mdurak
10mo ago
the regime had everyone's opinion under control because they could make sure that all three news channels were broadcasting the correct messages
How did the US government forcefully insert bias in news broadcasting before?
mdurak
10mo ago
Do lawyers lie? They try to craft different narratives with the available facts at hand, sure, but I don’t see that as dishonest.
mdurak
10mo ago
I don't think this was your intention, but that statement's logical extreme is authoritarianism. "We can't rely on people to make good decisions, therefore, we have to take aware their ability to make those decisions."
Again, I don't think this was your intention, so I'm not going to hammer that point.
I appreciate that. What I was trying to get at was that if you have a society which assumes most people will act in a way contrary to their nature, that society is not going to work well. Eg the communists and how they expected people to contribute “according to their abilities” without responding to incentives. I don’t know if there’s a better way to word it, but to me you're expecting something similar, of the average person to practice rational discipline instead of succumbing to baser biological drives.
I believe that for much of human history, chastity was a valued thing
Chastity was more reasonable when people were regularly getting married off during their horny teenage years. Not so much these days when many are putting off marriage until their thirties, if ever.
Even back then, with all the pious Christian emphasis on family values, there was plenty of infidelity. So if we could magically make chastity a thing again, there’d probably be less sex, but I’d doubt the effect would be that major.
But let’s assume that we could greatly reduce the amount of sex in society by shaming those who have too many partners. How does less sex make society better?
mdurak
10mo ago
Teaching abstinence will not directly solve the problem, but it will open up a new approach to directly solving the problem.
Fair enough. I actually do agree with this take. But
Is "eat less / eat better" invalid as a prescription? Is the hardwired need for food - especially carbohydrates - any less compelling than the sex drive?
That is why I don’t believe advice that’s valid for individuals is workable for society. The more you design a society to rely on individual discipline to function well, the more dysfunctional it’s going to become. Humans by and large haven’t yet evolved to be more disciplined over baser needs, although perhaps the 21st century would exert greater selection pressure than usual. But not if a ban on abortions cause greater numbers of children to be born from those who can’t control their sex drives.
mdurak
11mo ago
How is it not working? They’re losing some land here and there, but otherwise appear to be attritioning the Russians pretty well.
Besides, I thought we were only sending over surplus reserve equipment. Is there any indication that US military readiness has been meaningfully reduced due to this aid?
mdurak
11mo ago
What, go without sex? Yes. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.
I don’t think it’s practical to expect humans, which natural selection has caused many to be horny, to avoid fucking entirely. And if they do fuck recreationally, there’s bound to be accidents.
Even Christian teens “sin” with premarital sex. I don’t see abstinence as a workable strategy for anyone but the asexuals and others who don’t enjoy or care for sex.
mdurak
11mo ago
Great list, thanks. I suppose Tibetan independence after the collapse of the Qing was never internationally recognized, so legally that’s more of an internal matter than an international annexation.
mdurak
11mo ago
What would a “serious” attitude look like to you? In other words, what would you expect of western elites instead?
mdurak
11mo ago
It appears the Ukrainians would disagree strongly with you on that.
Besides, I don’t see how the morality of the war is any different even if they are the same ethnicity. Would Colombia be justified in invading Venezuela?
mdurak
11mo ago
countries even mostly get away with it from time to time
Since WWII, who’s gotten away with land grabs via military invasion? I’m only aware of Russia in Crimea, and even that was more of a coup than a traditional military invasion and occupation like the War of 1870.
mdurak
11mo ago
I took his claim to mean that overall crime rates as measured across the US would be lower than it’d be without immigrants. I’m not even parsing the data, I’m just not seeing how your claim — even if true, which it may well be — invalidates his claim.
mdurak
11mo ago
Why are there multiple SSC culture war spin-offs? If even SSC readers can’t avoid political polarization to this extent, I don’t see any hope for the rest of the population
mdurak
11mo ago
Very well. That stat appears to come from the paper LAW-ABIDING IMMIGRANTS:
THE INCARCERATION GAP BETWEEN IMMIGRANTS AND THE US-BORN, 1870–2020. On page 24 of the PDF, the chart appears to show an incarceration rate of 1,200 per 100k first generation immigrants in 2020, versus 2,600 per 100k native born. (How the hell do you escape a tilde on this site?) The breakdown shows an incarceration rate of perhaps ~1,900 per 100k first generation Mexican and Central Americans (this would presumably be the closest category for Haitians).
According to this page, Springfield hasn't been very safe lately:
The 2022 crime rate in Springfield, OH is 573 (City-Data.com crime index), which is 2.3 times greater than the U.S. average. It was higher than in 97.9% U.S. cities.
Looking at the crime type breakdowns, assaults have gone way up since 2020, while rapes perhaps did a reversion to the mean. Other crimes don't appear to have meaningfully increased in volume.
Meanwhile, the demographics put it at 77% white and 1% Latino as of the 2020 population of 65k. Obviously, the demographics have changed quite a bit since then, with 15,000 Haitians settling there since 2020.
Overall, I don't know if we have enough data to do a proper apples-to-apples comparison. One specific type of crime rose from 2020 to 2022, but we don't know when most Haitians came in from 2020 - 2024, nor do we know the breakdown of those crimes by ethnicity over the years (it appears the town has had an economic downturn, so how would we know the crimes are because of the Haitians and not because of disgruntled native workers with nothing better to do?).
In any case:
High crime parts of the US drag the average up, and while it's technically true immigrants have a lower-than-average crime rate, that's small consolation for communities that aren't in that dragging-the-average-upwards cluster.
I don't see how this invalidates the statistic. Are immigrants settling disproportionately in formerly peaceful areas that now have more crime than before? That would seem surprising to me, given that I mostly see immigrants in the metropolitan cities rather than in the rural countryside, and big cities have much higher crime rates. But by all means, if you have evidence that shows that the statistic is misleading, please do show it.
mdurak
11mo ago
It turns out that one appears to be true:
As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and non- binary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so?
It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates. I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.
mdurak
11mo ago
Wouldn’t Swifties be priced in the polls already? How many Taylor Swift fans are Trump supporters who’d change their votes based on her endorsement?
Thanks, that’s just what I was looking for. The Fairness Doctrine has long since been repealed though. Is there much to suggest that this was more than an isolated case?
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