The Israeli lapdogs like Eve Barlow seem really upset about this, and Bibi/other Israeli officials also are reportedly against the ceasefire.
They can whine all they want about us Americans being privileged, but we control our own country for our own interests, not Israel's. Well, for now maybe.Can't say I'm expecting it to last long, the Kushner/Witkoff/Graham faction are definitely going to try to slap down any possible out available.
And what did they get from all this? Doesn't seem like much, except for increasing opposition to them among the only country that supports them. Don't bite the hand that feeds or they might stop feeding you eventually.
It is also true that they are opposed to the war with Iran, and yet we are having a war with Iran
Opposition to the war doesn't really matter that much, especially when there's a disconnect between the average politician and the voters anyway. It's the politician who decides until their time is up and they might get replaced, and as we're seeing with the midterms Trump is increasingly losing influence in that area.
at least to date that war is overwhelmingly popular with Red Tribe.
Confidence and support are still falling and that's despite the selection bias that people who change their minds don't always show up as mind changers, because they retcon it to begin with. The increased dissatisfaction among independents isn't just independents turning sour, but also sour republicans who turn more independent. And independent registration is at the highest ever because of dissatisfaction by otherwise Dem and GOP leaning voters. People who are upset leave, the tribe shrinks and election chances get worse even if the inner tribe circle jerking gets stronger.
Bonus Question: One of your more notable posts, in my opinion, was your extensive arguments that Red Tribe is increasingly converging on anti-semitism of the Fuentes/groyper variety
It's simple, Israel is not the average Jew, especially the average American Jew. I believe in personal responsibility and some random Joe Stein who works in accounting or whatever holds absolutely zero responsibility whatsoever for the Israeli government's influence on US politics. Antisemitism, like all bigotries, is mostly based around blaming groups instead of individuals.
Like imagine a world where Nazi theories were correct and powerful secret elites did control Germany and were corrupting it, and those elites were all Jews. Even if that were true, it would not suddenly make it ok to round up a bunch of random Jewish people, including many children, and just kill them. There is no world where literal babies and newborns could have done anything wrong, and yet they died too.
magicalkittycat
14hr ago
There's certainly a couple big caveats in here. First is how long you've been training. The original comment said stuff like "a couple years of training". There's obviously going to be a significant effect of how long they've been doing it for how far along the progression toward "elite" they will be. You're grabbing stats from record-setting women. It would be much more nuanced to take, say, some sort of typical progression after 2-5 years.
Well yeah, trained males always beat trained females without any hormonal fuckery. But in trained females vs average untrained male, it doesn't seem to just be elites but intermediate level according to the two benchmark sites I had found. I don't know how exactly they determine what intermediate even means, but the same thing that decently trained women > untrained men seems to be evidenced in multiple ways there.
, I'm pretty confident the ChatGPT estimate is quite low. I'm sure ChatGPT's estimate would be even worse if the guy had a bigger frame and body weight.
I really don't know, but based off that, the strength benchmark sites and the Reddit comments in that one thread I linked, it seems like it's just that your guy is actually just very high if he can bench over his body weight. Maybe he's just built different or maybe he has a more active job/lifestyle than many untrained men do.
I'm also 100% confident that for two elite, been training specifically for powerlifting for a decade or two, lifters, the male would be able to bench more than the female.
Well yes but again the topic is untrained male vs trained female. Not both of them having done training for years.
magicalkittycat
14hr ago
That's not a great example. "Equipped" is cheating
Which is why I put the raw bench for the comparison and not the equipped bench.
and that women has higher testosteronal than any natural man.
Yeah that isn't unbelievable she is on roids, but the other sites I provided also do seem to suggest that the intermediate and up women can beat out beginner men in various weightlifting categories.
There's actually a pretty easy way to check this, compare women's elite performance in weightlifting to the men's beginner weightlifting.
So let's check.
ChatGPT gives me for a 25 year old male.
What most beginners actually start with
The empty bar (45 lb) is very common for your first session
Many beginner males end up around 65–115 lb for reps after a little practice
A rough “average beginner” benchmark is about 95–135 lb max (1 rep), not for sets
So let's say 135 to be really fair to our untrained male, top of a beginner who has already done a few sessions. And that's the high end according to this comment
The women's equipped bench press record belongs to Ashleigh Hoeta, from New Zealand, who lifted 317.5 kg (700 lb) (2023, IPL standards), and the raw bench press record belongs to April Mathis from the United States, who lifted 207.5 kg (457.4 lb)
457.4>135
Obviously this is the record, but I think we can take from it that trained women elites can be stronger than the typical untrained man. IDK where the numbers come from but this strengthlogs site also shows that advanced/elite women would beat beginner men and its cutoff for "elite" is only 198, less than half the record. Also backed up by this other site with beginner men at 103 and intermediate women at 111. I checked three others as well, intermediate women > beginner men also applies to shoulder presses and deadlifts as well. And in dumbbell curls, even novice women beat beginner men there
magicalkittycat
19hr ago
A lot of major conservative names have actually defected here. Here's Candace Owens calling for the 25th amendment over his comments. Tucker Carlson is calling on troops to disobey these types of orders. Theo Von has been extremely against the war in Iran (I havent yet seen any comments on this recent but specifically)
They're the 3rd, 7th and 11th most listened to podcast on Spotify in the US.
It's not just the traditional podcasters either, for example here's Alex Jones. You can find plenty of major conservatives, many who have been conservative way before Trump even was, who oppose this war.
One incredible thing about Trump's continued insanity is how much of a natural loyalty test it creates. If you take his words seriously, he's now threatening genocide (and implying nukes) against Iran over a war we won weeks ago about a strait that has been open for transit and is safe to cross against a regime that has already fallen and been changed to be favorable to us.
It pushes out anyone who can't, or isn't willing to, commit themselves to the double think and devout followers are making a constant fool of themselves because they aren't all able to update fast enough. There's a reason why the Democrats now hold the edge on the Senate, a thing that in any ordinary year should not be happening (just look at how low the predictions were until somewhat recently). But the mad king is even crazier than people expected and the Trumpist group grows more and more insular because most people surprisingly enough, are not willing to pretend the emperor is or isn't wearing clothes depending on his whims.
Almost half of all voters are independent now and that should be eye opening to these partisans.
If you're a Democrat you should be worried that the Dems are so politically toxic that people won't associate with you, even though the alternative is those "crazy Republicans". If you're a Republican you should be worried that the GOP is so politically toxic that people won't associate with you, even though the alternative is those "crazy Democrats". Just imagine how despicable the average citizen must be viewing you now that they're willing to consider you just as insane and awful. Outrunning the other person instead of the lion brings you only temporary victories, the 2020 Biden mandate turned into a 2024 Trump surge, and the 2024 Trump surge is turning into a 2026 Dem landslide.
Meanwhile, we see an endless parade of people like Pelosi with her remarkable investment acumen, Trump the narcissistic bully who was born rich and genuinely does not seem to know any way of life other than corruption, and all the Kardashians of the world who are famous for being good at being famous.
To be a successful politician for this long does take some genuine skill somewhere. Tons and tons of people try and fail. There's tons of competition and political threats to you and getting away with such brazen corruption like Trump or Pelosi requires continued popularity and support. Often the skill is the same sort of thing that the Kardashians provide, taking short term victories and turning it into their long term empires. They easily could have been like the many many people who only see minor fame for a few years (or even just a month), but they took it and turned it into a greater opportunity. They might seem trashy to us, but that doesn't change that they're providing entertainment or hope or whatever to tens/hundreds of millions of people worldwide and those people are willing to pay money/watch commercials/etc other forms of profiting off that. The Kardashians are getting stuff done too, even if I don't personally enjoy them.
Or another way to look at it. I think religion is mostly hogwash, but I can still understand what the point of churches and pastors and religious movies and music is. Other people do believe in it, and thus those things are still getting stuff done
Politicians and entertainers are people who charismamaxxed
Yes. Of course politicians and entertainers are people who generally appeal to some meaningfully sized subset of the population. Trump has basically formed a roughly 30-35% cult of personality around him, where like the only thing I can think of where he didn't manage to control his followers brains around in circles is with vaccines. This helps make him very successful against any would be conservative challengers or criticism.
There is no way that they would be able to learn to code with enough proficiency to find a job.
Yeah one big problem we're facing especially now with AI potentially is "what do we do with the morons who can't or won't do something else that is needed/wanted when their job is no longer necessary". During the Great recession, the answer was put the old idiots on disability like it's early retirement as a band aid solution, but this has awful aesthetics and doesn't work when technology might soon be making larger and larger portions of the population into useless morons who can't compete with automation.
Like it makes sense to put them on disability to some degree. Like if you think of some mentally handicapped man who can only understand things at the level of "pick up bucket, go to river, fill bucket, come back" and has been doing that for 30 years, and then piping gets invented and he's no longer needed, he suddenly goes from able bodied to disabled. He could work, now he can't.
That it's a 59 year old former factory worker or coal miner or other laborer who can't meaningfully adjust to a new job after they got automated out doesn't change the underlying logic here. But still, bad aesthetic.
This is, inevitably, bullshit. The jobs never materialize.
Good, the more jobs necessary for power generation the less efficient it is for society (the workers can now go do something else people want and utility rate increases!) and the more costly it will be for people who need power.
Unfortunately due to NIMBYism, companies have to convince the local shortsighted idiots who don't understand the point of a job is to get something done and not to just give random citizen Joe some money so they'll often over promise on that.
Our power bill goes up even faster than it had been rising before.
Yeah, there's been a huge surge in demand for electricity now what with the data centers and whatever else. New power generation is like a +10 while power demand is a -20 right now and we need to get even more power so it can be like a +25/-20 situation instead. Unfortunately state regulations and local zoning laws are hostile to new construction of basically any kind, so electricity NIMBYism is fucking us over just like housing NIMBYism is screwing over homebuyers and renters.
Entire sections of forest get torn out and replaced with a few half-assed plantings of non-native softwoods.
All energy production is disruptive, so is it much worse than other methods is the important question.
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Cultural war over climate change, which in some ways is also a religious argument for many conservatives who think saying humans can change the world is ridiculous.
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the increasing nostalgiafication of politics and media leading to older jobs like that being seen as better just by default
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General "Working class" fetishism, similar to factory labor.
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Half of conservative culture now is just being reactionary for "liberal tears"
Good news is that in an open market, it really doesn't matter. The best decisions economically will win out over time, and as wind and solar becomes increasingly more viable, it's going to win out more. Texas of all states is the new leader of renewable energy and battery capacity, past even the most left leaning ones because their market is far more free and the electricity companies are making their choices without spending years on bullshit environmental studies or zoning disputes or whatever. And it's not just Texas, four of the top five clean energy states are conservative leaning
To quote that insurance commercial, "Thats not how this works. Thats not how any of this works."
Yes that actually is, to some degree, how it works. The tribes exist as independent sovereign nations under the US's ward and they have some weird things they can do because of this like having their own passports if they want (even if it's not accepted by most other nations) and until 1871 were able to form treaties of their own unlike the states. They can even have their own independent court systems for tribal laws, although in practice most tribes tend to form agreements with the state and county governments in regards to law and the courts.
In 1866 those two groups couldn't just go around raping and pillaging and avoid being hauled into American courts.
About that, even the law that allows for prosecution on tribal land is pretty interesting
(a)Any Indian who commits against the person or property of another Indian or other person any of the following offenses, namely, murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, maiming, a felony under chapter 109A, incest, a felony assault under section 113, an assault against an individual who has not attained the age of 16 years, felony child abuse or neglect, arson, burglary, robbery, and a felony under section 661 of this title within the Indian country, shall be subject to the same law and penalties as all other persons committing any of the above offenses, within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States.
The federal government actively acknowledges tribal sovereignty here and gets around it by basically saying "hey you're your own nations, but we're just gonna come in regardless and prosecute your people the same we would those in our own jurisdiction". It's like if the US says "we're going to invade Venezuela and kidnap + prosecute the president there. Venezuela doesn't belong to us, we're just doing it anyway". That doesn't make the Venezuelan territory under US jurisdiction.
The jurisdiction and history of US law over tribal nations is extremely complex and it doesn't work for the immigration debate unless you're trying to argue that each illegal immigrant creates a shifting sphere of foreign sovereignty on the ground they're currently standing on or something else crazy like that.
magicalkittycat
5d ago
Why some women do? Sure, but bit of a motte and bailey to go from gender war "why are women so dumb" discourse (without acknowledging the same logic used on men would imply they're all brutes) to "this is just about understanding why some abuse victims fall into the abuse"
"Teach rapists not to rape" should apply equally here to women who make dumb or awful decisions, that you're not gonna be able to improve their dumb decisions, unless we take the claim that women in general are expected to have more agency as true and thus improving stupid women's ability to stay away from abusers is more effective than improving abusive men.
magicalkittycat
5d ago
It has been made clear enough that he's terrible; the question currently discussed is not how to reform such men, but how to reform such women.
But if the men can't be reformed why should we expect that the women can unless we're saying women have higher agency?
magicalkittycat
5d ago
I find it really quite interesting in that a story about a really terrible abusive man, the question posed is "what is wrong with women?" for her mistake of being with him. Should we just treat guys like they don't have any agency or something, and it's all up to the women to treat men like dangerous wild animals? And it's the women's failure when they don't treat men like apes incapable of change?
Like yes, it's obviously a dumb thing to do but if we were to blame the entire categories for the behavior of one person in them, why can't we blame men equally for his abusive behavior as you do women for her dumb behavior?
Imane Khelif isn't trans, they are at worst intersex. Someone like her, raised as a girl since birth in a trans hostile country, would have also been seen as such throughout basically all of history. It is in fact a modern idea to privilege genes and chromosomes (only discovered in the last century) over outer genitalia among intersex individuals in determining if they're men or women. There are plenty examples of intersex individuals being regarded as female at birth like this, and it is only until recently, because genetics itself is a recent field, where a case like Semenya or Khelif would have been contested as not being truly female.
Trans athletes aren't rare.
In the Olympics there has only been one. There have been various intersex athletes, but only one who is traditionally trans, and also who came in last place too funnily enough.
One big issue is the difference between the, for lack of better labels, the meaningfully transsexual transgender person, and the the "trender" transgender person.
The meaningfully transexual trans person, who has typically had their feelings since they were young despite lack of input, maintain their desires to transition over long spans of time and put effort into presenting themselves in the world as their identified gender are rare. Like really really rare.
The recent Kansas decision to pull changed drivers licenses actually gave us some workable numbers on it. Apparently 1700 people are impacted by the decision, and chatgpt pulls up "Active driver’s licenses (most recent full year reported): 2,099,927 licenses."
That makes for less than one tenth of a percent of trans people who had the gender marker changed (assuming there wasn't even any data input false positives which at such rarity I wouldn't be surprised if errors was a significant number of them). Of course not every meaningfully trans person will have had a changed license, and perhaps many of them would have left Kansas before this anyway so there could be a selection effect but even if we doubled or tripled, it's an incredibly small number of people who actually meaningfully transition in that way.
The people who "find their identity" on Tiktok or Instagram or whatever and dye their hair weird colors and also tend to fake being DID/Autistic/tourettes/etc and are just generally "omg I'm so quirky" types seem to be in much greater abundance. Those types definitely seem to be more disproportionately the former explanation, that wanting to disconnect from negative associations with their sex can be a primary motivator for them. It's not the only one, after all they're "teehee I'm so quirky" types trying to stand out and be special in other ways, but it sure does seem to be true of many.
Ideological disclaimer: as a catholic I believe there are only two genders, fixed at birth, but as a transhumanist also I'm in favor of letting anyone, including children, do whatever they want to their own bodies.
I don't really think the debate about gender is even that useful. As Ymeskhout wrote about the transgender sticker fallacy and Scott Alexander has wrote about before in categories were made for man, while the world might come from a divine power, words and labels don't. I have no issue acknowledging trans people as their identified gender so long as they are living generally within that space. Words and labels also can shift depending on context. In the context of giving birth, trans women are not women, but in the context of what section of the store they buy their clothes or what gender roles they try to match in society, they are. This applies to cis women as well, a woman born without a uterus is not a woman in the context of giving birth either, as it does not apply to them. Another way to look at it would be like a sticker of a door on a plastic car. In the context of opening and closing it as an entrance into the toy vehicle, it's not a door. In the context of appearances it is a door. Vice versa, a secret passage in a bookshelf is a door for the context of being an opening and closing entrance, but not a door in the context of appearance.
We see this right now with the Olympics banning people with the SRY gene. While it's definitely been touted in the media and online as a ban on trans people, the real world effect will almost entirely fall on the intersex competitors given the rarity of trans athletes at the Olympics (one in ~twenty years). Someone like Imane Khelif who for basically her whole life has lived in the context of being a woman, in a country that is very hostile and violent towards trans people too, is now considered not woman in the context of the Olympics and among many activists pushing for the ban. So Imane Khelif is in a state of flux, she's a woman according to one of the most trans hostile countries on the planet and has been that her whole life, and yet considered a man for the Olympics.
And chromosome arguments fall flat trying to reconcile this, because the idea of man and woman in society existed far before genetics and chromosomes were ever known about. A case like Khelif is not just considered a woman by Algeria, she would have been considered a woman by basically everyone in history before (at the very earliest) the 1900s when sex chromosomes were discovered. It can be argued that Khelif should count as a man in the context of the Olympics, but expanding that much further is actually against the traditional usage of these terms.
Regardless I agree with the end point, I think people (including children) should be allowed essentially maximal freedom to themselves (as long as it is of course, to themselves and not others) and if someone makes a mistake or fuckup then that is the price of freedom. Allowing the notion that big government has any moral claim to speak over me and my decisions and my autonomy is something I will not ever do. If someone gets addicted to drugs and dies, that is their fault. If someone overeats, that is their fault. If someone takes hormones or puberty blockers and then regrets it later, that is their fault. And when I do things I regret, that is my fault. If someone is too intellectually retarded to be held responsible for their own decisions, then they should be held in a mental hospital or the like. If paying privately, the most a doctor should really have to do is a consent form so it's known that the patient made their own choice and assurances against fraud (not providing the agreed upon treatments) and negligence. If paid by insurance then they meet the insurance standards too.
First and foremost, this doesn't seem to follow geo politically. It seems to be a phenomenon that's unique to specific societies, like the US, and this "progress" is not uniform nor takes place everywhere.
I'd say it's taking place in most places. Outside of like the hardest of Muslim countries, women wearing pants and showing skin is basically the default now. Things like rock music/hip-hop/etc are listened to around the world. A lot of the examples I gave apply worldwide. Not every country is going to have equal "progress" on everything. That Japan still widely shuns tattoos in a way the US doesn't anymore, does not mean they aren't still warming up to them and becoming more lax on the topic.
Most of east Asia is much more "racist" & "sexist" than the west. China is insanely oppressive and controlling, they are not democratic in the slightest. Out of wedlock births are few and are stigmatized in those societies, they do not allow gay marriage.
It's true they don't allow gay marriage, but that's not the only thing related to homosexuality to begin with. They decriminalized it a few decades ago for instance. And polling seems to suggest same sex marriage is also getting more widely accepted too.
Results show that about half of the respondents agreed that same-sex couples can be capable parents (48%), should be able to marry (52%), and that they would personally attend a same-sex wedding (46%). An additional 37% somewhat agreed with each positive attitude toward same-sex families.
So even this is still changed in a way that just a few decades ago would be considered insanely subversive in China.
Ukraine is currently "losing" its war with Russia.
That Ukraine has been able to put up this incredible fight against Russia, long considered one of the world's superpowers that was in intense competition with the US, for years on end is by itself an accomplishment is it not? I remember how it was expected Kyiv would fall in days.
What would be the morally correct position on the Israel-Palestine conflict? Can we say that history is bending towards Palestine, Israel, or a 2 state solution?
The Taliban taking over in Afghanistan
Again, that it doesn't apply to every conflict and country at all times equally doesn't stop it being generally true that things are a lot more "progressive" than the past on a lot of different topics worldwide.
The long arc of morality doesn't mean for every topic, but in general progressive movements do tend to win out over more conservative ones. They win out so strong that you don't even think about it much anymore, at least for these examples of the US.
Women wear pants and show skin above the knee, they work in leadership roles, and marital rape is illegal nationwide.
Universal suffrage is the default of democracy around the world now, even the pretend democracies of Russia or North Korea often act as if everyone can meaningfully vote instead of just property owners.
Left handed people are not only left unbeaten, but left handed products are readily available to buy for anyone who needs them.
Barely anyone cares about interracial marriage or gay marriage anymore. There is a small movement to try to shift the needle but it's not mainstream.
Tattoos are now widely accepted (within reason) and tons of people have them without much societal pushback or shame anymore.
The Catholics are just considered a normal form of Christianity now (our VP is a Catholic even!) Jews/Italians/Irish/etc are now considered an ordinary form of white instead of as foreign criminals and scum. Most blue laws go essentially unenforced nowadays, with alcohol as the only meaningful vestigial exception in some states.
Casual clothing is now commonplace in many work environments, with people even wearing branded tshirts and the like.
Jazz/rock/hip-hop/metal/etc are just considered normal forms of music instead of the work of Satan corrupting our kids.
There are a ton of things like this, victories that are either so absolute no one even considers going back (like women in pants, oppressing the Irish, or opposing rock music) or have opposition that is niche and opposed even within "traditional values" groups.
It's the same way the comment before me pointed out, even religion has changed. They're more accepting that the earth is round, heliocentrism, that germ theory exists, that changelings and witches aren't commonplace in the world. Many religions are even accepting of (or at least softer in opposing) the ideas of evolution and the earth being billions of years old. Many believe in no fault divorce, Trump himself has been married three times. And like the other example I gave above, left handed people aren't oppressed. We have a Republican presidency where one of the main advisors and figures in it (Elon Musk) was an unashamed fornicator who barely disguises his atheism, and no one cared. The average American Christian today is a sinful heretic to someone a thousand years ago.
magicalkittycat
14d ago
While sea mines are not land mines, they are both indiscriminate area denial weapons that have significant risks of civilian casualties that can last long after the end of the conflict that caused their emplacement.
I don't know what type of mines they're using, but it's quite possible they are discriminate. The concept of remote controlled mines has been around since the 1800s. Depending on the mine you can turn them off, order them to self destruct, program them to pursue certain ships, etc.
I doubt Iran is using the highest tech mines available, but it's also not that much of a complex technology either that it's possible they have some way to deal with it later.
magicalkittycat
15d ago
Especially important to note that most shutdowns and closures were state/local government decisions to begin with, it wasn't the president deciding things, it was your state legislatures and your local mayor/city council. Heck Biden was even trying to get schools to reopen right after inauguration but it didn't really matter much because school lockdowns are and were mostly a local government decision. Not to mention the staffing shortages, sometimes even schools that had previously reopened had to go back to remote because they just didn't have the people. Some states were even mobilizing their national guard because of staffing issues.
Polling from the early time period also suggest that the lockdowns were widely popular too. Even four years later, public support for closures and mandatory masking in public during the pandemic were popular among the majority of Americans looking back.
So not only do you not have control over the lockdowns from a federal perspective, but you're also dealing with most Americans wanting them at the time to begin with!
magicalkittycat
15d ago
I think it is a fair baseline that COVID must follow the laws of physics and therefore spreads through some kind of physical means. And thus if that physical means wasn't possible (either through blocking it enough, distance, or other factors), it would not be able to spread.
That a full lockdown is impractical, comes with severe downsides, and isn't worth the costs doesn't change that.
magicalkittycat
15d ago
China actually did succeed pretty well for quite a while, and we can know this by looking at the surge that happened after they ended lockdowns.
Maybe but that is a lot harder to empirically examine given that real life fisticuffs basically does not exist anymore. Even in simulated rule governed combat like judo and wrestling, there's not many serious cases of elite judo woman vs couch potato guy to be examining. To begin with if untrained couch potato guy is participating in a wrestling or judo event, he probably isn't actually typical untrained couch potato guy. Because that guy is at home on his couch instead of participating in combat sports. But a quick search found that yes, trained woman can beat men, not just couch potato men but presumably beginner/intermediate men.
Here's a pro MMA woman who beat two would be robbers with knives. This is apparently a trained female grappler vs an untrained man
The only empirical thing we really have to go off here is the bench presses, deadlifts, curls, etc cause those deal with raw numbers and are actually comparable. And those, unlike the hypothetical thought experiment of what you think might happen, do point to trained intermediate women >.untrained men in many areas including some real life examples. The data is imperfect, the rarity of examples isn't great, but it definitely seems better than a completely imagined scenario like your argument as evidence.
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