netstack
Texas is freedom land
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User ID: 647
netstack
Texas is freedom land
11d ago
Texas recently started enforcing HB 1181, a viewer-age-verification law. The sort which intends to make it very annoying to distribute pornography if and only if one intends to run a business in the U.S.. Hosting a server out of Czechoslovakia is, as I understand it, still untouchable.
Pornhub’s parent company responded by cutting all services to Texas. Should a Texan IP address make a request to their site, he will receive instead an angry letter about his lawmakers’ shortsightedness, questionable legal footing, and so on. Other sites have followed suit. The argument goes that 1) the law only hurts the most compliant companies, and 2) it fails a variety of Constitutional protections.
Naturally, it was wildly popular, passing 141-2. It has also survived legal challenges up to the 5th Circuit Court. Even though one of the provisions was struck down as improper government speech, proponents insist that the rest is perfectly above-board.
So far, it’s looking like another step towards pillarization.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
3d ago
Sigh. I suppose I ought to pay it forward.
Please don’t insinuate that people are off their meds. It’s rather antagonistic.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
Ask for help.
Your manager exists to balance the workload in situations like these. Either by handing off one of the secondary clients or by allocating additional help on the big client. You should be able to go to him or her and say “Client A is taking more of my time than expected. Can I get some help?”
This may feel like admitting defeat. It’s not. You’re not in this alone, so use the resources available. Plus, in my experience, leadership likes it when people are communicative about their roadblocks. It makes their job easier.
I don’t know that I can help with anxiety late at night. Other than the usual advice of avoiding caffeine and screens before bed, enforcing a regular sleep schedule, et cetera. I suppose one thing that’s helped me in your situation is resolving on a course of action. I feel better knowing that, in the morning, I have some plan. Doesn’t have to be a perfect one.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
24d ago
Uh, no.
Elaborating is what separates an argument from unbridled booing. And the latter is against the rules.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
26d ago
That exchange project feels like one of the things which people feel the need to talk up, but doesn’t have that much actual effect. Like the ineffective altruists.
But also, I don’t see how it could be bad? It’s absolutely wild how much sortition is involved in the U.S. For a New York resident to visit, I dunno, Dallas—that’s further than Paris-to-Warsaw. The trains are embarrassing, too. We’re firmly in road-trip territory. And the issue is much worse for those who don’t have the disposable income or time to cross the continent for a few days.
I grew up close enough to take an a school field trip to our national capital. I can’t imagine how much of the country never got that chance.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
11d ago
"access to the financial system writ large" has become so utterly critical to doing anything useful that it immediately has a totalizing effect on what anybody can do
Well, when you put it like that…what’s the alternative?
I met someone, once, who’d been working in Saudi Arabia when her employer switched from paying cash to paying checks. She explained that they used to bring in a giant sack of cash on paydays. Now they could turn it into a bookkeeping problem rather than a logistical one.
These enormous institutions developed by providing a valuable service. People wanted to store their savings. They wanted to distribute promises instead of cash. Eventually they wanted all the records generated automatically, without any humans needing to slow the process down. At what point did they move from a private to a public good?
Because the alternative to private banking, with its private right of refusal and freedom of association, is treating it like we do the roads. A central actor has to step in and say “we know this policy is irrational for any of you as individuals, but we’ve judged the total benefit to be greater.” And that’s not going to happen so long as the central “irrationality” is something unpopular as pornography.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
18d ago
I really liked your breakdowns of the characterization. I agree that blockbusters are absolutely willing to toss in stock characters and skimp on realistic human dialogue.
Thing is, stock characters have worked since at least the commedia dell’arte. They’re a very efficient way to skip exposition and set expectations for a character. Anime examples abound. Clearly, a script can have familiar archetypes alongside human dialogue…Can.
My working theory is that the ability of western writers to model other human beings seems stunted. The current crop are narcissists, incompetent, or incapable of basic human empathy.
This feels Too Good To Check. It would be convenient if we could write off the people who produce bad entertainment as moral mutants, but is it likely?
Either that, or whatever they put down doesn't survive peer and funding review.
Now this is probably true. No matter the capabilities of individual writers, there’s got to be some mechanism keeping blockbusters from having good characters. Here’s a few possibilities.
- Scriptwriting is democratic, and the narcissism/incompetence/bias of the modal writers means most scripts end up with bad characterization.
- It’s totalitarian, and the n/i/b of the leading writers blocks off any quality contributions from the proles.
- It doesn’t matter how it’s governed, because everyone involved wants the same thing, but that thing isn’t “good characters.” It’s money, and what looks like n/i/b is actually more cost-effective.
- As any of the above, but laggy: decision-makers still haven’t figured out that their decisions are actually n/i/b. If they knew, they’d choose something else.
I lean towards 3 or 4. It would suck if quality (as we understand it) was different than quality (as the market understands it), but…it also wouldn’t really be unique. If you can’t put a price on it, the market isn’t going to take it into account. Option 4 is more optimistic; maybe that makes it cope? Still, I can’t rule out the idea that these people really want to make something good, and are only temporarily barking up the wrong tree.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
21d ago
I think there’s a lot of space between kayfabe and total war. Wiping Israel off the map was never on the table—Iran’s goals have to be more measured. They might actually be satisfied with everyone in Tel Aviv needing to change their pants.
That said, the style probably was more important than the casualties. Announcing “the matter is concluded” via tweet? Is the Trump administration writing their press playbook?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
24d ago
Israel's motive and tactics for dealing with the Gazans generally, but especially the impending Rafah Aktion, mirror the Revisionist interpretation of the resettlement of Jews in Eastern Europe.
The Revisionists have spent decades trying to make the Holocaust look as tame as possible, emphasizing all the ways that Germany could have been doing it as a perfectly normal resettlement policy. Then when Israel does anything resembling resettlement, what do you know, suddenly that’s super evil and completely unjustified. Oh, how the tables have turned!
Is that really the best you’ve got?
I have only ever noticed Revisionists really talk about Revisionism.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing. You are remarkably consistent.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
4d ago
Yeah, the more I read into this, the more popular Title IX looks to have been. Passed 88-6 in the senate? 275-125 in the house? Politics were different back then.
I get the impression that the same spirit which would lead to A Rape on Campus made a lot of otherwise-supportive people very uncomfortable.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
Seems well-written to me.
I can’t say I agree with the stages, necessarily? Especially 1 and 2. “Client ID” describes a phase in some movements, where adoption doesn’t pick up until elites grab the idea. But it doesn’t fit others. Look at Christianity, which didn’t gain elite support until it was firmly established among the periphery. It skips stage 2 entirely, too, since most of its institutions don’t develop until after regional hegemony. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it started from stage 2.
Have you considered a comparison with Scott’s barber pole of fashion?
- Class A adopts signals from a (much) lower Class C
- Class B could imitate those signals, but they’d risk looking like Class C
- Class C sticks to imitating Class B since they have no chance of passing as Class A
- Class K is suitable for use on grease fires
Pretty similar to the g/m/s model, except all the levels have a similar level of awareness. There’s no clueless class existing only to get played by the next step up; instead, each group acts according to its own intuition. But you still get segmented behavior if there’s enough space to distinguish A from C.
So, does this apply to political causes?
I’m going to argue “yes.” Maybe that’s because I’m an inveterate mistake theorist and I don’t like the idea that individuals are driven by class interest. Personal incentives, though? Fair game. I think you can explain a lot of political phenomena as (counter) signaling without giving too much credit to the sociopaths.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
8d ago
netstack
Texas is freedom land
10d ago
Man, I really enjoyed the summary, especially Gorsuch reducing a professional to a stammering mess. Warms the soul.
Then you had to go and ruin it by tilting at this weird caricature of “New Lefty Science” and “the Lefties That Be.” Have you considered that maybe people you don’t like can be right?
- Sotomayor asks: if this ordinance is not applied to people who are incidentally sleeping outside, but only if the police think they have no home address, is it really legalizing conduct?
- Kagan adds that enforcement rests on having a home, which is a status, not a conduct.
- Evangelis counters that Robinson featured no actus reus, but this situation does: camping. Or really sleeping outside, due to the specifics of the injunction.
- Jackson reasons that if you’re relying on the act of sleeping, then you are touching on a “basic function”. And that’s what gets proportionality protections from the 8th.
- Evangelis avoids a follow-up about eating in public by arguing that a “necessity defense” would come up before the 8th.
- After some going around in circles, Roberts shelves the subject.
Which part of this do you have a problem with? Because it looks, to me, like a legitimate debate over the limits of the 8th. The hypotheticals are relevant. The questions are clear. No digressions about historical richness or other sources of vibes. Just “why is this different from Robinson?”
I will try to review more of the summary later. So far, I don’t see what you’re so sarcastic about.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
11d ago
…there is one?
About 4 million Americans are on parole or probation, compared to something like 1 million in prison and another million in jail. They’re being monitored specifically to reduce the chance of recidivism. In the meantime, sure, they still get to ride your subway.
What’s your threshold for “manifestly incapable,” anyway? How should we decide when someone has crossed the line and gets (permanent?) exile instead of prison? I think it looks a lot like sentencing guidelines, probation, counseling, all these other interventions we already do—except at the last resort we boot them to the Montana Gulag instead of the chair.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
12d ago
Ken state
The Barbie movie has left a lasting impression on our cultural consciousness.
In all seriousness, I don’t think protests have to have direct efficacy. The important thing is when people in power think about aiding Palestine/Israel, they think “people care enough about this to push the envelope of speech.” It’s literally about sending the message.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
25d ago
Hello, and welcome to the Motte!
I recommend familiarizing yourself with our rules, especially those about “proactively providing evidence” and “building consensus.” Asserting that no one has ever held any expectations for a country is the kind of hot take which cries out for a more elaborate defense. By all means, I’d be interested in seeing that laid out.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5d ago
Were you already religious?
Because that strategy begs the question of why people have been falling away for decades. Otherwise you’re betting on a losing horse. Fine for getting a local support network, but I don’t see it scaling like the more ethnonationalist examples in that essay.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
10d ago
Man, I dunno what happened here, but chill out.
One day ban.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
11d ago
I was sure the “lacking value” argument was specifically addressed in a U.S. Supreme Court case. Is this taken from the pixiv announcement?
Edit: it is, but in exactly the opposite way that I thought. Miller v CA.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
16d ago
Hey! Morrowind’s faces were…uh…they were definitely the best part of the character models.
Point taken. I agree that it’s plausible, I’m more like 70-30 against. Maybe 60-40, at this point.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
21d ago
This’d be a lot more impressive if the OP hadn’t already edited with the nothingburger.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
4d ago
Oh. My mistake.
Title IX is one of the pillars of American civil rights law, which had previously only covered employment. The 60s were an extremely liberal time for civil rights and social programs, but they’d emphasized racial and economic lines first. Title IX was part of a broader egalitarian push.
Deus Ex released in May 2000 with memorable writing, interesting choices, and a deliriously complicated setting. Between the cool factor and the memes, it’s remained relevant for decades.
Daikatana also released in May 2000, featuring…none of these things. It’s best known today for its questionable marketing.
I don’t take this as evidence of a trend in game writing or production. Our impressions are formed by outliers rather than the mean or median or even modal game for a year. We still get vivid, cohesive experiences from developers with a vision. Have you played Disco Elysium yet?
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