naraburns
nihil supernum
No bio...
User ID: 100
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
It's not only a gaming platform, that's why.
Thanks--today I learned!
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
This, along with other comments explaining to me that Twitch does more than video game streaming, was very helpful. Thank you!
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
I'm confused. Enough people were showing NSFW material Twitch thought was inappropriate that they reversed course. This seems quite different from your description of humans trying to become "teenage-presenting (cat?)girls."
I'm confused too, I guess.
My comment about Fisherian runaway was related to the AI stuff... like, if lewds are permitted and lewds get clicks, then yeah you're gonna get camgirls but also (I assume) you're going to get camboys using AI filters to present as camgirls for the views. But if that's not what was raising the AI concerns at Twitch then I guess I misunderstood something.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
When people say there were no WMDs, this is what they're saying. That it was bullshit and misleading what they did, that it was a lie. They're not really making a formal statement about whether the chemical weapons that were found are or aren't "of mass destruction".
Well, yes, but the fact that "people" do the motte-and-bailey thing constantly isn't really an excuse, to my mind. Saying things that are literally false but directionally true is something that bothers me a lot. Maybe that makes me an autist or whatever, but I am entirely comfortable that my way is better.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
What fraction of twitch streamers do you think are involved in this "Fisherian runaway?" What fraction of, say, the top 100 or 1000 streamers?
I'm going to go with "Enough that Twitch felt the need to substantially revise its policy twice in two days."
You don't seem to think this is a big deal, and probably that's true, but it's clearly a big enough deal.
Of course, on seeing this news I immediately wondered why it would count as "punishing" women to prevent them from doing something men don't generally have the option of doing (that is, making money by flashing breasts). Why don't we say it "levels the playing field" to prevent women from using their sex appeal to crush their competitors on a gaming platform? I was going to do a great Simpsons callback and everything, "Twitch became a hardcore pornography platform so gradually I didn't even notice," I had this whole post I was going to write about the sexual appeal of females versus males, maybe do a little amateur evo-psych ("as a treat!")--
--and then the whiplash hit.
Twitch Reverses Policy Allowing ‘Artistic Nudity,’ Citing AI’s Ability to Create Realistic Images
Here is Twitch's reversal of its... reversal? The meat is straightforward:
Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium. This restriction does not apply to Mature-rated games.
I guess someone realized that if you allow streamers to turn your site into OnlyFans with Vidya, then the women are going to drop their tops and the men are going to just... use filters? (I don't actually know, I don't use Twitch because I play video games and have no interest in watching others do so, but I am decrepit and out of touch so whatever. I have an Amazon Prime account so sometimes I pop over to Twitch if there's an incentive or something but otherwise it's a mystery to me.)
Now I'm left pondering the apparent Fisherian runaway of human beings trying to become--virtually, at least--teenage-presenting (cat?)girls as quickly as possible. I hadn't previously considered the impact of AI on parasocial human relationships, and now I'm having a hard time considering anything else. But I also have to wonder--is the new policy re-sexist? Will it make any difference at all?
EDIT: From the helpful comments below, today I learned that Twitch is not just a video game streaming site, but also streams other activities like art creation; that the AI nudity concerns are not limited to filters/avatars but to art being produced on Twitch; and that Twitch's reverse-course was likely driven at least as much by AI "nudification" concerns as anything. I remain interested in the thought processes that led to the first change-in-policy, and in knowing what (if anything) actually happened on the server side to cause the rapid about-face! But I appreciate having the bits I did not understand explained to me.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
The WMD hoax was engineered by Zionists in the American government
Single-issue posting is officially against the rules. Your cooldown on "Jews did it" arguments has not adequately expired, so I'm banning you for three days.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
I'd be very interested in @2rafa's take on this, because this has become a gigantic political pet peeve for me. Even now, decades later, I hear people drop "Iraq WMDs was a lie" so casually, but I personally know veterans who were there in Iraq dealing with actual WMDs. It wasn't a fabrication; at worst, someone overstated the evidence (in much the way that people say "genocide" to imply mass murder even though technically mass relocation falls under the most widely accepted global definition of genocide). I don't even find it difficult to imagine that everyone was being honest, and the mess was just the result of inconsistent expectations surrounding words with different technical versus rhetorical meanings.
But those on the conservative side, as you note, seem disinclined to say "well, there were WMDs but they probably weren't of a kind or condition that was worth the trouble," while the progressive side has just gone right on beating the "there were no WMDs" drum. Truth is the first casualty of (culture) war.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
"Ethnically American" is a retarded statement when applied to anyone who didn't have ancestors dwelling on the continent before Columbus showed up
I don't think so, though I would not personally limit "ethnically American" to borderers or even to European stock. One reason your claim doesn't hold up is that "Hispanic" is the most widely-recognized ethnicity in the Americas, and all it means is "descended from Spanish (and maybe Portugese) settlers of the New World." Most Hispanic people are additionally descended from aboriginal Americans, but many are distinguishable from Old World Europeans only by the accent of their Spanish.
Remember that "ethnicity" is a word that was added to the English language less than one hundred years ago, and was not even a dictionary entry until 1972. It was intended to replace "dated" (the source says "tainted") terms like race, nation, and minority. From the link:
Today, “ethnicity” tends to describe any group that is characterized by a distinct sense of difference owing to culture and descent.
People who say they are "ethnically American" today are broadly asserting that they experience a distinct sense of difference owing to culture and descent. You appear to essentially be using "ethnicity" as a synonym for the older concept of "race." Which you're free to do, but it kind of violates the whole point of the word's coining. Which you're additionally free to disagree with, if your focus is more rooted in DNA etc., but you should then be at least conscious of the controversy.
Certainly as used by KMC, it carries a not even veiled implication that they're somehow more American than the rest of them.
I suspect this is partly due to the overlapping meanings of "American." Even Scott Alexander has noticed that "American" tends to tag the "red tribe" in at least some contexts. Of course, it is also the abbreviated name of two continents, and one nation, so using as the name of an ethnicity that is predominantly of European descent is clearly going to be fraught. As usual, when seeking clarity it's probably best to taboo our words--but of course, asking a large group of people to stop using their preferred ethnic tag tends to go over like a lead balloon.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
please stop reading dystopian fiction and watching anime
This is not a helpful, insightful, or interesting response--it's just a sneer. You have establishing a long history of low effort antagonism so I'm banning you for a week. Expect this to begin escalating sharply if you don't shape up.
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
Please write as though everyone is reading and you would like them to be involved in the conversation. "Who cares what $GROUP thinks" is not permissible rhetoric here.
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
This text was linked some time ago, and it is quite silly.
Is it? You don't appear to have read it.
There is very significant difference that I have no some slave owner that may rape me, take all my stuff, sell me 200kmn away, flog me, forbid me to leave specific village or tell me that I am now obligated to do unpleasant job XYZ for 18 hours a day. Taxation is not like any of these things.
The text clearly accounts for all of this. All you seem to be saying is that you don't think #9 is slavery. What about #8, #7, etc.? The point of the text is not that taxation is slavery, it's that it is surprisingly difficult to specify, from a moral perspective, where slavery begins or ends.
Payment for the services which allow you earn that income doesn’t do it for you?
Which government services "allow" me to earn income? At best I suppose the provisioning of a fiat currency might qualify, but I'm not really sold on fiat currency being an improvement over known alternatives. Since government monetary policy is not typically crafted to benefit me (specifically), but to benefit banks and other large stakeholders, the absolute strongest steelman I can think of for fiat currency is that it creates a sort of "trickle down" effect where I benefit incidentally. Beyond that, stuff like the roads I travel to get to work, or the police I (basically never) rely on to keep my workplace safe, are all either privatizable, or easily provisioned through more direct means (e.g. tolls or vehicle purchase taxes or the like).
Or is it a sense of double-dipping with taxes on consumption?
Maybe? Nozick's "Tale of the Slave" captures the problem reasonably well. I don't mind paying for services I use. But if you split my "share" of income taxes proportionally between all government programs, at least 50% of that money is just being redistributed to people and programs who don't deserve my money. For every hour I work, I spend about five minutes enslaved to someone else's cause--causes that are not only unnecessary to the continuation of my community, but are in many cases (e.g. federal funding to Planned Parenthood, military incursions driven by sentiment rather than defensive or even economic considerations) things I regard as actively harmful to my community and to the world. I am told that this is why we have the democratic process, so I can have a "say" in how my money is spent, but realistically my "say" is worthless, and I don't think I should have only a 1/150,000,000 say in how my life is spent.
I’m having a hard time imagining why the income tax would be less justifiable than any other form of tax.
Because it's just stealing. Person A has $$$, so take it away and give in to person B. "Person B needs it more!" So? We don't actually redistribute money based on need, need is the excuse we give for redistributing money based on the political priorities of the powerful. Property taxes bug me (since they ultimately end with property confiscation) but at least they are mostly attached to services that make the property useable. Vehicle taxes, or even mileage or road taxes, are at least mostly attached to related services. Sales tax makes some sense to me insofar as we do have a shared currency, military operations keeping shipping lanes safe, etc. Even some of the more paternalistic stuff, like Social Security tax, is at least more justifiable that income tax, because (at least in theory) the money being confiscated is for a specific identifiable purpose directly related to the earner's well-being.
But income tax is just straight wage theft. It lacks even the patina of paternalism. People who pay income tax are just being milked by the government, in substantial measure for the purpose of outright buying votes from the poor. Basically every extant form of taxation I can think of is more justifiable than income tax. Which is not to say that I am especially bullish on other forms of taxation, but I'm not an anarcho-libertarian. I'm okay with sensible, relevant taxation, but income tax does not even remotely meet that threshold.
One one hand, it is true that the IRS cannot and does not audit everyone, or send all delinquent accounts to some form of collections. It is also true that they are disinterested in de minimis settlements from judgment-proof citizens, i.e. they're not coming after you for a $5 error (though they might send a letter about it!).
On the other hand, it is also true that there are things you can do that their computer systems will now notice more or less automatically, which will substantially increase your risk of an audit and/or collection activity. People can, and do, get hit with wage garnishment and even jail time for unpaid accounts.
I have never been able to think of a good moral argument for income or capital gains taxes; sales taxes possibly, certain limited property taxes maybe, but income and capital gains taxes are just straight theft. So please don't imagine I have any sympathy for the IRS when I say: just pay the IRS what you owe under the law as written. Unless you are at least a centi-millionaire for whom the cost of legal defense is arguably less than the possible savings, there are very few situations where I can imagine the risk outweighing the reward.
Now you might say--"but I don't know what I owe, because 'estimated taxes' are bullshit!" I sympathize, I really, really do. The fact that a single windfall can result in a year or more of the IRS asking you to pre-pay your taxes based on unrealized income you can't possibly predict is incredibly abusive. But so long as you pay a plausibly good faith estimate, you will have done something defensible. And also remember that the IRS doesn't (usually?) escalate to "jail time"--the first thing they do is demand their protection money, and the second thing they do is add penalties on top of that. So if you underpay your estimated taxes, there's a chance they'll hit you with a penalty for it.
Setting up a shady small business and taking deductions can indeed reduce your apparent tax burden, but it also exponentially increases your chances of an audit (and the penalties you will incur in the process).
Good luck!
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
Top posts need mod approval and the mod team only currently exists in American time zones. I've approved your post, so now it's visible to everyone.
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
Oh! Well, thank you for teaching me something new today! I find regional idioms endlessly fascinating.
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
Is this a correction? Did I misquote you? My best guess is that you are saying it should be
the journalist has remarkably little faith in their own opinions to get in the marketplace of ideas
but that's not what your comment actually says, and I don't see any other obvious candidates for correction.
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
if you are gonna side with savages to litigate trivial matters like the fact that people won't vote for self-described atheists, you deserve to be wiped out and remembered only as an enemy of humanity, or of the only part of it worth anything anyway
This is far too antagonistic, even framed as a hypothetical. The bar for arguing that any person or group literally deserves death and/or damnatio memoriae is high, though perhaps permissible when accompanied by sufficient effort; arguing that someone you are talking to here personally deserves such things for things they've said here is a hard no. You appear to be new here so I won't hit you with a ban straightaway, but please understand that this is a banworthy offense.
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
2 players:
Patchwork (short and very light)
7 Wonders Duel (short and medium depth)
War of the Ring (or Star Wars Rebellion if sci-fi is more your jam) (long)
2-3 players:
Splendor (short and light)
Race for the Galaxy (short and medium depth)
Le Havre (long)
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
(I know, I know, all views from all places, etc. But just as a drive-by nazism or pedoism wouldn't be welcome, it'd be cool if porn was in the same category)
Interestingly enough, porn is in the same category--but it is porn that is in the same category, not conversations about porn.
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
My experience is that it is extremely politically biased--on any page where political bias seems likely. This is probably to be expected; "wokism" (or at least a certain strain of it) is arguably just "the unstable populist ideology that emerged from post-smartphone internet memes in the anglophone world" and so is the default ideology of all websites minus those that are explicitly anti-woke (compare Conquest's Laws). Wikipedia is online and not explicitly anti-woke, ergo it has the standard anglophone internet bias (where applicable).
Fortunately--I think!--most Wikipedia pages are not (yet?) politically relevant, and thus often quite useful and more or less devoid of political bias (though not, it bears mentioning, other kinds of bias, for example against any heterodox views on the relevant subject matter). Many people like to remind others that Wikipedia, while useful, should probably not be taken as a definitive or authoritative source of anything. It is my view that this warning is probably wisely heeded, however, in connection with all sources of knowledge.
naraburns
nihil supernum
5mo ago
Just as a bit of meta--I did not create a new thread since the third one did not top 500 comments in a week. There is a "Transnational Thursdays" thread posted each week by @Soriek that is probably the best place for Israel-Gaza discussion outside the CW thread going forward, at least barring any major new developments.
naraburns
nihil supernum
6mo ago
Part of the bizarreness of this entire discussion is all the posters (including you!) making claims along the lines of "no, I can read your mind, you're really trying to teabag modern southerners"
No--that's the claim that was being made. So your response made the conversation proceed roughly in this way:
Claim: Melting down statues is teabagging [modern southerners]!
Response: What the fuck is wrong with teabagging [slavers]?
Except that the word used for the bracketed terms was "outgroup" both times. You did not respond to what was being said; you substituted the argument for your own straw version. I thought it would be easier to just point out that making the point you've made here (two different outgroups are under discussion, maybe it's good to be iconoclastic about one of them) was fine, but actually calling names was not. When you then strawmanned my mod message, too, I got a bit more detailed.
I assure you that most people happy about the melting down are happy for the first reason, not the overly complicated second.
You're certainly allowed to believe that. But you can't assume it in the middle of a conversation with people who disagree, are you certainly can't do so as an excuse to nakedly assert that "some cultures/societies are so execrable that symbolically 'teabagging' them is great." That's too much heat for the amount of actual light you brought to the discussion.
naraburns
nihil supernum
6mo ago
It's very difficult for me to see this post as anything but bad faith apophasis.
We don't typically ban people based on their usernames (after all, what is in a name?) and yet yours is suspicious. Bare links are off-limits; you didn't post a bare link, but copy-pasting most of an article is a near cousin. So you wrote some commentary, but it hardly seems to be effortful commentary--just a dismissal: also suspicious. If someone said "tomorrow, a user is going to make a post that is 90% copy-pasted ZHPL, followed by 10% commentary that is at best a limp-wristed disavowal of the piece," what would I predict was the reason for the post? I would predict it was posted by a troll who either agrees with ZHPL but is pretending they don't, or disagrees with ZHPL but is fishing for damning and sneer-worthy responses from the Motte.
At minimum, this sort of thing is egregiously obnoxious. Please don't.
I felt like this was a surprisingly complex problem when I started reading about it, but your replies (and others) are strengthening that sense dramatically. For want of a less politically-loaded word, "democratization" of technology seems to be taking our species to some pretty weird places already. How much further along this tech tree can we go before Something Breaks?
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