throng of unproductive mouths to feed?
I thought this was going to be an anticapitalist screed until it took this turn. Mass immigration poses issues, but I fail to connect it to boring, incompetent, commodified art.
The olympics have become a famously ill-advised production. The number of cities bidding to host gradually fell to just two in 2024: Paris and LA. The IOC already awarded 2028 to LA over concerns there might not be any interest in a few years. Broadcast revenue is flatish, but broadcast hours are way up.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
I also found Trump's interview with Logan Paul quite humanizing and worth a watch. It made him look normal and sane compared to his usual public behavior. Granted, these are both very low stakes situations, but he rarely shows or grants access the normal side of himself. Perhaps his campaign is trying to clinch moderates. His brash, equivocal, and uncompromising rhetoric was often touted as his genius. Was he serious, or literal? Who cares? Hes Trump! But I think his base can still count on that, so his rhetorical style has been normalized.
One thing I never understood about TDS is how little attention is paid to the other side of the coin. In answer to a question nobody asked is a paragraph pointing out Trump's golfing bonafides, admonishing all who doubt as deranged. Trump is the most fervently worshiped US politician in my lifetime; the only political lifestyle brand I've ever known. He'll call your wife is ugly to your face, and then you'll stump for Trump as expected. With how little this even gets noticed anymore, I think TDS has become normalized.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
Was the gun pointed at her face before she made any actions that could be considered threatening by a reasonable person? They inarguably suggested she go to go to the fully loaded pot, which adds a wrinkle. However, I have heard that in revival churches saying "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus" precedes throwing water. I have no idea how true this is.
AFAIKT, the cop said "I'll shoot you in the fucking face", then he points a gun at her face, only then does she start to panic/ duck cover, then grabs the pot, then the cop advances, then she throws boiling water, and finally she is shot.
The trial will be interesting. I think the defense can weave a narrative of a credible verbal threat of physical harm, then not obeying commands (perhaps for the second time), then the assailant is shot in the middle of an attack. The prosecution will tell a story about directing her towards the pot, then telling her to get away from it, she demurs, then cops threaten to kill her and dramatically escalate, and she is starts reasonably fearing for her life.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
Their intuition for recognizing that is going to be top 0.1% in the country.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Factually speaking, US cops receive far less training, with less g loaded selection, than peer nations. There exists no validated training for detecting when a "crazy" person is about to turn violent, so I doubt they receive any. The shooter bounced around as many as 5 departments in the last 5 years. By the data we have, he's possibly top 0.1% at creating lethal interactions from nothing.
justmotteingaround
10mo ago
Sure, this is how their zealous defenders should frame everything, but I think the prosecutors and video evidence will provide a much more convincing case. In BWC #1 you hear the report of the first shot before water is seen. In BWC#2 (no audio), you see the officer point the gun at her face well before she raises the pot (which they had just advised her to attend to). The cop then advances on her. So it went, unambiguously: "I'll shoot you in the fucking face" --> officer points gun at her face --> only then does she pick up the pot and cower --> cop advances on her --> she either throws water because she was just shot, or throws water, then gets shot, perhaps reasonably fearing for her life.
They cops seem unfriendly and somewhat rude from the outset. In an absolute sense, it's incredibly rare for a cop to get attacked for any reason, and I'm willing to bet money that the K:D ratio for 2 cops vs 1 woman is greater than 100:1. If grievous bodily harm could be measured, I'd bet on that too. I loath safetyism, and cops hide behind the lingo as much as SJW's. Okay, that is perhaps an exaggeration, but I constantly see cops going to the well of safetyism to justify any and all actions they might take. Any two armed men that felt threatened in that situation probably don't have what it takes to do jobs with even a modicum of risk.
I fully expect people to go wild with screen grabs of the pot being emptied at the officer and act if that makes the whole case. Dems will hopefully just be quiet, but will probably wildly exaggerate and overinterpret this incident until the end of time.
justmotteingaround
11mo ago
but it's hard to deny that they have gotten more frequent.
I'm always skeptical but never dismissive of such common sense. It could be recency bias and the availability heuristic at work.
justmotteingaround
11mo ago
Indeed there are multiple things to track: the technology (precrime by ML) and the demographics which, according to you, "cannot be said". I commented exclusively on the latter - pointing out that it's a common enough topic of discourse to be memeified and reliably the subject of entire books.
Thats why having principles sucks. It will be an improvement in this one case. But the expansion of legislative caprice can be broadly interpreted for a long time. There are equally useful alternative toys of power to exact justice. Torts maintain a comparatively narrower scope, and stay within the realm of liability.
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