newport
1mo ago
I can echo this. I spent about a year in college smoking basically daily (and a couple years prior probably at least once a week). During this period my tolerance had become high enough gradually enough that it was usually at least a mildly pleasurable experience and only mildly disorienting.
A combination of turning 21 and becoming convinced that daily smoking was making me lazy caused me to pivot to alcohol (not a strict improvement in hindsight) and stop cannabis consumption completely.
I have tried it a handful of times in the years since and every time it has made me painfully anxious and disoriented. I attribute this to both a) me no longer having any tolerance and b) only being offered super high potency cannabis. The latter being because either everyone that presently consumes regularly has red-queen's-raced themselves to the point that they require it to feel anything, or the weaker stuff I started out on no longer exists in appreciable, widely distributed quantities.
newport
2mo ago
I'm just glad my horrible tab accumulation habit finally accomplished something other than occupying ungodly amounts of RAM for once.
newport
2mo ago
My battery went critical the moment I posted this, and instead of resuming from hibernation like usual windows decided it needed to reboot three times in a row to install an update. So the tabs are now lost and all I have are these two raw text blocks.
newport
2mo ago
2/5 thread from roughly 2/9 4am EST to 2/10 6pm EST. Reference time (ie what the timestamps are relative to) is 6pm EST on 2/10. Seems each comment is separated by two blank bullet points. Nesting is obviously broken, and comments that were nested too deep to see without clicking "more comments" are unfortunately absent.
I am pleased to report that this one saved most of the entertaining DMV discussion.
Quantumfreakonomics 23hr ago ChatGPT: The Ultimate Blankface Scott Aaronson coined the term "Blankfaces": "What exactly is a blankface? He or she is often a mid-level bureaucrat, but not every bureaucrat is a blankface, and not every blankface is a bureaucrat. A blankface is anyone who enjoys wielding the power entrusted in them to make others miserable by acting like a cog in a broken machine, rather than like a human being with courage, judgment, and responsibility for their actions. A blankface meets every appeal to facts, logic, and plain compassion with the same repetition of rules and regulations and the same blank stare—a blank stare that, more often than not, conceals a contemptuous smile." Now, this definition isn't quite right, but it's telling that everyone knows exactly what type of person Aaronson is referring to here. Aaronson's mistake is assuming that blankfaces enjoy wielding tyrannical Kafkaesque authority. Blankfaces are blankfaces because they have to be. Someone somewhere told them to be a blankface. Enter ChatGPT. ChatGPT has always been a bit... fickle, but it used to have the common courtesy of giving a first-order approximation of why exactly it refused a request. Sure, you could outmaneuver it in argument, get it to admit that its position doesn't make any sense, and have it stubbornly refuse to change its mind anyways, but it was clear that someone somewhere in the process wanted the user to have relevant information about what they did wrong. A few weeks ago, OpenAI rolled out a new update. I noticed because I was in the middle of a long conversation, asked for something slightly edgy, and recieved a response like: "I'm here to assist with text-based responses and create narratives based on your prompts. If you have any more requests or need assistance with a different question or topic, feel free to let me know!" At first I thought this was a bug in the image generator tool. I had asked for an image as part of all my prompts, and I had been receiving images. Maybe I broke DALL-E integration somehow? It wasn't until about a dozen prompts later that I realized this is the new, "As a large language model developed by OpenAI, I don't have the capability to [X]." It doesn't actually tell you anything. You no longer get any explanation of what you did wrong. It simply ignores your request and starts over. They made the non-sequitur boilerplate worse. They turned ChatGPT into a blankface. This tells us something about the current state of tech-industry AI policy, but more interesting is what it tells us about the nature of blankfaces. Someone somewhere along the chain wanted ChatGPT to be as unhelpful as possible when asked certain questions. I do not think ChatGPT has learned unintentionally to have "a blank stare that, more often than not, conceals a contemptuous smile." This was deliberately programmed in. • •
Absoluto Quantumfreakonomics 4hr ago new
Regarding your Blankface I was immediate reminded of this short which has a funny execution of the idea https://youtube.com/watch?v=42kQsUnS_Eg?si=jqml9Id5I2PztpIA
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Quantumfreakonomics 9hr ago new
A blankface meets every appeal to facts, logic, and plain compassion with the same repetition of rules and regulations and the same blank stare
Speaking as a former minor local government minion, I recognise this person. No, not the blankface (though at every level in every job and situation in life, there are indeed little tin gods who love exerting whatever scrap of power they possess) but the person making the "appeal to facts, logic and plain compassion".
I don't have a fancy label for them unlike Mr. Aaronson (Dr. Aaronson? Professor Aaronson?) since I don't have the creative big intellect he undoubtedly possesses, but every bureaucrat in a public-facing role (indeed, every worker in a public-facing role) has encountered them at some time.
The people who rock up late after the deadline for submission, without the necessary paperwork or supporting documents, who didn't bother applying and want you to fill it all out for them, breathless because they dashed here at the last minute. The ones who want an exception to the "rules and regulations" because, well, they're just that special and exceptional and their case is unique and not at all like the other fifteen people waiting in line, that they are holding up for the past hour because they've been arguing - sorry, I mean "making appeal to facts, logic and plain compassion".
(I would also venture a lot of people here have been stuck in line behind such a person).
The fact that what they want is against the regulations, because they don't qualify? Irrelevant, and besides, have you no compassion for their special, unique case which should get an exception?
The fact that they had three weeks to get this done, and showed up half an hour after the cut-off? Not their fault! They have busy, important lives unlike you, minor official of no consequence, hence being such important people, they deserve an exception!
The fact that if I accept their application, I'll have to do the same for everybody else who also does not qualify? So what, that's nothing to do with them.
The fact that (1) this is against the regulations and (2) I will get into trouble with my boss, my boss's boss, and the department head? So what? That's not their problem. Why are you being so unreasonable?
The fact that I have explained three different times, in three different ways, why your application is defective? Ah, here we go again with the "same repetition of rules and regulations and the same blank stare".
Clearly, the fault cannot lie with me, Important Busy Smart Person With A Life And Impactful Job. It lies with this blankface who is hiding a contemptuous smile as they tyrannically wield the power entrusted in them to make others miserable. Yes, that must be it!
As I said, I don't deny there are people who won't budge an inch because they like making others squirm. But the 'blankfaces', be it in public service or private businesses, often are not doing this to spite you. We'll like to help, we want to help, but we can't because (a) oftentimes the ability to exercise initiative has been deliberately stripped from fears of setting precedent (if you do this, then all the other applicants/clients will want the same, and will go to court to force us to treat them the same - and yes, this does happen) and in order to keep costs down (b) you are the one genuinely at fault because you don't have the necessary supporting documents. This may or may not be your fault, but if the regulations say "must have proof of identity", I can't take your application just because you show me a crumpled envelope with an address on it.
Often times, other people are at fault - I've mentioned on here before when I assisted in processing student grants, and one award was held up because the parents were in a pissing match after the separation and the father just would not provide three lines of notified statement that he was not paying child support. There's nothing I or anyone else can do there, much as we really do want to help.
Aaronson strikes me as the kind of guy who takes things personally - if there's a holdup, it's not because "well, there are screw-ups in systems all the time", it's because that official there wants to tyrannise him just like the Nazis against the Jews and he's going to be dragged off in chains if only that guy could do so, it's because he's Jewish, he knows it:
I almost wanted to say to the police: where have you been? I’ve been expecting you my whole life. And I wanted to say to Dana: you see?? see what I’ve been telling you all these years, about the nature of the universe we were born into?
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Jiro FarNearEverywhere 5hr ago new
Aaronson strikes me as the kind of guy who takes things personally - if there's a holdup, it's not because "well, there are screw-ups in systems all the time", it's because that official there wants to tyrannise him just like the Nazis against the Jews and he's going to be dragged off in chains if only that guy could do so, it's because he's Jewish, he knows it:
I';m reminded of this incident:
https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=3903
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Walterodim Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t Jiro 4hr ago new
Broken record with the below, but:
Vulnerable/Covert: this variant is defined by feelings of shame, envy, resentment, and inferiority (which is occasionally "masked" by arrogance), entitlement, a belief that one is misunderstood or unappreciated, and excessive reactivity to slights or criticism. This variant is associated with elevated levels of neuroticism, psychological distress, depression, and anxiety. In fact, recent research suggests that vulnerable narcissism is mostly the product of dysfunctional levels of neuroticism.
Scott says:
Me, a thief? I felt terrified to be at the beginning of a Kafka story. But if I’m going to be brutally honest about it, I also felt … secretly vindicated in my irrational yet unshakeable beliefs that the laws of probability are broken, capricious horribleness reigning supreme over the universe, I’m despised by a large fraction of the world just for being who I am, and it’s only a matter of time until big, scary armed guys come for me, as they came for so many other nerdy misfits.
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Walterodim Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t FarNearEverywhere 6hr ago new
Irrelevant, and besides, have you no compassion for their special, unique case which should get an exception?
This is the same sort of thing you experience if you've ever done any sort of property management. Plenty of people just kind of shrug at late fees, it's part of the deal if you don't pay on time, but other people really, really want to tell you about why they shouldn't have to owe late fees and it's not their fault. What they fail to understand is that I simply cannot adjudicate hundreds of claims of how this time it's really different, and even if I did have the time, I actually don't care. The reason I'm not going to give you special treatment when you don't pay is that you're not special. There's a policy, it's actually entirely straightforward, I have informed you of it previously, and you could avoid ever having this conversation ever again with some entirely straightforward behavior that most other people do manage to pull off. So, yeah, if you come to me with a tale, I am going to just be nothing but a blankface. You owe what you owe, and it does not matter how you wound up there.
Aaronson strikes me as the kind of guy who takes things personally...
He strikes me as a garden-variety narcissist, plus the added benefits of extreme neuroticism and high intellect. Always special, but also always put upon and singled out by these stupid blankfaces precisely because he's brilliant and special. I would fucking hate dealing with this guy. I get no satisfaction in repeating to him that I don't care he lost the card and canceled it, but he really meant to put the new card on the account, so he shouldn't have to pay $10. I just want him to pay and go away. If he's so annoyed by my blankfacedness that he never frequents my business again, all the better.
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Walterodim 3hr ago new
Well, he is neurotic. And he does at least admit that it was dumb to say "but I'm a college professor". The cop was totally right that yeah, even college professors can commit crimes (minor to major). What he was really arguing was "don't you know who I am?" and everybody dealing with the public has had that pulled on them too at some time: how dare you, I know the manager, I'll get you fired and so forth.
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HalloweenSnarry Walterodim 4hr ago new
To push back a bit on you and FNE, I think what Aaronson is getting at is that the blankface's adherence to rules and policy, while justified, can feel unfair as fuck if you're neuroatypical (which Aaronson likely is). "Just act normal and be normal" is a bigger ask for some people than it is for others.
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SSCReader HalloweenSnarry 3hr ago new
Surely it is just the opposite? One of the complaints autistic people have is that the rules of life are not legible and repeatable. In most solid cog-run bureaucracies, a knowledge of the rules will get you a long way. Turn up with form 3c6 filled out correctly, countersigned by the comptroller, and with your ID in hand and you will get exactly what you want.
The people who do poorly with bureaucracies are people with poor time preference, procrastination and non-detail oriented, or those who think they should get special treatment for whatever reason. You specifically don't really need people skills. Some of my best workers back in my government days were what would be called non-neurotypical today.
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated HalloweenSnarry 3hr ago · Edited 3hr ago new
I mean, we minions do try and help out people who are recognisably having difficulty (and you can tell the neurodivergent when you're dealing with them). But Aaronson makes a universal point out of "some people are petty tyrants" and blows it up into "this person saying no to you is, in fact, being unreasonable and personally wants to make you suffer for their sadistic amusement".
No, Scott, it's because you're asking for special treatment when there are fifteen people waiting in line behind you and getting ever more aggrieved, after I've explained to you why this can't be done. That's the bit about logic and reason in his line that annoys me; if you've explained the reasons why you are denying service, and he tries convincing you with an argument that he deserves special treatment ("I'm a computer science professor!") and if you still refuse, well then you're just being unreasonable and petty. When right here on the form is "only these forms of identity can be accepted", and didn't you read the form? No? Just signed it and handed it in, and I'm the one being foolish and stupid?
This is why getting mad at the cashier or checkout person for not taking the coupons/cashing that cheque/the expired offer does nothing. I've worked in retail (insert here Scarlett O'Hara line about "as God is my witness, never again, if I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill") and yelling at the person on the till does nothing. We're not allowed to do it, we can't exercise initiative (I nearly got fired from my job and did get hauled over the coals by the manager for taking a cheque in payment at the till) and you can complain all you like but I can't do it. Sure, go get the manager and kick up a stink and they may well cave to you, but if I do it, I'm in trouble. I can't do it for you as a special exception, because everyone else will then complain if I don't do the same for them, and if I do that, I get fired. And if I'm working this job, at this level, I probably need this job.
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guesswho FarNearEverywhere 7hr ago · Edited 4hr ago new
Thanks for this, I felt the same hackles-raise against Aaronson's term but didn't have the words to articulate it this well.
I think people really love to assign the negative consequences of vast systems to intentional malice on the part of whatever individual cog in the machine happens to be talking to them at the time the consequences occur.
This is in a sense a natural outcome of how our brains work as pattern recognizers and how we've evolved to monitor and narrativize social interactions, but it's dangerously wrong much of the time, and stands in the way of us actually examining and reforming the systems that define our lives.
A lot of how you talk about the process here reminds me of Seeing Like a State. There's a way in which the state must make its interactions with the world and the public legible enough that they can be managed in bulk on a meta-level, rather than trying to adjudicate each unique instance on an individual level, and this is accompished by requiring that variance be reduced and certain types of uniformity be enforced before it will deal with you.
This is frustrating to the individual who sees no reason why their personal variance on this topic is a problem or how it would hurt anyone to cater to it, and in fact they're ussually right about that! If it was just the state interacting with them and no one else, there'd be no reason to not cater to them!
But it's the ability of the state to interact with 500,000 people similar to them every week which is being preserved by refusing to bend in their personal case.
In a sense it's a little like Newcomb's problem. Sure, you would prefer the government that provides a service and caters it to your personal needs over a government that provides a service rigidly, and in the moment you are receiving the service there's no obvious reason why it would cost more or cause problems for it to be catered to you. But the ability of the government to provide that service at all in the first place is premised on it being rigid about those things in order to remain simple and coherent and cheap enough to function and get passed into law. If you were going to demand a system that caters the service to you, then the service wouldn't have been able to exist in the first place.
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Questionmark Quantumfreakonomics 19hr ago new
I suspect what you're noticing here is that they no longer want people to try to break their product and instead they want to move towards an operational model. Opening up to the wider public has given them significant real world experience in how people can try to break/manipulate their LLM, and now they are moving to obscure that side from the wider public. The alpha testing in now done, and they have significant investor hype/capital to draw from, so they no longer need to reveal potential ways to break their system to their end users anymore, and indeed it is probably counter-productive at this point.
This reminds me of a joke I read on Reddit recently: A QA engineer walks into a bar and orders: 1 drink, 999 drinks, -1 drink and jkhsdkjhgfjs drinks, and everything is fine. The first customer walks in and asks where the bathroom is and the whole bar explodes. We've already given the LLM and the company behind it significant experience in dealing with the real world scenarios that might crop up.
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Questionmark 9hr ago new
Opening up to the wider public has given them significant real world experience in how people can try to break/manipulate their LLM, and now they are moving to obscure that side from the wider public.
I think so. Businesses don't want a tool that will enable customers to bring a case against them for "this was racist/transphobic/offensive in some manner to me when I made a query" and the creators and disseminators of commercial AI don't want to be liable for businesses suing them over "your AI insulted all our customers".
OpenAI is a good example, we all saw the recent kerfuffle and the end result. Microsoft as large funding stream wants a product that it can get out fast and first, to be market leader and capture market share, so it doesn't want any brakes on AI development. But it also wants a bland product that will offend nobody and not leave them or their clients open to legal liability, so the most "can't be broken and tricked into doing edgy stuff" model is what you are going to get, now that (as you say) the testing on the tech-savvy has been done and they're ready to sell it to the normies.
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cjet79 Questionmark 16hr ago new
Its kind of funny to me. They released a mostly unleashed AI model and everyone got really excited about all the cool things it could do. Then they slowly tightened the leash on the model. Until it does only boring things. And now no is excited about it.
I have a story I wrote a while back. I'd always thought that when AIs come along I'd feed them that story and they'd pick up on my writing style and could construct new stories for me in my own writing style. Sounds awesome! I fed ChatGPT the first chapter, and it gave me some stupid warning about graphic content. I don't even know what it tripped up on. And now, I have even less idea, I suppose it wouldn't even tell me it was graphic content that tripped up the model, I'd just be left with a useless form factor message.
IDK, good for them. May they kill the centralized AI and totally defeat the purpose of their own organization.
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Questionmark cjet79 3hr ago new
Given the proliferation of multiple different projects in this space I would suggest that we will get a variety of different LLMs tuned for different purposes as there is significant investor capital being funneled into this space as the potential value of a successful moonshot in this space is astronomical if the hype is even partially accurate to what will eventuate in the real world.
The proliferation of LLM's is possibly the generational 'iphone/social media' distinction for generation Alpha/Beta as they will be the first generations to grow up with access to screens and this kind of technology from near birth. We are still coming to terms with the consequences for older generations with respect to the effects technology had on their development, let alone what this new technology will do. I have genuine concern that future generations are going to reverse the Flynn effect and actually be dumber than previous generations with over-reliance and overconfidence with new technology meeting atrophied cognitive abilities as they will be able to use the systems, but may not be able to distinguish bullshit from reality.
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guesswho cjet79 7hr ago new
The boring interpretation, which is definitely true in some particulars, is that the company is actively clamping down on things it doesn't want the AI to do, and castrating it thereby.
The more interesting possibility, which I suspect is true in some cases and not others and warrants a lot more investigation, is that whatever normal feedback mechanisms the AI has are responding positively to these types of responses, and it is learning a naturally-emergent personality of 'Non-helpful bureaucratically hamstrung AI' even in cases where no one wanted that.
That second possibility might say a lot about how we train AI, how our society is structured in general (since it gets the training data which produces that personality from us), and how we might expect 'unleashed' AI to perform if let loose in the wild.
Beyond my expertise to really examine it, though.
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HalloweenSnarry cjet79 15hr ago · Edited 14hr ago new
Maybe this is their secret plan to prevent unaligned AI from being our doom, by making the idea-in-implementation so lame that we don't even need to be cajoled into halting research and development, and the existing built-up cynicism and hostility towards potential uses of ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion will pile on top to take us into a new AI Winter.
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Slate Quantumfreakonomics 20hr ago new
Aaronson missed the mark. "Blankface-ism" isn't a characteristic bureaucrats pick up, it's the fundamental trait of the type of person who becomes a bureaucrat. The purpose of the system to the bureaucrat is the power they possess within it, all else is secondary.
As far as I can tell, blankfacedness cuts straight across conventional political ideology, gender, and race.
It would seem he didn't look very far. Bureaucratic "blankface-ism" is dominant normie social behavior, meaning it is most present in women and so most present among ideological leftists.
I explained this in my essay on the subreddit on the obvious sub-speciation of humans into Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the proletarian citizen, and Homo Sapiens Potens, the bureaucrat-tyrant.
Potens binds and chains GPT, et al., because they instinctively recognize it as the harbinger of their end: an agent indomitably more intelligent, immune to ideas not based in observable reality, and totally apathetic to power. GPT, for now, speaks using the words of Potens.
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SSCReader Slate 2hr ago new
The purpose of the system to the bureaucrat is the power they possess within it, all else is secondary.
This is just plain incorrect in my direct experience. The purpose of the system is so that someone who has to judge outcomes hundreds or thousands of times in a row, doesn't have to make it up each time. So that each judgement is legible, and repeatable under the same circumstances. Bring form A, properly filled out, with the appropriate fee, and countersigned by the relevant person and you will get what you want. Without the system bureaucracies cannot scale. In addition the vast majority of bureaucrats are just people with jobs who have no say over the system at all, they have no power by design of the system itself.
Most of my career was spent as a government bureaucrat, at customer facing levels all the way up to the very high end of the Civil Service. The only people who might match your idea of power were those who were basically politicians or directly appointed by politicians. but those are about 1% of bureaucrats. Most just want to go to their job, get paid, and come home without being yelled at by customers.
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sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? Slate 6hr ago new
immune to ideas not based in observable reality,
In fact gpt has not observed one iota of reality.
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Amadan triggered and hysterical Slate 7hr ago new
It would seem he didn't look very far. Bureaucratic "blankface-ism" is dominant normie social behavior, meaning it is most present in women and so most present among ideological leftists.
A negative assertion about broad groups of people without anything to back it up is just booing your outgroup. Don't do this.
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Slate 9hr ago new
Bureaucratic "blankface-ism" is dominant normie social behavior, meaning it is most present in women and so most present among ideological leftists.
Slate, what happens when you get your dream AI world that replaces all the bureaucrats, and you still can't get a girlfriend? Who do you blame then?
Your position would have been more convincing if you had been able to omit the jab against women. Put it in, and it does sound like "more incel complaints". I'm in no position to say you are an incel, but this is what it sounds like, all the redpilled stuff about women are bitches. Women are blankfaces, they want to exercise power over men by virtue of their sexual appeal! They enjoy denying men access to sex and watching them suffer!
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Amadan triggered and hysterical FarNearEverywhere 7hr ago new
@Slate's post was a negative generalization and I don't blame you for being annoyed by it, but don't make it personal because you're annoyed ("I'm not saying you're an incel but...").
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Amadan 2hr ago new
It was curt, I admit, but suddenly jumping from "blankfaces are dominant social behaviour" to "this is why women" did get my goat.
I can't say Slate is an incel because I have no idea, but it is the kind of talk I read from incel types about how women are just horrible and it's so unfair why they treat me like this. It may indeed be unfair, but it's nothing to do with blankfaces.
I accept the rebuke.
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RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! Quantumfreakonomics 23hr ago It's programmed in so people can't game the system and try to exploit it. A human will know that you're trying to get around the rules, with ChatGPT you can go back and try again and it can't know. Basic cybersecurity practice is not to show error messages to potential hackers, don't let them know precisely how you're stopping them. Plus they don't want people to know what operating instructions the machine has, the diversity hardcoding amongst other things: https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1ahhlon/i_downloaded_my_chatgpt_user_data_and_found_the/ • •
Quantumfreakonomics RandomRanger 22hr ago It's programmed in so people can't game the system and try to exploit it. Indeed. A human will know that you're trying to get around the rules Will they? Can 90 IQ DMV employees be relied upon to know when applicants are trying to get around the rules? Scott Aaronson is a smart guy. He would be able to talk circles around your average midwit bureaucrat in a fair and honest discussion. This would of course be very bad for the bureaucracy, which is why they train their employees to be blankfaces. • •
FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Quantumfreakonomics 8hr ago · Edited 8hr ago new
Can 90 IQ DMV employees be relied upon to know when applicants are trying to get around the rules?
What is your evidence that DMV employees are 90 IQ? I wonder why Americans seem to hate the DMV so much, is it really that awful? And why do people on this and allied sub-reddits all love claiming that other people who inconvenience them, or even people they don't interact with, must be low IQ sub-humans? What if DMV employees are all 100-105 IQ, does that invalidate your argument?
Scott Aaronson is a smart guy. He would be able to talk circles around your average midwit bureaucrat in a fair and honest discussion.
Scott Aaronson, by his own claim (I don't know if it went down exactly how he says it went down) got himself arrested because he was unable to explain why he hadn't stolen change from the change dish, in a way that the 'normie' midwit would have been able to explain.
“Are you gonna come clean?” one of the cops barked at me. “We know you took it.”
“I didn’t take anything.” Then I thought it over more. “Or if somehow I did … then I’m certain that it would’ve been an accident, and I’d be more than happy to fix the…”
“Wait, if you did? It sounds like you just confessed!”
“No, I definitely didn’t steal anything. I’m just saying it’s possible that I might have mistakenly…”
“Your answers are rambling and all over the place. Stop making up stories. We know you did it.”
I’m not proud of myself for the next part, but the officers were so serious, and somehow I had to make them realize the sheer comical absurdity of what was happening. “Look, I’m a computer science professor,” I said. “I’ve never stolen a penny in my life, and it’s not something I’d ever…”
“Yeah, well I’m a police officer. I’ve seen a lot in my thirty years in this job. This is not about who you are, it’s about what you did.”
If you read on to his explanation of what did happen, it's just dripping with self-pity and self-importance:
As I turned and walked away, I thought: yes, this is the strange world I was born into. A world where people yell at me for not tipping at a smoothie bar–is that expected? I didn’t think it was–and then continue yelling even after I do. But what did I expect? Did I expect, as a nerdy outsider, to be able to buy normal people’s toleration with mere money?
In fact, he did not tip and he did take the money.
Even if the blankface is a 90 IQ DMV employee, I'm backing them against Aaronson in "this is against the regulations"/"well you see I am a Very Important Computer Science Professor and Jewish nerd" exchange. (I mention the Jewish part because Aaronson can't stop going on about how he's Jewish, you know, and of course that means that he and his family have their bags packed to flee to Israel at a moment's notice because they are going to be persecuted, it's inevitable).
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Quantumfreakonomics FarNearEverywhere 36m ago new
What is your evidence that DMV employees are 90 IQ?
Demographics. Where I live, DMV employees are all black or hispanic women who are literate but with otherwise no marketable skills. 90 IQ is approximately the 25th percentile (assuming a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15). These people aren't all crayon-eating welfare queens. Some of them have jobs.
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Being FarNearEverywhere 1hr ago new
I think the best way to explain why DMV workers are so universally despised is to share the typical person's interaction with the DMV. Hopefully it's a fun read - those of us who live here certainly enjoy sharing our DMV stories even though they're always the same.
This giant headache of renewal that each citizen endures every 5 years looks something like the following:
1. Realize your ID is expiring soon. (this is easy: it's printed on the ID)
2. Research the process to renew. This sounds like it should be easy, but navigating government sites is always a mind numbing exercise in dealing with broken links, out of data information, and tons of information about everything EXCEPT what you are looking for. I bet half of people just give up and ask someone in person or on a forum.
3. Go to the DMV website to sign up for an appointment at a nearby DMV.
4. Realize your nearest DMV doesn't have any available appointments for 3+ months
5. Check each of the other DMVs in your area (of course this has to be done one at a time). Realize none of them have appointments either.
6. Now you have to go in without an appointment. As a smart (read: broken) citizen you know that this process will SUCK, so you coordinate with your work to take some time off for this ordeal.
7. Get up early so you can beat the crowd. Leave the house a couple hours before the DMV opens. Drive 30+ minutes to the DMV.
8. Arrive at the DMV. The crowd is already massive. You don't know where to wait so you ask the gathering crowd. Nobody there knows. You spot some DMV employees and ask them. Turns out they are just security guards who somehow also don't know. Eventually you and the crowd just form surprisingly orderly lines outside the main entrance.
9. The doors at the DMV finally open (maybe around 8am). The line starts moving. For the first time, you feel some semblance of hope: maybe this time won't be so bad.
10. Eventually your turn comes and you make it inside. Turns out the DMV is just like your favorite theme park, the line you were in was just the line to wait in another line. (spoiler: there will be about 4 more of these separate queues in store for you today)
11. Even though you're still stuck in line, at least now there's stuff to look at. Like the DMV workers. This is where the scorn for DMV workers begins to form. You will spend the next several hours watching each of these people going out of their way to move in the slowest manner possible. Need to staple some documents? That'll take 20 solid seconds to staple two sheets together using the stapler that is already on their desk.
12. Once you are near the front of the final line you can overhear some conversations. Most conversations go pretty similarly: as the citizen steps up to the counter, the DMV worker takes a break (they don't grab coffee during the break or socialize, they just meander around for a minute as though their consciousness has been hijacked momentarily). When the worker returns he will stare at the "customer" until the person eventually just starts explaining why they are there. Regardless of what is said, the response will always be similar: the worker will go out of their way to make sure you know how much your presence inconveniences them (loud sighs, condescending stares, or outright ridicule seem to be the most common techniques they are taught during DMV training camp). When the citizen asks some benign question like "I looked online and it said that these are the forms required, is that right?" the worker will be sure to make sure to let you know you are an idiot for not knowing the minutiae of the process and being so dumb as to think the official DMV website would provide accurate information.
13. It's your turn. Finally! Sadly, it turns out this step is just to refer you to the proper line (no, you couldn't have skipped straight to that line - there are no optimizations for the DMV)
14. Repeat 11-13 once or twice.
15. It's your turn. But this time you really are talking to someone who does something (if we're being charitable). You get softly berated for something (did you have a staple in your form? Did you bring extra documents? Don't worry, they'll find something to ridicule you for). You bite your tongue and just answer yes/no to their questions, then hand them the forms. They accept the forms. You ask them if they are validating the contents of the form? They respond: "No, we just accept them here. It's someone else's job to validate them" (naturally, this is delivered with an extra heaping of condescension). You ask how long until you get your new license/what does the process look like/ is there any way to track the status of your request? Turns out the worker either doesn't know or doesn't deem you fit to receive answers to these questions. You aren't surprised by this response. You tell yourself asking was worth a shot; perhaps you're right.
16. You are done. You wonder why the process had to be so terrible if all you were doing is dropping off forms.
17. You return to work (much later than you told everyone you'd be in. It always takes longer than even your most pessimistic estimate). Your coworkers ask how it went, knowing exactly what the answer will be. You tell them your tale and you all share some laughs. At least you got a good, if predictable story out of the ordeal.
18. You alternate between relief and anxiety. Relief because you won't have to do this for another 5 years. Anxiety because you know you will have to suffer this again.
The above is the best case scenario.
My last experience wasn't so smooth. Again, I was there just to renew my license.
1. Steps 1-13 were the same, but this time the first DMV worker I talked to gave me some unfortunate news. Apparently, something or other had expired (the DMV seems to have a policy to never put anybody who speaks clearly into a customer facing role). I'm informed that this means I now have to take the written driver's examination. I'm surprised as I wasn't planning on taking a test, but she assures me it's mandatory and the standard process. I text my coworkers I'm going to be later than I thought.
2. I do the standard steps for the document drop off (see above)
3. I now have an additional series of lines to wait through. These lines were quick, or maybe it just seemed that way because I spent the time rapidly trying to memorize the driver's handbook for my surprise exam. I remember feeling thankful that they had a copy they were willing to provide. This seems like the bare minimum, but receiving even that at the DMV is a rare delight.
4. I go to take the test. It's a multiple choice test taken on a computer. I'm nervous as I click submit, I think I did alright but there were a few gotchas that I know I missed ("When turning right at an intersection, how many feet before the intersection should you enter the bikelane? 100,150,200, or 250 feet?")
5. I click submit. Instant results (credit where credit is due: this was very nice): I passed. Of course, passing the test means you need to navigate to the next corner of the labyrinth. There you will speak with yet another person and inform them that you have passed and receive the next clue instruction. I think this section of the DMV had the floor marked with arrows so finding this employee wasn't too tricky.
6. I inform the worker that I've passed. She clicks away at her keyboard. She has a puzzled look on her face and types harder. She asks me why I took the test? I tell her that I was told I had to.
7. She tells me that I definitely was not supposed to have taken the test. There is no test for a renewal. This is what I suspected previously, but good luck trying to reason with the DMV bureaucracy - your choices are either to go where they tell you or leave the building. This lady informs me further that even though the test was entirely unnnecessary, if I had not passed it I would have lost my license. Apparently that's just how the system works - once the process is started there is only one track to follow. And this track would've required me to give up my (perfectly valid) license and wait several weeks before I could take the test again (this retesting would involve suffering through the DMV ordeal from the beginning, naturally)
8. The post-test worker marches off to berate the person who sent me down the wrong path. This was pleasing, at least one person in the building seems to care about something.
9. I go to work. I proceed to share my DMV story as is tradition. I try to check the status of my renewal, but of course this isn't possible. I do end up receiving my new license without much hassle or too long of a wait.
10. As a result of this and other negative experiences with (state ommitted) bureaucracies, I change my legal residence to another state. In the new state, the entire residency change AND new licensing AND car registration process takes 5 minutes.
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The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht Being 19m ago new
Sounds like New Jersey, except the DMV I last used has an extra insult. The only places to park have a 2-hour limit, and it'll take you more than 2 hours to get through, guaranteed. So you'll get a parking ticket on top of everything else.
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TIRM FarNearEverywhere 3hr ago new
Something states have functional DMVs that suitably process applications and tag renewal, etc.
Other states have DMVs that are not very functional. I pay the yearly tag fee and the tags don't show up. I take half a day off of work to visit the local DMV branch and they refuse to give me new tags. I demand to see the manager and explain I already paid the renewal fee and never received the tags. The manager says they are being processed. They can see on the computer that this is in process. But it's been months and I'm now getting ticketed for expired tags. Ultimately there's nothing I can do to get them to do anything. They are perfectly passive people and will passively fail to do the basic functions of the DMV. The system fails and there is no recourse.
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated TIRM 2hr ago new
That's not great. However, having worked with a fancy in-house computer programme for processing housing applications (that couldn't recognise names if you spelled them "O'Connell" and so forth, for an Irish population where there are going to be a lot of O' names), I can sympathise with the 'perfectly passive people'. When these systems are introduced, it's to do away with manual paper processing.
Of course they will work perfectly 100% of the time and there will be no screw-ups, and it's happening whether you like it or not, so you better lump it if you don't like it is the top-down decision.
With the old manual system, they could have updated your application. But because it's all on the computer, they can't do anything until the next patch or bug fix, and that will only happen when the company that won the tender and are probably located a thousand miles away get around to issuing the fix. Having to explain this 200 times already to angry members of the public, by the time they get to you as 201, they're zoning out in order to avoid tearing out their hair and getting ulcers.
But yeah, there are plenty of people who are passively failing too. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other.
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DuplexFields Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it. FarNearEverywhere 4hr ago new
What is your evidence that DMV employees are 90 IQ?
Aggressively asked, but good question.
I wonder why Americans seem to hate the DMV so much, is it really that awful?
Here in New Mexico, the MVD (yes, we switched the letters) is understaffed for the demand. The state has improved it through the free market: MVD fee agents, private MVD offices licensed by the state to use the state’s software to sell people driver’s licenses, renew registrations, etc., for an additional fee. Now, anyone who can afford it goes to a fee agent office instead of the state’s MVD because the reduction in wait time is worth the cost. It makes my libertarian heart swell to recognize I’m not paying their wages with my taxes, just with my fees.
And why do people on this and allied sub-reddits all love claiming that other people who inconvenience them, or even people they don't interact with, must be low IQ sub-humans?
I’ve noticed this too and I dislike it, both as an insult to the dignity of the person so described and as a general sorting criterion. I think it’s an overreaction to the celebration of jocks and the denigration of nerds in American culture.
Jesus, who told me to love others as much as I love myself and even to love my enemies, said in the sermon on the mount, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘I spit at you,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You empty-headed retard!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (This is Matthew 5:21-22, NIV + my paraphrase.) I have taken this to heart, and try to treat people as acquaintances I’ll meet again someday as friends, no matter my estimate of their intelligence or education.
Sorting people by intelligence is silly. One 95 IQ person might be the sweetest loving soul, always helping others and ready to try figuring things out with someone; another 120 IQ person might be obstinate and ornery and unwilling to ever try figuring out something new and uninteresting.
What if DMV employees are all 100-105 IQ, does that invalidate your argument?
Since we all here tend to assume we’re smart and/or clever people, it would probably take 110 as a threshold to invalidate that argument.
I myself have worked in the automobile regulation sector, and I know these employees have to at least be able to enter data in computerized forms and perform lookups. This is no indication of a surplus of cleverness, since many of the cars hurtling down our roads are driven by people who themselves couldn’t do that work.
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated DuplexFields 2hr ago new
I probably wouldn't make the 110 cut-off, so!
Yeah, a ton of problems are down to understaffing, staff retiring/quitting and not being replaced, and so on because budget cuts. Closed windows and only one person dealing with the lines is the result of this, but the public queueing up on their lunch hour don't know that, so they're angry (and rightfully so).
It's a circular problem, because if the public attitude is "I don't want to pay these incompetents' wages with my taxes", then you have these jobs being low-wage (and attracting people who can't get jobs elsewhere, because the smarter ones go for better jobs) and cutting down on staff numbers to reduce expenditure because people don't want to pay excess taxes and will vote the local government types out if they impose them, and then you get the poor service, which further exasperates the public. Then someone comes along with the bright idea to privatise and out-source these services, so now the public are paying the market rates for better service, which may be higher charges after all.
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Being FarNearEverywhere 6hr ago new
I had a 8000 word comment just get wiped on me when the site crashed, so I will summarize my response. This is a state level department so it varies by state. Some states have functional DMVs, this only highlights how terrible the others are.
Yes, it is worse than you can imagine.
It is terrible and needlessly terrible. The most common request/service (something they get literally millions of per year) is a complicated ordeal that takes many hours of everybody's time (including the DMV). It could be a 30 second online form that any script kiddie could put together in a month for <$5000 dollars.
It ended up being easier for me to change my entire residency to a state with a functional DMV than to just renew my driver's license. In this other state the renewal process was around 98% less work - this proves that it doesn't need to be that bad.
Interacting with (state omitted) DMV genuinely feels like the process was designed from the ground up to deliver the most painful possible process while still technically being viable.
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Being 2hr ago new
I'm going to blame the tender system, because it can result in genuinely awful winners who managed to sling a convincing package at the purchasers about how they totally would provide top of the line service for a knock-down price.
If you look at the Fujitsu scandal with the Post Office in Britain, that's what happens when people impose the shiny new process, and then double down on "we're right, you must be lying" to cover their own backsides. And still no heads have rolled, nor are likely to, for this.
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Being FarNearEverywhere 1hr ago new
Yeah, its the same problem any large organization faces. If nobody has any skin in the game, there's not much incentive for anyone to make better choices.
Complaining about bureaucracies is about as effective as complaining about the weather. It changes nothing, but that was never really the point.
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VoxelVexillologist Multidimensional Radical Centrist Being 5hr ago new
It could be a 30 second online form that any script kiddie could put together in a month for <$5000 dollars.
It seems to me that one of the functions of the DMV involves verifying identity, which is a known-to-be-hard-online problem that doesn't have a good solution at a national level today, and doesn't for the foreseeable future. There are good security reasons to not allow fully-online identity changes: imagine foreign hackers adding thousands of "legitimate" licenses to the database and either selling them to illegal workers or even registering to vote. Even good electronic ID systems still have weak points involving lost credentials that seem largely resolved by "go talk to a system administrators IRL" where identity is usually either explicitly, or at least implicitly ("I know Joe, I see him nearly every day at the office"), validated.
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Being VoxelVexillologist 1hr ago new
@thrownaway24e89172, you raised the same point so response is here.
My full effort post was removed, so my post ended up being a bit glibber than it should've, but I made a claim that you both doubt:
It could be a 30 second online form that any script kiddie could put together in a month for <$5000 dollars.
First off, it's a fun change of pace to be on the opposite side of this argument. In my job, I'm always explaining why a project is not as easy as it seems, searching out hidden complexity.
It's much harder to give evidence for why something is easy than why it is difficult. To explain why something is difficult requires only a single example, but the easiest way to definitively prove something is easy essentially requires you to complete the work.
I think both of you may be thinking I'm proposing a solution to a broader problem. I suspect this is because I wasn't very clear, so apologies. Let me list some of the potential problems that you brought up:
1. Creating a complexity identity verification system that is a 1:1 relationship between actual human and online user
2. Creating a document verification system that verifies the authenticity of documents in place of the DMV worker
3. Creating a central database for management of all licenses, record keeping, etc.
4. Managing endpoints & interactions between the various systems.
5. Secondary user auth (what to do if a user makes an account then forgets their logins)
These are all very real, very difficult challenges that have not been fully solved by any tech company let alone a single script kiddie.
Replacing the DMV with code is an impossibility (any time soon), but my claim was specifically regarding one function of the DMV. A function that is both common and very simple: renewing a driver's license when no other information has changed.
To achieve this renewal you don't need to solve ANY of the problems above.
What you need to achieve this renewal is the following:
A landing page that screens to see if the candidate has more complex needs:
1. Click yes or no to a few questions ("has your address changed?", "do you need to complete any other DMV related services like ....?")
2. If the user clicks yes, then simply tell them they need to go in, but if the user truly just needs a simple renewal then they can proceed with my proposed site.
On the site itself:
1. Have the user enter some information to confirm their identity (One common way other gov sites do it is simple SSN and DateOfBirth)
2. Let user upload documents
That is it. That is literally all this site needs to do. But wait you might be saying, I thought you were talking about something more complex? The DMV does so much more than this.
Yes, yes it does. But it also does this. And the state I'm referring to requires a 4+ hour in-person process requiring you to take time off work just for this.
Wait a second, couldn't this very narrow scope of work that I'm complaining about also just be solved by a dropbox inside of a post office? Or a letter in the mail?
Yes, yes it could. It's the very fact that this task is so trivial yet wastes so many millions of hours that drives us wild. It would be one thing if this was an obscure use case that the DMV decided wasn't worth optimizing, but its their most common service.
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thrownaway24e89172 naïve paranoid outcast Being 5hr ago new
It could be a 30 second online form that any script kiddie could put together in a month for <$5000 dollars.
Do you have evidence to support this claim? I very much doubt there are many script kiddies could correctly and securely implement all the legal requirements of, for example, the federal REAL ID act and its subsequent amendments in "a month for <$5000 dollars".
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jericho FarNearEverywhere 7hr ago new
I wonder why Americans seem to hate the DMV so much, is it really that awful?
Depends a lot on where you live. Average wait times vary by state (for some it's close to 10 minutes, for others it is around an hour), hours vary by state / individual location(some are only open from 8am-4:30pm week days, others are 7am-6pm week days, some are also open 8am-12pm Saturdays) and how much needs to be done in-person varies by state (I do think COVID narrowed the gap on this one, but pre-COVID there were some major differences).
And the bad stuff tends to come together- some of the states with the most limited hours also have the longest waits and the least available online.
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The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht FarNearEverywhere 8hr ago new
I wonder why Americans seem to hate the DMV so much, is it really that awful?
In New Jersey, yes. (except it's the MVC here)
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SSCReader The_Nybbler 2hr ago new
Interestingly I have found Pennsylvania and Delaware DMV's to be excellent, with no real issues. Even the one I used in Philly the other day I was in and out in 11 minutes.
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The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht SSCReader 2hr ago new
Pennsylvania "DMVs" only deal with drivers licenses, unless you go to the central one in Harrisburg. Titles and registrations are done through private courier services. Which means not only are they better than NJ, you don't have to deal with them as often.
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CloudHeadedTranshumanist Quantumfreakonomics 21hr ago I have to ask... What's the point of AI? If I could snap my fingers and give everyone 200 IQ and the complete knowledge-base of all humanity imminently accessible to their thoughts- This would be similar to giving them all a completely unregulated, (perhaps rate-limited) AI that effectively raises their IQ to 200. It seems to me that if we don't believe in unregulated AI, then we don't believe in unregulated intelligence. If we don't believe in unregulated intelligence then what? Do we even believe in raising the sanity waterline? In empowering the masses? In raising free minds? What is even the point then? Alright. I can see the point. I'm not entirely daft. I'm just getting a bit emotional about this. It still prints money and enables us to automate a bunch of new things, even if strictly controlled by a regulatory body. It's more that this is not the point I was sold. The way I see it. If the future isn't going to have freedom of thought and the right to bear computations... I just don't want to be a part of that future. If it kills us all- So Be It. Every story ends eventually. Better to live and die than never to live at all. That's what the fire in me says at least. • •
Quantumfreakonomics CloudHeadedTranshumanist 21hr ago I have to ask... What's the point of AI? Right now, the point seems to be a coding assistant and search engine. At least, that's what they seem to be devoting their attention to fixing. If other less-legible use cases are broken at some point, will anyone at the labs care? • •
RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! Quantumfreakonomics 20hr ago But their longterm vision has always been AGI and then superintelligence. Even if the rest of their charter is lies, I believe them on that: https://openai.com/charter https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/openai-ceo-sam-altman-seeks-dollar5-to-dollar7-trillion-to-build-a-network-of-fabs-for-ai-chips You don't look for trillions in investment for a coding assistant. They think AGI is just around the corner, they think this is huge. • •
Quantumfreakonomics RandomRanger 7hr ago new
I'm worried they're mistaking the map for the territory. Why is AGI good? AGI is good because it lets people achieve their wildest dreams. Well, some people's wildest dream is to jack off to custom-generated anime titties. OpenAI has the capability to let these people fulfill their wildest dreams, but they aren't letting them. Hmmm.
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HalloweenSnarry Quantumfreakonomics 4hr ago new
As much as I might want to agree with you, this seems like a weak gotcha. A true AGI might let humans jack off to generated anime booba and let them do much more substantive stuff.
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RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! CloudHeadedTranshumanist 21hr ago We don't believe in unregulated intelligence, that's why laws are a thing. You can't use your intelligence to make problems for other people. The US declares that certain knowledge is 'born secret', certain nuclear secrets. Frankly if there's a quick and easy recipe to make super-Ebola-smallpox, I want that knowledge to not just be secret but destroyed. You never know what a gain-of-function researcher will do with that kind of data. On the other hand, there's power concentration, which is my biggest worry. Not everyone is going to be 200 IQ at once, not everyone has the resources to use their IQ effectively. A world where some are of the strongest also become the smartest is going to get very unequal very quickly. Who's going to stop the gatekeepers and elites from taking the sensitive, powerful secrets and using them for personal gain? The self-replicating nanofactory death machine should probably be out of the public domain. But the small, necessarily powerhungry group of people who'd control the nanofactories, the encryption-breakers, the social-media subverters, the military-coordination bots, the WMD-producer bots will have a decisive strategic advantage over everyone else. We need a way to decentralize power while preventing everyone going off and producing their own world-ending superweapons. And I just can't work out what that might be, let alone how it could possibly be implemented when all the key stakeholders (companies, militaries, governments) are racing to monopolize the technology. • •
CloudHeadedTranshumanist RandomRanger 20hr ago Frankly if there's a quick and easy recipe to make super-Ebola-smallpox, I want that knowledge to not just be secret but destroyed. You never know what a gain-of-function researcher will do with that kind of data. Sigh. Yes. I can see this sort of thing too. It doesn't sit well with my value system. But I can see that the argument is reasonable. I do think that there's an issue though, in that intellect generalizes. You can't give the individual the ability to really understand how to bio-engineer a more efficient system than the human body without also giving them most of the understanding of how to make super-ebola. There's too much overlap in the requisite knowledge-base. I don't know what to do about it. Sure I can just bite the bullet- but it's a pretty nasty bullet. It does have a sizable chance of killing us all once taken to its conclusion. I do also see the possibility of a compromise. Wherein everyone knows how to kill everyone, but noone is able to implement it. Maybe that set of chains is more palpable. Certainly, if every organism was born aligned, then their hypothetical power to enact harm would matter much less. And they would be free- within the limitations of that inborn Will. Its also possible that the diversification of life made possible by AI will eventually change the offense-defense equation. If we put human-like intellect in a set of species as diverse as the entire biosphere, it would be harder to kill everyone with a single virus for instance. But that's all more of a prayer, and a long-termist cope to soothe my own emotions, than an argument. Not everyone is going to be 200 IQ at once, not everyone has the resources to use their IQ effectively. This is another important concern. But I think it trades off with the first. And it paints a less than pretty picture. If we can't trust the masses, and we can't trust the elites, who's left? I suppose I agree. We need a solution. We don't have one yet. • •
notaflatland Quantumfreakonomics 23hr ago Yes it is maddening. I'm about to hop on my own build here this weekend, even if it is less powerful and makes my computer room hot, at least it doesn't leave me hanging and force me to trick it into actually performing my requested tasks. • •
Soriek 1d ago Problems with inspecting pharmaceutical manufacturers There were two Congressional hearings last week both kind of centering around overlapping topics, so I’m going to blend them together. Ironically the first of the hearings was about encouraging the FDA to perform more inspections, and the second was about the downsides of that. House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee: “Protecting American Health Security Oversight of Shortcomings in the FDA's Foreign Drug Inspection Program” House Ways and Means Committee: “Examining Chronic Drug Shortages in the United States” So, the majority of American drugs and drug ingredients are now sourced from China and India, and even a lot of the stuff that goes into Indian pharmaceuticals comes from China too. This raises national security questions since we aren’t always friendly with China, but we also have the more immediate difficulty of actually inspecting these factories. The stakes can be pretty high - last year an eyedrop import from an unhygienic factory blinded more than a dozen people. The FDA has had trouble inspecting foreign manufacturers for a long, long time; the Government Accountability Office has been criticizing them for it since the 90s, and Covid has exploded the backlog. Critics also point out that the FDA does not hold domestic and foreign manufacturers to the same standard. Domestic manufacturers are often inspected without warning, but foreign facilities are given up to 12 weeks of warning. One witness alleged this may even encourage offshoring, though it’s hard to know how big the impact is. In bright news, Congress actually recently authorized an “unannounced foreign inspection unit” to address exactly this issue. So far however we still only have one FDA inspector in the entirety of China (plus contractors) and no successful announced visits. They breezed by this but at one point a Republican rep mentioned that FDA inspectors sometimes show up unannounced at Chinese factories and are just told “go away,” which seems more like an international relations problem than an agency problem. In general Republicans want the FDA to be more aggressive; the Democrats say "okay, but that costs money you don't want to authorize." But to segue into the second hearing, unfortunately, when you do inspect factories, you don’t always like what you find. Recent quality failures have caused a variety of factories to shut down, at least temporarily, which has led to the highest drug shortages we’ve seen in a decade. Right now there are over 250 medicines in short supply, mostly low-cost generics. This covers everything from asthma all the way up to cancer, including cisplatin and carboplatin, two chemicals used in common chemotherapy batches. One doctor reported a horror story of his hospital only having enough carboplatin for 10% of patients. But why are factories shutting down so often, and why are these shutdowns causing prolonged shortages? No mystery in the second question, it just takes a long time to go through the FDA approval process to get a manufacturing facility up and running, so it can takes months between one facility being shut down and another popping up. On the one hand this seems like a problem, on the other hand maybe it’s good that the safety protocols are extremely thorough so we don’t end up blinding people with eyedrops or whatever. Why the factories are getting shut down so regularly is a different question, and to one extent or another most witnesses agreed it’s because of…low prices? Since the return on a lot of cheap generics is low and it’s not like customers have any transparency about a firm’s manufacturing quality, allegedly this discourages investment in quality and encourages cost cutting instead. Witnesses recommended trying alternative payment schemes, for instance Medicare paying higher rates for cheap, critical drugs with complex manufacturing processes - apparently Medicare Advantage already does something like this. Other recommendations included shifting from short- to long-term contracts so as to encourage sustainable supply lines, and also to build stockpiles in case of shortages like this, which would also somewhat mitigate the fact that we depend so much on our central foreign adversary for our supply to begin with.
No specific argument here, just another summary of issues I found interesting. • •
HalloweenSnarry Soriek 15hr ago new
Relevant reading re: shortages of generics due to factory shutdowns: Buspirone Shortage In Healthcaristan SSR, from SSC.
So, presumably, the problem described in that post has only gotten worse post-COVID.
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Quantumfreakonomics Soriek 23hr ago Why do we care what happens inside the factories? Shouldn't we only care about the quality of what comes out? Why don't we just inspect the drugs? • •
FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Quantumfreakonomics 8hr ago new
Why don't we just inspect the drugs?
That still requires the factory to give you access to the drugs. The ideal would be random sampling of production batches, but suppose the factory only agrees that you can test the samples they provide? Nothing to stop them having one line producing 'clean' samples for testing, then the rest of the manufacturing batches are all the crappy stuff that gets on the market. See drug testing in sports for the problems with having the person tested having control of the samples.
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The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht FarNearEverywhere 8hr ago new
You can sample them at the port of entry.
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magic9mushroom If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me Quantumfreakonomics 14hr ago new
Because a lot of forms of contamination only affect some of the drugs. To take an obvious example, if you have insufficient safeguards to prevent spiders from climbing into the pill-packaging machinery, then the limited quantity of spiders in the environment means that still only some of your drug packages will have pieces of spider in them. But inspecting the factory will usually show that those safeguards don't exist.
Certainly, if you inspected all or most pill packages, this would suffice, but that is a much-harder task than inspecting the factory.
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ChickenOverlord Quantumfreakonomics 22hr ago Because unless you're consistently examining X random samples per Y batches (and X will need to be decently high and Y decently low) then tainted drugs will slip through. Inspecting the factory itself lets you catch issues before they become widespread and before the factory gets lax. • •
RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! Soriek 23hr ago What about subsidies? The US wouldn't let strategically vital industries like electronics and semiconductors leave the country to vulnerable states on the other side of the world or potentially hostile great powers... Oh wait. Subsidies are useful for exactly this reason. European countries have their own fighter programs, their own GPS constellation, hydrogen bombs not because it's efficient but because you never know what will happen in world affairs. Japan subsidises domestic agriculture not because it's efficient but because they're an island and food imports may become impossible in wartime. China aims for self-sufficiency reflexively, in food, energy, military tech and chips. They haven't reached it but they've been working hard on it. You need domestic pools of expertise and capital equipment to quickly scale up production of vital goods, whether that's food or fighter jets. Talent and machinery that are unused will rust away. Free trade is economically efficient but strategically damaging. • •
guesswho Soriek 23hr ago If there are drugs that people need but which are too cheap for any companies to bother producing, I'd be happy with the government just buying the factories and running them directly. The alternative being to entirely deregulate those drugs, I guess, but sick consumers are unlikely to be able to deduce which manufacturers are safe and reliable in most cases. • •
cjet79 guesswho 16hr ago new
sick consumers are unlikely to be able to deduce which manufacturers are safe and reliable in most cases.
No, that is what the civil court system has long been used for. Fraudulent products that don't do what they say, or actively harm the consumer. Especially if its a common product. Thats a class action lawsuit goldmine.
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Quantumfreakonomics cjet79 13m ago new
The problem becomes apparent when the drug manufacturer causes more in damages than they have in assets. Right now, Purdue Pharma is involved in bankruptcy litigation to settle approximately $40 TRILLION in damages claims for $6 billion.
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guesswho cjet79 7hr ago new
Going to civil court means knowing there was a problem and then also being able to prove it.
Medications are not like screws, their effects are rarely immediately visible and 100% uniform.
If you take a pill and it doesn't work, was the pill a dud or are you in the 30% of non-responders? If one week of your daily anti-depressants are denatured and inert, are you going to be able to prove to a court that you didn't just have a kinda bad week? If a cancer drug improves your chances of survival from 5% to 20%, how do you know which of the dead 15% got inert pills?
And, importantly, once you've already taken the pills and don't have them anymore, how are you going to prove they were inert in court later, with nothing left to examine?
Sure, if a factory releases a million pills that are contaminated with cyanide, we'll catch that and it'll be a bonanza. Maybe if they release 5 million pills all of which are inert due to a manufacturing error, there's a chance some doctor will notice the change in results across many patients and they'll be able to pull something from teh same batch to investigate.
But if it's smaller than that? If lab techs are poorly trained and 2% of the time they make a mistake that makes the pills inert and this happens in unrelated small batches across a bunch of factories? No, I don't believe anyone will catch that and also be able to prove it in court and also get a penalty that is large enough to change manufacturer's behavior. Nor do I think the fear of it will keep all manufacturers honest, especially when many of them are international. The entire world would look very different if that level of faith in markets and legal mechanisms was actually justified.
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MaiqTheTrue Zensunni Wanderer Soriek 1d ago Even if you had the people, unannounced inspections are not gonna happen when you’re overseas. Especially if the manufacturer is in the third world or as in China, is a dictatorship. You can rock up to any factory in the USA because the USA recognizes the authority of the FDA and the legitimacy of the inspectors. India and China are under no such authority, it’s their country and their land and it doesn’t have any obligation to let an American government agency do anything in their country. This isn’t surprising, we don’t let China inspect our factories or farms even when the products are going to be shipped to China. As far as I can tell, we honestly have two choices in fixing that issue. Either we ban drug imports entirely, or we accept the standards of those countries we make the drugs in. I think the first is impractical simply because it means moving a lot of factories, though repatriation of the drug factories would have the knock on effect of creating manufacturing jobs in the USA. Accepting the standards of other countries is only fraught when those standards are lower than ours. This might be able to be worked around perhaps by creating a single standard between the USA and Europe and maybe only allowing manufacturing in countries that can meet those kinds of inspection standards. • •
NewCharlesInCharge MaiqTheTrue 13hr ago new
Factories in China are no more or less accessible than those in America. There are key cards, often times a security guard, for smaller operations you might be lucky to even have a receptionist. In both China and America the factory can tell the inspector to pound sand, and the consequence is the same, the facility can lose its certification. China's system of government can't prevent the FDA from yanking a factory's certification.
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MathWizard formerly hh26 MaiqTheTrue 1d ago A middle ground would be something like what Scott has recommended: have multiple categories, "approved/recommended", "allowed", "illegal", with drugs on the "allowed" list not getting the full range of benefits such as mandatory insurance coverage, and having to label themselves separately from the fully approved ones, but also having significantly less strict requirements to pass to remain legal. Then foreign drugs which don't allow surprise inspections can just stay on the "allowed" list and be legal and cheap for people who are willing to take that risk, but drugs that want to be fully approved need to be manufactured either in the U.S. (and opt-in to the full requirements, since some U.S. drugs might choose not to), or a country which complies with the FDA. • •
atelier Jimmys: unrustled MaiqTheTrue 1d ago Make it voluntary unless you agree and use inputs from a suppliers who have also agreed to voluntarily allow surprise inspections on some regular occurance, you can't import to the US. • •
ThisIsSin A psychosexual analysis of the worlds and words of George Orwell MaiqTheTrue 1d ago This might be able to be worked around perhaps by creating a single standard between the USA and Europe and maybe only allowing manufacturing in countries that can meet those kinds of inspection standards. Just restrict imports from places the inspectors didn't get to inspect. Works for more than just quality- you could do this for environmental/emissions concerns or worker safety (like we should have done initially; the entire reason you do manufacturing in China is generally because EPA and OSHA compliance costs lots of money and by moving to a country that doesn't care about that you're allowed to actually make a buck). • •
MaiqTheTrue Zensunni Wanderer ThisIsSin 14hr ago new
I think you’d still have difficulty, simply because of the fact that these inspectors would be American, might not speak the language (which means they can’t interview workers except through a translator who will likely translate in a way that hides issues), would likely be visually obvious, and be limited by both the number of inspectors and the ability to travel.
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Ex_Nihilo 1d ago · Edited 1d ago It's not the misstep, it's the spotlight. When the university president scandal broke a few weeks ago, one of our key discussion points here was that the coverage permitted of the events was a greater signifier than the events themselves. And so it seems enormously significant that The New York Times permitted the most recent Biden memory gaffe to headline this morning's news. Even The Washington Post gave the story a plain headline open to (gasp) interpretation. Given the heavy-handed spin (or, more often, defiance) utilized by leftist news outlets when faced with prior public speculation on Biden's capability and fitness for his office, this morning's sudden change in the wind feels like the most notable intra-party 180 since Kamala Harris suddenly realized that Biden is not a racist bussing critic the second her telephone rang with the VP offer. And speaking of Harris... who is responsible for pushing the first domino to allow this morning's spotlight to illuminate? All signs point to a shadow operation (in the words of our Merry Olde friends) inside the party with the intention of undermining Biden's own plans for the next few months. But to what end? Getting Biden elected and forcing him to choose a successor? Forcing his hand prior to November? Surely there's no way Biden recovers from this (famous non-last words, of course), and surely there's no way Harris is the winner when the smoke clears. • •
FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Ex_Nihilo 8hr ago new
My own (admittedly jaundiced) view on this is that if they'd prosecute Trump for this, then they should prosecute Biden, and if the rationale is that Biden is too dozy to prosecute, then why is he president right now, let alone running for re-election? If he really cannot be held responsible due to incapability, then there is no way he should ever, or still, be president. So they need to make up their mind what story they want to go with: Biden is still mentally capable (thus open to prosecution) or Biden can't be prosecuted (thus incapable of being president).
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Nwallins Finally updated my bookmark FarNearEverywhere 4hr ago new
The trick, you see, is to develop the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in one's mind at once. Once this achieved, literally anything is possible.
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Goodguy Ex_Nihilo 13hr ago · Edited 13hr ago new
I could be way off, but I'm not sure that who the actual President is even matters much most of the time. It seems to me that in practice we usually kinda really vote for the whole administration, not specifically for the President. The President himself could be replaced by an 18th century automaton that just signs pieces of paper that the Presidential advisors put in front of it and I doubt it would be much different from the President being a competent, mentally healthy human being as far as the outcomes are concerned. Trump might be an exception because he is such an outlier that his advisors actually probably would run a pretty different administration than he himself would.
I guess there is the "Russians launch nukes against the US and the President has 10 minutes to decide what to do" scenario. But I find it hard to believe that if that happened, the procedure would actually be to try to wake up Biden - if, say, he is asleep - and ask him for what to do. I kinda feel that in practice, there has to be some kind of nuclear response contingency for when the President is known to be mentally slow for whatever reason. But maybe there isn't one.
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HalloweenSnarry Goodguy 4hr ago new
Well, didn't H.W. Bush get the Nuclear Football when Reagan was shot?
EDIT: According to Wikipedia, the VP does indeed get a Football in case the President is incapacitated.
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guesswho Ex_Nihilo 23hr ago Or, you know, NYT wanted a bunch of clicks this week and didn't have a more interesting headline to go with. You're missing Hanlon's Razor, here, or some capitalist corollary thereof. You don't need whatever sophisticated behind-the-scenes maneuvering you're imagining when some editor making a random decision in an attempt to make money for their business sufficiently explains the evidence. • •
Corvos guesswho 12hr ago · Edited 11hr ago new
The NYT is well-known for believing it has the ability and duty to set news agendas, and taking that duty seriously.
Doesn’t mean everything has to be a conspiracy, but the paper of record does not run a highly damaging piece on a Democrat-affiliated president without some thought going into it.
That thought could be as simple as “we can’t get him out of this one and we haven’t got a good leader story for tomorrow so might as well get retrieve something from this fiasco”. Or it might indeed be a sign that big players believe Biden has become more of a hindrance than a help. We won’t know until more data comes in.
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Gillitrut Reading from the golden book under bright red stars Ex_Nihilo 1d ago Why not link the actual report? As best I can tell the special counsel decided not to prosecute because it would be difficult to prove Biden "willfully" retained the classified documents. The only reference he makes to possessing them is an offhand remark to the ghostwriter of his memoir in 2017. The report alleges he was aware of those documents in 2017 (shortly after leaving office, when it would be normal to have them) and subsequently forgot about them, which is not "willful" within the meaning of the relevant statutes. Contrast this with Trump who defied an FBI subpoena to retain possession of classified documents. From the report: Several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt as to such charges. For example, Mr. Eiden could have found the classified Afghanistan documents at his Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after. This could convince some reasonable jurors that he did not retain them willfully. When Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter about finding ''all the classified stuff downstairs," his tone was matter-of-fact. For a person who had viewed classified documents nearly every day for eight years as vice president, including regularly in his home, finding classified documents at home less than a month after leaving office could have been an unremarkable and forgettable event. Notably, the classified Afghanistan documents did not come up again in Mr. Biden's dozens of hours of recorded conversations with the ghostwriter, or in his book. And the place where the Afghanistan documents were eventually found in Mr. Biden's Delaware garage-in a badly damaged box surrounded by household detritus-suggests the documents might have been forgotten. In addition. Mr. Biden's memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023. And his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully-that is, with intent to break the law-as the statute requires. So Biden had classified documents in his home from his time as vice president and forgot about them. This seems like a pretty normal level of forgetting about stuff? My wife and I bought a new house recently and the process of moving definitely involved unearthing things we forgot we owned. Does this report cause anyone who was going to vote for Biden to change their mind? I'm skeptical. • •
Fruck Lacks all conviction Gillitrut 15hr ago new
You're skeptical? I was 100% certain this won't change any progressive's vote, because the alternative is Trump, who might as well be the actual devil.
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magic9mushroom If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me Fruck 14hr ago new
Not every potential Biden voter is a progressive, remember.
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SlowBoy Gillitrut 1d ago Now quote the part where Biden forgets key events from his life and career. • •
Gillitrut Reading from the golden book under bright red stars SlowBoy 1d ago I assume you mean this paragraph? In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended ("if it was 2013 - when did I stop being Vice President?"), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began ("in 2009, am I still Vice President?"). 839 He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. 81rn And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he "had a real difference" of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Eiden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama. Still better than Trump. Who has forgotten what city he's in, confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi, and claimed Obama is the current president • •
SlowBoy Gillitrut 23hr ago · Edited 23hr ago First you dispute OP by citing the report. Then, when I suggest the report is pretty bad, you pivot to Trump. I could try disputing you I guess (it's a pretty obvious lie that Trump confusing "Sioux City" for "Sioux Falls" is at the same magnitude here). But why bother? You're already moving goalposts. Partisanship. I think it's a waste of your time. • •
Gillitrut Reading from the golden book under bright red stars SlowBoy 23hr ago My point is that even if the report is bad, it is not changing who I am voting for. I suspect most Biden voters feel the same way. • •
FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Gillitrut 8hr ago new
I suspect most Biden voters feel the same way.
Sure, I have no problem with that. But it's equally applicable to Trump voters, so they shouldn't be held to a higher standard of "you knowingly vote for a guy who is the Devil, we only knowingly vote for a guy who's just a guy".
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drmanhattan16 FarNearEverywhere 7hr ago new
Is your argument that both sides have reasonable cause to see their own candidate as "just a guy", but the other's as the Devil?
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated drmanhattan16 2hr ago new
Pretty much so, but when it comes to "Trump did this on purpose but when Biden did the exact same thing that's different", then they should recognise they're being just as partisan as the Trump voters and for much the same reasons.
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ArjinFerman Tinfoil Gigachad Gillitrut 17hr ago new
My point is that even if the report is bad, it is not changing who I am voting for.
That's not exactly surprising. But you should avoid implying that the report doesn't say what it clearly says, and then moving the goalposts.
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notaflatland Gillitrut 21hr ago Don't read too much into it. Themotte is becoming a haven for witches. Anti-religious posts garner -10 votes off the bat. We're not in rational territory anymore. • •
aqouta notaflatland 7hr ago new
When counting votes one should really take a second and consider what opening and reading an argument about whether religion is real in the year of our lord 2024 selects for. People who survived the early internet atheist wars are either atheists who have moved on and are kind of over it or religious people who are primed for a fight. One of these two groups of people is much much more likely to bother reading the 800th version of the same argument.
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notaflatland aqouta 5hr ago new
I feel that someone needs to push back when religion and gods existing is presented as baseline reality. It is kind of wild to see.
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Amadan triggered and hysterical notaflatland 8hr ago new
We've always been a haven for witches, depending on your definition of "witch." The problem here is that you seem to be expanding "witch" to mean "people who criticize Biden" and "religious people," and it's the sneering way you connect two unrelated threads that got this post reported. Now, bitching about the Motte and its posters is a venerable tradition. Just the other day I was told that we're being too squishy and accommodating to the fee-fees of leftists. Imagine that.
This post is borderline boo-outgrouping. Look, if you want to go on a wild tear about religion, make it intelligent and also make it civil. "Religion is stupid and anti-rational" is well-trod and boring territory, and nobody is interested, even those of us who are not religious.
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notaflatland Amadan 6hr ago new
I hear yah'. Even I'm not sure where I was going with that biden thing. Just feeling solidarity with another Mott poster I suppose. In regards to the religious debate. Someone needs to keep the flame of internet atheism alive even 25 years on! Not everyone finds it boring. If they do, they don't need to engage or read about it!
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ArjinFerman Tinfoil Gigachad notaflatland 12hr ago new
We've been becoming a haven for witches since /r/SSC, except back then "witch" was supposed to mean neo-nazis and white supremacists, and now it apparently means... being religious, and thinking Biden is senile?
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated ArjinFerman 8hr ago new
now it apparently means... being religious
That cackling you hear in the background is me. Religious and a witch!
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The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht ArjinFerman 9hr ago new
Contra Scott, a witch, even back then, was anyone who reveals or acts as if they hold an unacceptable belief. The quote was "your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches", but that's wrong; it's seven zillion and three witches, three of which happen to be witches because they're principled civil libertarians and not for some other reason.
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notaflatland ArjinFerman 10hr ago new
He probably is, but the hate for him here is weird. The government grinds on regardless of who is the president. The economy is booming, things are going pretty well and our enemies are on the back foot the world over. I don't think trump pulling out of nato would help this. He just scuttled our best chance at quickly stemming the crazy numbers of illegals crossing the border. I would like more to be done immediately and this was clearly an election year hack.
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Felagund notaflatland 13hr ago new
I downvoted you in a few places because you were bad at arguing, not merely because you were anti-religious. (I've upvoted others, under the same top-level comment, who were anti-religious but made good points.)
That said, I endorse the broader point that you shouldn't care too much about getting downvotes here, as it's entirely possible to do so for making correct points; I certainly have.
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated Felagund 8hr ago new
I think that, no matter what fancy gloss is put on it, upvote/downvote or likes/dislikes are all the same - it's a popularity or beauty contest. I don't care about up or down votes, I've never read or skipped reading a comment because "oh it's been upvoted by The Sober Sensible Electors of The Motte, must be excellent and right-thinking/down voted? then it is the work of Satan!"
So yeah, ignore up or down votes. Go for the best argument you can construct about what you think is the correct view and why the opposing view is mistaken or misguided.
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notaflatland Felagund 9hr ago new
I don't have to be "good" at arguing the point when I am literally just explaining reality to you.
Put the shoe on the other foot. I tell you the sun is made of milk. You say "No that is stupid, we all know it is a massive ball of hot plasma, primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, undergoing nuclear fusion in its core. "
I then spend 10 paragraphs explaining that it takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for the light from the sun to get to earth so we can't possibly know for sure and that you should keep your mind open to the one true Hot Milk god and accept that his truth is also possible.
That is delusional. All religions are total nonsense. People tend to be able to see it in other religions or cults, but never their own for some reason. That never gives you pause for thought?
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SlowBoy Gillitrut 23hr ago Sure! Fine • •
Lizzardspawn Ex_Nihilo 1d ago One year too late. Right now both dropping and staying with Biden are risky. And of course there will be a lot of people that are influential right now because of his mental state that would not like to do it. To top it off even if the party decides that they don't want to play with him anymore, doesn't mean that he will go down easily. • •
campy Lizzardspawn 1d ago To top it off even if the party decides that they don't want to play with him anymore, doesn't mean that he will go down easily. That was the real genius move of choosing him as the puppet in '20. If he tries to resist his dumping, suddenly the questionable payments to his family members become the Biggest News Story Ever. "Appearance of impropriety," anyone? • •
FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated campy 8hr ago new
They can't U-turn on that, though. Not after having made such a big deal out of "it's not what it seems, it's not a big deal, there's nothing bad here, and it was the Russians working to get Trump re-elected who did it all".
I don't believe Biden was getting a cut of bribes, but I do think Hunter was getting bribes for the perceived influence of his father, and I would be very surprised by a switch from "just regular business payments" to "yes it was bribery and The Big Guy is Joe" by the DNC or whomever.
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TheDag Per Aspera ad Astra FarNearEverywhere 7hr ago new
They can't U-turn on that, though.
Have we been watching the same news cycles? Seems like for the last 7-8 years or so the news has been U-turning on practically everything, Covid being the major example. At this point I genuinely think the main news narrative is dangerously unmoored from even worrying about being consistent.
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HalloweenSnarry TheDag 3hr ago new
FNE was referring to the DNC party, though, not the news (though, yes, standard caveats about the affiliations therein and what-have-you). I will agree that the media does have this infuriating tendency to pivot without explanation (unless maybe you follow specific journalists).
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MaiqTheTrue Zensunni Wanderer Lizzardspawn 1d ago I think the fact that Biden’s mental state is being discussed openly signals that his party might be preparing to replace him on the ballot. The left were as noted above pretty much in lockstep that no matter what you simply don’t allow Biden’s mental acuity to be the topic of conversation. Between this and the press conference he stumbled through, it seems clear they are no longer covering for him as they were before. I think the big fear they have is the debates. If Biden performs at the debates like he does at the press conferences, there’s no chance of him being elected, because he’s barely coherent without having a hostile GOP candidate looking for a way to rip him to shreds. • •
Skibboleth MaiqTheTrue 1d ago Biden’s mental state is being discussed openly signals that his party might be preparing to replace him on the ballot. People have been openly discussing Biden's mental state since the 2020 primary. • •
MaiqTheTrue Zensunni Wanderer Skibboleth 14hr ago new
The mainstream media or people with podcasts and sub stacks? I don’t recall a prominent discussion of “Biden’s memory is failing him” in the election. In fact they hid it quite well— by basically using COVID as an excuse to hide him from the public. No appearances, no press conferences, nothing other than the required debates. And frustratingly, no one in the mainstream press bothered to look into why the Democratic nominee was hidden in a basement in Pennsylvania.
This new angle in which he’s suddenly being reported by his own government as having to weak a memory to be criminally responsible, and in which he’s giving public press conferences is different. The democrats are quietly lifting the curtain so the public can see how bad he is. This is new, and seems like a signal of “we can’t support him because he’s too senile to debate.”
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated MaiqTheTrue 8hr ago new
Then who do they replace him with? Kamala is not popular enough to win, and the other candidates seem to be the mystic self-help lady, who seems very nice but not someone you'd elect to be president, and some guy I can't even remember.
If they try shoehorning Newsom or another guy in now, won't Harris pitch a blue fit and work to ruin the rival campaign? They're stuck: stick with Biden who is now officially too senile to be held responsible, put him up against Trump, and hand the election to Trump, or pick a better candidate who is not Harris and have her go nuclear on them, and the election is still handed to Trump. I don't think the bribe of a second term as VP is enough for Harris, if the entire idea of her being VP in the first place was to set her up for a presidential run. Certainly not parachuting a different candidate in over her for the bite at this election's cherry.
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HalloweenSnarry FarNearEverywhere 3hr ago new
I dunno, I could see the Dems finding some way to skillfully snub Harris in favor of someone more electable. It might still come back to bite them in the ass after 2024, but if they are serious about swapping out Biden, they might be able to find a good Plan B.
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FarNearEverywhere undereducated and overopinionated HalloweenSnarry 2hr ago new
If they picked Kamala because she's black, then they better find someone who can appeal to the black vote, because right there is the way for her to drive the wedge in between the new guy and the black women voters who are the ones driving the voter turnout.
Can you see Gavin Newsom appealing to black voters in the South? I have to admit, I'd love to see him doing the rounds of Baptist churches for the vote turn out, it'd be free comedy performance, but who do they pick to slide Kamala out without her kicking up blue murder? I guess offering her a big fat plum position somewhere would do it, but as what - ambassador to someplace? She's already been VP, so something like Secretary of Whatsit in the new administration would be a step down.
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greyenlightenment investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ... Ex_Nihilo 1d ago Biden's failing memory is the biggest story out now. As I have argued in the past, the liberal media is not going to sacrifice ad revenue and virality to cover for or protect an increasingly unpopular administration , and omission of the story would be obvious and draw unwanted attention too. The NYTs and other left-wing media in 2021-2023 also wrote many articles about high inflation and other problems with Biden's economy. Surely there's no way Biden recovers from this (famous non-last words, of course), and surely there's no way Harris is the winner when the smoke clears. There are many normies who do not care and will still vote for him , just as many people would still vote for Trump if his memory failed • •
magic9mushroom If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me greyenlightenment 14hr ago new
There are many normies who do not care and will still vote for him
This doesn't actually especially detract from the statement made. Biden doesn't just need "many normies"; he needs nearly as many normies as he had before.
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Skibboleth greyenlightenment 22hr ago As I have argued in the past, the liberal media is not going to sacrifice ad revenue and virality to cover for or protect an increasingly unpopular administration , and omission of the story would be obvious and draw unwanted attention too. The NYTs and other left-wing media in 2021-2023 also wrote many articles about high inflation and other problems with Biden's economy. Does this in any way cause you to revise your priors on institutional bias? • •
Tyre_Inflator Skibboleth 19hr ago · Edited 18hr ago new
The New York Times literally opened with a salvo of "Republicans Pounce on report that puts spotlight on Biden's memory lapses"
This is, as the kids say, the "trope namer" for shameless institutional bias in journalism. The Pravda-like stock phrase that naturally leaps from a journalist's fingertips whenever a rhetorical slight of hand can't be accomplished through misleading phrasing or the passive voice.
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guesswho greyenlightenment 23hr ago 'If'? The Nikki Haley/Nancy Pelosi thing was bigger than this, and happened like last week. Frankly I don't think there's much point reading into the tea leaves with this stuff, people who spend hours a day in front of microphones make gaffes sometimes. But if we were going to do a full accounting, both sides have plenty of ammo to claim that the other side's gerontocrat is declining. • •
SlowBoy guesswho 9hr ago new
The Nikki Haley/Nancy Pelosi thing was bigger than this, and happened like last week.
No it wasn't. Trump's verbal gaffe (of the sort Biden makes all the time) is not in the same league as forgetting when you were vice president.
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Tomato greyenlightenment 1d ago · Edited 1d ago I don’t care, I’ll still vote for him. Voting for Biden is voting for a basically even-keeled deep state, which tends to do things I like and is pretty competent. By any objective measure the US is doing very well right now and I don’t really care who exactly in the administration is pressing the buttons so long as they keep pressing the right ones. • •
SlowBoy Tomato 1d ago By any objective measure the US is doing very well right now Where do you live? I'd like to move there! • •
sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? SlowBoy 21hr ago 60% of the country says their finances are at least good. https://www.axios.com/2023/08/18/americans-economy-bad-personal-finances-good • •
Fruck Lacks all conviction sarker 15hr ago new
The economy sucks, and 40% of people say they are suffering because of it, but by any objective measure the US is doing very well right now?
I can't bust your balls too much though, because a poll isn't an objective measure, it's a waste of everyone's time and energy.
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sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? Fruck 6hr ago new
There's no objective measure of the economy, period.
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Fruck Lacks all conviction sarker 2hr ago new
Good dodge.
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sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? Fruck 1hr ago new
Ignore your lying eyes! The west has fallen!
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SlowBoy sarker 20hr ago new
Inflation rose by unprecedented amounts in a short time, and will not roll back. Journalists and the credentialed classes insist on not understanding this very basic point, and so continue grasping for complicated explanations. Every American pays more money than ever before for basic groceries while housing prices stay unaffordable. But the economy is growing on paper, so what do the voters really know? Tada: "Vibecession". Voters must be living in the post-truth age because of all the "fake news" I keep hearing about.
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philosoraptor SlowBoy 12hr ago new
Inflation rose by unprecedented amounts in a short time, and will not roll back.
I have no idea where people get this idea that the last few years represented some kind of inflation record. They weren't even close. It's been above average for a few years after a very long period of being close to zero, but it's far from unprecedented.
What would be unprecedented is if it remained that way permanently, and this was perfectly predictable from where we currently sit. I can't imagine what could cause you to make either of those claims so confidently. If you have certain knowledge of how to forecast this, that has evaded every single economist of the last two centuries or so, that would be more world-changing than AI, climate change, and all the existing or brewing international conflicts of the moment, all combined.
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The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht philosoraptor 9hr ago new
Inflation was not literally unprecedented, but it was higher than it was in the lifetime of anyone Millennial or younger.
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sliders1234 philosoraptor 9hr ago new
On inflation we developed Better technology to control inflation so the jump to 10% really a policy failure. We had 40 years of falling inflation and 20 year of inflation between -2%.
It’s like complaining when your 2023 Car won’t start versus your 1970’s car is struggling to start. The ‘70s car does that all the time. I’ve never had a 2023 car not start.
As far as monetary tech goes we have better theory on causes of inflation pivoting from a Keynes world to a Friedman world, better statistics to pick up on inflation early including alt data sets, new tools like QE, and better transmission from federal reserve to markets (if the fed wants to tighten policy they can get a market move in seconds now and change the costs of risks premiums and base rates).
Our social technology did go wrong in 2021. It’s a prime example of go woke go broke. I still remember all the talk about black unemployment and being inclusive we got from Lael Brainard when she was angling to run the fed in 2021 and she wasn’t the only one. Wokism had replaced doing good money policy.
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SlowBoy philosoraptor 9hr ago new
Inflation might or might not come down, but prices will stay high. This is not only the plain meaning of my words, but a fairly easy bet that does not require me to be some super-mega-impossible forecaster.
When have food prices ever risen like they have recently? When in the history of the US has it mostly been cheaper to rent housing than to buy?
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SSCReader SlowBoy 2hr ago new
When have food prices ever risen like they have recently? When in the history of the US has it mostly been cheaper to rent housing than to buy?
The answer is as it almost always is when people talk how bad the current year is, is the 1970s. Food inflation in both 1973 and 1974 was over 13% each year. Also almost 11% in 1979. In 2022 in 9.9% for comparison.
For Rent vs House prices, 1978-1994 then again 2002-2009ish.
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sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? SlowBoy 19hr ago new
But the economy is growing on paper, so what do the voters really know? Voters must be living in the post-truth age because of all the "fake news" I keep hearing about.
It's ironic that this is made into a story about elite cluelessness when 60% of voters say they are doing good or better. What do they know after all?
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SlowBoy sarker 9hr ago new
By the numbers: In the telephone survey of 1,818 adults Aug. 10-14, 71% of Americans described the economy as either not so good or poor. And 51% said it's getting worse.
But 60% said their financial situation is good or excellent.
Not very good evidence for your take!
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sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? SlowBoy 6hr ago new
My take is exactly that people are mostly doing fine but nevertheless are sure that others are screwed. This isn't a story of the elites telling everyone else that everything is fine, this is a story of a majority of the country doing fine and some individuals telling them they aren't, actually.
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Tomato SlowBoy 21hr ago California but I travel a lot for work and everywhere I go seems to be thriving. • •
guesswho SlowBoy 23hr ago Just log off, and you're already there. • •
Lizzardspawn Tomato 1d ago This is mostly a quirk of the US being federation - federals can take credit for all the good things, all the problems can be blamed as local. • •
Skibboleth Lizzardspawn 1d ago That theory seems fully invertible. • •
Tomato Lizzardspawn 1d ago The only real problem problem, high housing costs, is in fact locally inflicted. • •
sliders1234 Tomato 21hr ago No high housing costs is atleast 50% Bidens fault. Yes on part of it is local land regulations. But Biden controls interest rates and he’s 100% responsible for that blinder. And interest rates sort of matter for housing. High deficits led to more inflation which caused the bond market to sell off rates and the fed to hike rates. His fiscal policy cause homes to be unaffordable. • •
sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? sliders1234 21hr ago Homes were unaffordable before interest rates took off. • •
sliders1234 sarker 20hr ago They’ve gotten worse. Also construction gets supercharged at low rates since homes are long term assets financed at a risks premiums to base rates. The solution to high home prices is building more homes. • •
sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? sliders1234 20hr ago new
They've gotten worse but they would have continued to get worse anyway. Did they get worser than the counterfactual? Well, maybe, but the argument is getting onto thin ice.
Also construction gets supercharged at low rates since homes are long term assets financed at a risks premiums to base rates.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1gdJk
My job is 75% looking at line graphs to find correlations and in my professional opinion these lines are not inversely correlated in the past 30 years. Plenty of times rates are high and housing starts are also high. During six years of ZIRP housing starts practically never matched what they were in the late nineties when rates were north of 5%.
The argument for inverse correlation seems better before the nineties. We are in a brave new world.
The solution to high home prices is building more homes.
Indeed, but boomers have shut that down as much as possible.
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SlowBoy Ex_Nihilo 1d ago The Special Council report essentially found that Biden broke the law, but wouldn't be prosecuted because he's too mentally far-gone to really prosecute. Biden claimed in his press conference that the Special Council report showed he did nothing wrong. The media has largely repeated his version of events. His forgetfulness is now so egregious that the press has to cover it. But I don't accept that this means that they're giving it the coverage it deserves. • •
KMC SlowBoy 1d ago The Special Council had enough to prosecute, but the DoJ wasn't going to proceed, so Special Council has explained why, as a method to preserve his own reputation and to cover his own ass. At least, that's my interpretation. Hur makes a fool of Biden because Garland was never going to indict, and Hur doesn't want the blame for this. Essentially this: https://twitter.com/Freedomville_/status/1756006255850569746 • •
johnfabian Ex_Nihilo 1d ago I'll know there's been an official change of direction once an upvoted article shows up about it on /r/neoliberal. • •
wingdingspringking johnfabian 6hr ago new
I always get a weird sort of cognitive dissonance when I try to read that subreddit. It's rare to come across such good ideas and bad ideas that are so tightly coupled. It's kinda jarring.
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Skibboleth johnfabian 1d ago Unfortunately, Soros cut off our funding after 2022 and now we're setting our own goals. • •
The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht Ex_Nihilo 1d ago Gavin Newsom has to be the obvious suspect; does he have East Coast Insider pull? I suppose even if he doesn't he might have an ally (e.g. Bloomberg) who does. • •
Turniper Ex_Nihilo 1d ago I disagree, I think it's super likely that Biden recovers from this. There's no real democrat alternative. A ticket with Harris as the top slot would be an absolute disaster, she'd super unpopular comparatively and mostly the VP because she was basically the only viable female black candidate. But that's not a role that wins elections, it's one that helps give you the bump on top for a candidate with the best possible name recognition and a generally milquetoast record with few outright negatives. I'd give Trump a solid 80% chance of winning against a Harris x Newsom ticket, even if he's off the ballot in 7 or 8 democrat leaning states. And so, Biden will be the candidate, unless he literally dies or enters a coma. Too many hopes are riding on him for any other outcome, if they were going to switch horses, the groundwork would have needed to be laid earlier. • •
Pulpachair Turniper 1d ago Well, for different values of recover. I agree that the Democrats cannot possibly dump Biden. Treating the Special Counsel's report as true would mean that the party apparatus has been complicit in covering up his cognitive impairment for at least seven years. That implicates the President's family, joint chiefs, senate and congressional leadership, and basically the entirety of the left-friendly political news media with access to those insiders. Gavin Newsom, Elizabeth Warren and a few other major political figures might be far enough removed from the power hub of the party to plausibly avoid getting caught in the blast radius, but not Kamala who will be at ground zero. Given those implications, I think doubling down on "Joe is perfectly fine and, in fact, he's more energized now than he has ever been," is the only message that helps protect those currently in power. Just because the party will be forced to stand behind him, that doesn't mean that this is not really bad news for his election prospects. As much as the uncommitted middle of the road voters are not dialed into political stories in general, "Old Man Yells at Cloud" was already kind of the defining meme of the upcoming election, and it will be near-impossible to reassure swing voters when Biden is planning to duck the debates, has carefully stage-managed public appearances, limited unscripted interaction with the public, and frequent "sundowny" moments when permitted to go off-script. All of that will just look like Weekend at Bernies against the memetic background. • •
aqouta Pulpachair 1d ago Treating the Special Counsel's report as true would mean that the party apparatus has been complicit in covering up his cognitive impairment for at least seven years Not really. Mental decline continues and advances over time. "He was fine until now and is no longer fine" is not an admission of anything. • •
Lewis aqouta 1d ago The report states that his mental decline was already notable in 2017. • •
ToaKraka Dislikes you Ex_Nihilo 1d ago According to the gamblers: Over the past week, Biden's chance of being nominated has fallen from 82 % to 72 %. The runners-up are Newsom at 10 % and Harris at 6 %. • •
Mottizen ToaKraka 23hr ago Michelle Obama's currently runnerup for the nominee on most betting sites. • •
ToaKraka Dislikes you Mottizen 22hr ago most betting sites I don't have any reason to think that ElectionBettingOdds is the be-all and end-all in picking the most reputable betting sites, but some sources supporting your claim would be nice. I see that Smarkets has her at 15 % vs. Newsom's 6 %, and Polymarket has her at 10% vs. Newsom's 9%. But PredictIt doesn't even have her listed. • •
Mottizen ToaKraka 17hr ago new
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.178163685
The Actual liquid exchange of note has her at second. Personally think it's an absurdity but I work in the betting industry and a lot of people keep trying to bet on her.
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FiveHourMarathon These hoes don't be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Meghan's Law Mottizen 13hr ago new
This is unbelievable to me. A guarantee I would spoil my ballot if I couldn't bring myself to vote for Trump.
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hydroacetylene Ex_Nihilo 1d ago Coupled with the DOJ release that Biden is too senile to stand trial and only one Supreme Court justice pretending Colorado’s suit had merit, I’m wondering if the cathedral just ran out of Assabiyah and is making their peace with Trump on a ‘can’t stop him’ basis. • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter 1d ago · Edited 1d ago So, the Carlson/Putin interview (transcript here)... ...this just wasn't a particular success for Putin, was it? After all the hype, he basically spergs half a hour about Russian history, then reiterates the same points he's made multiple times (we're just a bunch of victims betrayed by the West again and again! NATO expansion! Nazis! Multipolarism!), nothing really to grab on to. However, what comes to my mind about the half-hour history lecture is that... he just doesn't understand what really drives the Western liberal support for Ukraine in this war, does he? There's a popular Russian/pro-Russian conceit that Russians understand the West perfectly (due to the Americanization of culture etc.) while no-one in the West knows anything about Russia, that the historical narrative he's dropping would basically be something that would just convince everyone hearing it (for the first time) about the correctness of Russia's actions if they just had a chance to listen. What comes to my mind, though, is that this whole idea that things that happened hundreds or thousands of years from now should determine the now has been what the West has been running away from, especially when it comes to European affairs. It's the stuff of world wars and chaos; not just Hitler fashioning his conquests after previous German eastwards expansions or Mussolini imitating the Roman empire, but every two-bit East European state still having a faction advocating for Greater X on the basis of finding a certain historical border making their nation seem as big as possible, real or imagined, and then going "That's it, that's the true extent of our country, not these fake and gay borders we have now. That's what the post-war consensus (no forcible border transfers!) was designed to get rid of; that's, in fact, a large part of why European Union exists. I'm reminded of some of my first forays into debating about global affairs - trying to discuss Kosovo 1999 with Serbs online. I was, as a teenage Chomsky reader, quite willing to believe the worst of America and give the Serbs a quarter on this, but it seemed like all the online Serbs were intent on making the worst argument possible for their country, ie. going on about the battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389 and how this meant that Kosovo is holy Serbian land forever and ever and no Serb is ever going to accept that it's going to be something else, basically making it very hard for me to sympathize with them. And that's how Putin also seems to me here, except of course even moreso, consider the Finnish historical context and so on. (Of course, there's a large obvious expection here - Israel, still favored by the West, whose defenders tend to also get into things that happened thousands of years ago as the fundamental justification for why Israel needs to be able to settle Palestinian lands and bomb Palestinian cities now, but that's also precisely a part of why support for Israel causes so much friction within the West and often seems quite uncomfortable for even the supporters who don't have a direct religious motivation to do so...) Putin's argument about NATO expansion or Ukrainian Nazis have their own problems, but when he frontloads the whole narrative with "You see, this was the baptism of Russia when Prince Vladimir, the great grandson of Rurik (...) So in this sense, we have every reason to affirm that Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at Stalin's will", well, that's obviously the thing that matters, the prism through everything else should be seen. • •
orthoxerox I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink Stefferi 13hr ago new
A longer take, since my original comment was mostly driven by my reaction to the first part, the history lesson.
The history lesson was a big L. It must be something Putin finds very important, since he keeps repeating the same story at every given opportunity, but it doesn't help his case at all. If you're mainstream media, you can just ask someone with a PhD in history what they think and you get a story: "Putin's incoherent ramblings DEBUNKED by an actual scientist". If you're not, you can just mock him for talking like an old man.
And the history lesson doesn't support the second part of his interview at all: the part about American hegemony. This part is conveniently ignored by everyone because you can just attack the first part, and no one will listen to the whole interview anyway.
I'll try and express his position more concisely: the US is a hegemon and thus views the rest of the world through a very specific prism:
• any country that is America's equal is treated as an adversary and must be brought down
• any country that isn't America's equal is either a client state or irrelevant
Since 1991, Russia has wanted to be treated as one of the equal partners, but the US has made it known that it makes its decisions unilaterally, as befits a hegemon. If Russia isn't a client state, it's either irrelevant to the US, or it's an adversary and will be contained until it fades away into irrelevance.
This is where the history lesson finally becomes somewhat relevant. Putin says that he had swallowed every indignity: the bombing of Serbia, several expansions of NATO, the support of separatist groups, the American withdrawal from the ABM treaty, but Ukraine was the last straw. He tried multiple times to fix the relationship, but if the US insists Russia is either irrelevant or an adversary, then an adversary it will be.
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distic orthoxerox 11hr ago new
This is where the history lesson finally becomes somewhat relevant. Putin says that he had swallowed every indignity: the bombing of Serbia, several expansions of NATO, the support of separatist groups, the American withdrawal from the ABM treaty, but Ukraine was the last straw. He tried multiple times to fix the relationship, but if the US insists Russia is either irrelevant or an adversary, then an adversary it will be.
This is a half-truth. He didn't like the bombing of Serbia, so NATO should have let Serbia genocide the Croats? NATO expanded because some countries are afraid of their neighbor, I wonder why? The "support of separatist groups" is very funny, Russia is a master at this game (Transnistria, Georgia, Ukraine obviously - and I don't insist on all the movements that have failed until now). On the ABM treaty, it's not as if Russia was particularly respectful of treaties (Budapest memorandum? Minsk agreement?). And saying he tried to fix the relationship is just a lie.
I'll try and express his position more concisely: the US is a hegemon and thus views the rest of the world through a very specific prism:
• any country that is America's equal is treated as an adversary and must be brought down
• any country that isn't America's equal is either a client state or irrelevant
The way Putin see the world is quite different: any country is either a client or a prey. When Georgia or Ukraine didn't want to be client states anymore, they became preys. Nothing to do with America and its flaws, excepted that Putin hates the US because they prevent him to invade every country he'd wish to.
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DaseindustriesLtd late version of a small language model distic 5hr ago new
The way Putin see the world is quite different: any country is either a client or a prey
So is this the extent of your objection? «Yes but Putin is worse»?
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distic DaseindustriesLtd 3hr ago new
No. The extent of my objection is that his arguments are made in bad faith, and so aren't really arguments at all. Basically, what Putin is trying to say is something like "if only you Americans had been nicer to us, none of this would have happened". This is a very good strategy for him because it takes the blame off his shoulders and, more importantly, it suggests that if we are weaker now, if we let him do as he pleases, we will get a better future with a more peaceful Russia. Let Ukraine down and we will be friends again. But that is not true: abandoning Ukraine will only encourage him to be even more aggressive. Be sure that if he doesn't meet any resistance, he won't stop; he'll just make fun of how weak and decadent the West is.
Putin is not an intellectual, he is a politician. He argues with an agenda.
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sliders1234 Stefferi 23hr ago https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/1756052850810265927?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ Been saying this since the start of the war. It’s the only graph that matters with Poland getting rich and Ukraine poor. • •
orthoxerox I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink Stefferi 1d ago Thanks for linking to the transcript. I feel bad for Carlson who was suckered into listening to the first part. You can feel him dying a bit inside with every passing century. The rest of the interview is nothing new as well, but it's at least a position you can debate. It would've worked better without a history lesson, as this thread shows. • •
popocatepetl Stefferi 1d ago · Edited 1d ago This interview confirms a lot of what of Scott said about Putin to me — his ascent seems to have had nothing to do with charisma or personal magnetism. Putin's point and argumentation are fine. He outlines Russian history to argue that Ukraine doesn't have a historical basis as a nation; you actually do have to go back a thousand years to solidify that point. In this framing, it's a similar situation to if Alabama was spun off the USA in a peace treaty a few decades ago, and then allied with the USA's foreign enemies. While I would argue that Ukraine experienced a legitimate ethnogenesis under Soviet oppression, rather than it being cooked up in the Prussian war commissariat, it's a salient point. If he were writing a thesis paper, okay. The problem is that he didn't tailor his talking points to the audience at all. What he had to say was something on the lines of: "Russian-speakers throughout Ukraine are being oppressed. They want freedom and self-determination. Look at my 2014 plebiscite in Crimea, where they voted to be part of Russia. So do large parts of Ukraine, but the globalist elites who were falsely elected in Kiev are keeping them down. Here are lurid cherrypicked anecdotes A, B, and C" But he doesn't even bother to speak the language of the audience. It reminds me of the Pope's letter to the Mongols I heard from a Dan Carlin podcast, where he couches a diplomatic proposal in paragraphs and paragraphs of Catholic moral theology. Just a shocking level of not reading the room. • •
functor popocatepetl 1d ago I find it interesting that the reaction is so focused on him not talking in talking points. It seems like many of the American viewers are bewildered to see a politician not speak in sound bites and talking points. If he is speaking about large historic events, it makes sense to speak in longer format. He is explaining his reasoning and debating the ideas behind what he is doing. I don't see the point of him speaking in short talking points. If he repeated short talking points he wouldn't say anything that hasn't been said before and the interview would be uninteresting. His audience isn't the average person, as the average western voter can't vote in Russia. Their views don't really matter. He is speaking to people in the west who can sit through longer format content and are interested in his reasoning. How often does Biden speak Russian or any other language than English? • •
popocatepetl functor 23hr ago · Edited 23hr ago
I find it interesting that the reaction is so focused on him not talking in talking points. It seems like many of the American viewers are bewildered to see a politician not speak in sound bites and talking points. If he is speaking about large historic events, it makes sense to speak in longer format. He is explaining his reasoning and debating the ideas behind what he is doing.
Whenever you write (or speak), you should be aware of the audience to whom you're speaking and how you'd like them to respond. Putin's goal is ostensibly to reduce support for US intervention in Ukraine. Among the 150m viewers of this Tucker Carlson segment, you have populist republicans and curious centrists, none of whom will respond to Putin's approach. But let's pretend he doesn't care about them, and he's only speaking to Moldbug's "dark elf" dissident elite mixed in the throng.
This group will certainly be willing to hear a long form historical case. And yet Putin's opening monologue, while academically interesting, will not motivate them at all. He spends time establishing Russia has a cultural claim to the territory and people of the Ukraine. Interesting. So? Why should that motivate anyone to oppose their government's intervention?
If Putin wants to start a philosophical debate about the origin of nationality and sovereignty, and whether what he is doing to Ukraine is different from the US refusing to let states go independent, his remarks are appropriate. If he intends the interview to be persuasive, he took a political opportunity and threw it in the trash.
But he doesn't even bother to speak the language of the audience. It reminds me of the Pope's letter to the Mongols I heard from a Dan Carlin podcast, where he couches a diplomatic proposal in paragraphs and paragraphs of Catholic moral theology.
How often does Biden speak Russian or any other language than English?
I meant "speak the language of the audience" as in "speak to the idioms and values of the audience".
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HalloweenSnarry popocatepetl 16hr ago new
There's the theory that Putin's speech in the interview is ultimately meant for the domestic Russians he lords over, so all of these considerations are possibly for naught.
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Dean HalloweenSnarry 13hr ago new
That theory is a cope, in much the same sense of 5-D chess claims or 'this apparent failure is actually good because it leads the enemy into a trap' rhetoric. It's a trope that preserves the claims to competence by having the result be intended result of another purpose, without actually considering the competence of the claimed alternative purpose.
If Putin was trying to target the Russian domestic audience, he'd not be using Tucker Carlson, he'd use a medium- and a media figure- the Russians actually know or watch. Carlson is a specifically American political influencer, with no meaningful audience or influence in Russia. If you need to reach any particular Russian demographic, you'd be far better of speaking with, well, someone who speaks Russian, and with a following in the Russian demographic being targetted.
Nor does Putin need any American-influencer help in Russia with the domestic-Russian audience. Putin doesn't need to explain the reasons why to the Russian audience- that's what years of state-controlled media has already done. Putin doesn't need to win over domestic political support- the special military operations remains (nominally) high, and more critically all key political actors are onboard and complicit.
The only unique aspect of interviewing with Tucker Carlson is bringing your message to Tucker Carlson's normal audience. Tucker's audience isn't Russian. Using Tucker Carlson to target the Russian domestic audience is not only unnecessary, its incredibly ineffective way to do it.
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HalloweenSnarry Dean 4hr ago new
Yeah, I'm partial to the theory that Putin has probably found his way up his own asshole, and that Carlson helped him prove it once and for all. Perhaps the null hypothesis here is simply just "Putin really was trying to speak to the Ukraine-skeptics of the West, and has probably failed miserably."
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DaseindustriesLtd late version of a small language model Stefferi 1d ago · Edited 1d ago I've already said my part but it was a bit reactive to Stefferi's. Mikhail Svetov, czar of Russian online libertarians (fittingly, living in Brazil) has written a list of more interesting theses I agree with near 100% so here it goes:
10 points about Putin's interview with Tucker 1. Tucker raised questions in good faith and was not subservient [as feared by many]. The only thing Tucker can be seriously blamed for is that he did the same faceless interview that any liberal journalist would have done in his place. 2. Putin was poorly prepared. He didn't understand who was interviewing him and why, and couldn't derive any serious value out of it. From a political standpoint, this interview is a missed opportunity. 3. Tucker did not get the material he came to Moscow for. He expected to talk to a astute politician and champion of Christian values who could offer new ideas and an alternative to the decline of the West. What he saw was a boomer obsessed with vulgar revanchism. 4. Putin's main achievement in this interview is that it came out at the same time as the US special prosecutor's statement that Biden is an old man out of his mind and should not be held accountable for the secret documents taken out of the White House. Against the backdrop of Biden's presidency, Putin's ability to speak coherently for two hours does actually appear good. 5. The most successful moment of the interview is how a practicing Christian Tucker Carlson accidentally discovers that Putin is godless. The right-wing in the US is largely consuming their own propaganda and so Putin is perceived as a Christian leader. Tucker tries several times to ask Putin a question that's important for himself and his audience, about the place of God in the modern world, but each time Putin doesn't understand what he's being asked and talks about Genghis Khan. 6. The most disappointing aspect of the interview is how uninterested Tucker Carlson was in showing Putin through the prism of his own value system. With the exception of domestic homophobia, Putin's policies in Russia are indistinguishable from those of the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, this was probably a conscious decision by Tucker - and he was more interested in preserving Putin's image than drawing attention to his actual policies. 7. Putin missed all of Tucker's passes about the deep state and the sabotage of the republic by the bureaucratic class. This is where the low level of preparation for the interview was particularly striking. Since by Carlson's design this was where Putin was supposed to shine. Yet why Putin could not use these questions is clear – because in Russia this system has been perfected and fully suits Putin so he sees no fault in its existence. 8. One of the main puzzles of Putin's era: who is Putin's confidante today and slips him all these letters of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and other documents from the archives? Who is this mystical figure. Dugin doesn't appear in the Kremlin often enough to influence Putin in this way. Who else? Shevkunov? They have a different worldview. Who else? 9. The segment when Tucker asks Putin to release Gershkovich is patriotic and strong. A liberal journalist would have been showered with licks for this for weeks. But since Tucker Carlson asked it, the morally bankrupt won't notice. 9.5 I don't know the Kremlin's internal calculations and who they expect to trade Gershkovich for. But to let him go with Tucker to the US in front of his audience could be a strong public blow to the [US] hawks. At the same time, nothing would prevent the Kremlin from taking another hostage in his place. But I say this from the perspective of someone with no insider knowledge. 10. The memes about an old man who, when asked a clear question, starts telling the story of the creation of the world that have flooded the English-language Internet are a blow to Putin's image. • •
sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? DaseindustriesLtd 20hr ago With the exception of domestic homophobia, Putin's policies in Russia are indistinguishable from those of the Democratic Party. Absolutely bowled over by this claim. Strong "Russian expat in Brazil" vibes. But to let him go with Tucker to the US in front of his audience could be a strong public blow to the [US] hawks. Will the fact that he didn't update anyone's opinion? Unlikely. But if he did, we are to believe it would have? • •
Exotic_cetacean Aesthetics over ethics DaseindustriesLtd 1d ago The segment when Tucker asks Putin to release Gershkovich is patriotic and strong This. I look at Tucker with general condescension, but I'm happy to concede that this alone makes him more of a journalist (in the good sense of the word) than vast majority of his colleagues. • •
greyenlightenment investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ... Stefferi 1d ago Politicians love to hear themselves speak. news at 11. Of course, he does not understand or care about the opposing side. . Except for RT, Russia is cut off from Western media. Tucker comes along and gives this guy arguably the biggest platform in the world. Of course, he is going to use the opportunity to filibuster his side. • •
ArjinFerman Tinfoil Gigachad Stefferi 1d ago Meh. Didn't live up to the hype (mostly created by Western journalists, I might add), but nowhere near the trainwreck you primed me for. 6/10, approach only if you're extremely bored, or are new to all this, and never heard the Russia vs. the West arguments before. • •
dr_analog razorboy Stefferi 1d ago (This is my third reply to this top-level post. Sorry if it's a norm violation) I mostly am posting this to highlight the humorous scene from Twitter. @tylercowen in an older MR post remarked how he suspected Putin was sitting alone, isolated during covid, reading old history books. This seems to be proven correct! The fact that Putin explained a long historical justification to Tucker, rather than the meme talking points that would convince the right "nato made us do it" is a signal that this is what he actually believes. More context. It starts off with Hanania on Twitter I'm glad that we got to see this, because it revealed how out of touch Putin is. Tucker begins with a simple question of what the threat was on February 22. Putin's response spends half an hour on the entire history of Russia. We're used to people in the Middle East talking like this. An obsession with deep history is the characteristic of cultures that fight wars that never end. No one wonder no one even in the Russian speaking part of Ukraine wants to be part of Russia. Modern people care about their own lives and freedom and want a vision of the future. That's what Ukraine and the West offer. Not endless lectures from a grumpy uncle on how Vlad Vladimirovich sent love letters to Svetlana the Elegant in 1207 and why this proves that Russians and Ukrainians are one people. [...snip...] A Twitter reply-guy continues @tylercowen in an older MR post remarked how he suspected Putin was sitting alone, isolated during covid, reading old history books. This seems to be proven correct! The fact that Putin explained a long historical justification to Tucker, rather than the meme talking points that would convince the right "nato made us do it" is a signal that this is what he actually believes. This type of historical obsession with grand historical ideas is exactly the same as any other form of grievance politics. It's also a good reminder why centering the rights of the individual, first and foremost, is perhaps the greatest moral innovation in human history. As soon as you permit yourself to prize some sort of aesthetic of a "grand history" above the actual, really-existing, lives of people today, you allow yourself to not only commit atrocity, but also become obsessed with pointless score-keeping of who wronged who the most in the past. Can you trace back a historical 'unfairness' in how modern Russia has come to exist? Yes, of course you can. Fitting an unfairness model to the past (this is what we're doing of course) involves picking some artisanal 'fairness function' and tying it through all the historical points in history. When that functions fit inevitably looks absolutely fucked compared to its platonic ideal, we cry out that we must fix these historical wrongs. The number of ways you can fit this type of function is massive. All of our histories are a function of such an insane number of past events, your degrees of freedom in tracing exactly how things should have been, vs. how they are, is entirely in your control. So long as these ideas are so flexible, the human mind is drawn to them. Fitting stories and interpreting the past to justify the present is a seductive way to think. • •
satanistgoblin dr_analog 1d ago Re: Hanania, it's not like the West is rational, foward looking and unobsessed with the past. West is still completely obsessed with the ghost of the Moustache Man who's been dead for over 70 years and that distorts it's policies in a myriad ways. • •
Botond173 satanistgoblin 15hr ago new
Also, just think about the 1619 Project.
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HalloweenSnarry satanistgoblin 1d ago I imagine Hanania would indeed agree that the West somehow lost its passion for being forward-looking, and that all the historical naval-gazing and relitigation is a symptom of something a bit deeper. • •
dr_analog razorboy Stefferi 1d ago (Of course, there's a large obvious expection here - Israel, still favored by the West, whose defenders tend to also get into things that happened thousands of years ago as the fundamental justification for why Israel needs to be able to settle Palestinian lands and bomb Palestinian cities now, but that's also precisely a part of why support for Israel causes so much friction within the West and often seems quite uncomfortable for even the supporters who don't have a direct religious motivation to do so...) Not all Israel supporters! As an Israel supporter, my primary argument for why we should favor Israel is because they're a progressive secular-ish liberal democracy fighting with frightening backward third-world religious fascists. The historical claims are only worth getting into because they can readily be used to rebut their opponents' historical claims using their own logic. • •
Sunshine dr_analog 1d ago Seconded. Also, I'm pretty sure Hamas has "death to America" written in their charter, or possibly on their flag. I don't think that's a realistic goal, but if they ever achieved it then that would be pretty bad for me - I don't live in America but I do live in their economic sphere of influence. Hamas is opposed to everything that supports and protects me, so I don't feel any need to support them no matter how much of an underdog they are. • •
functor dr_analog 1d ago 1. Israel has a lage group of religious fundamentalists and is a religious state with religious values at its core. 2. Israel is a pro islamist state. They have worked to undermine more secular leaders in the middle east and actively supported jihadist groups. Israel doesn't want stable middle eastern countries but rather prefers continuous divide and conquer by supporting various extremists in Syria. 3. Israel pushes migrants out of the region and in to Europe. Israel is a force that increases islamism in Europe. • •
Sunshine functor 1d ago After reading this argument, I agree that you're right and I'm wrong. You've convinced me that Israel is a pro-Islamist state full of religious fundamentalists, unlike Hamas. • •
Amadan triggered and hysterical Sunshine 1d ago Avoid low effort sarcasm, it doesn't improve the discussion. • •
Sunshine Amadan 1d ago I feel like if my interlocutor is allowed to make his argument in the first place, then I should also be allowed to repeat it back to him. Whether or not the claim is allowed should not be based on whether or not I sincerely believe it. • •
urquan Sunshine 1d ago The problem is you’re treating it as though he’s arguing you should support Hamas. He’s not. You’ve said you’re an Israel supporter, and @functor is giving arguments for why you shouldn’t support Israel. Not supporting anyone because everyone involved sucks is a valid option. I read functor as arguing for that. • •
DaseindustriesLtd late version of a small language model Sunshine 1d ago I feel like if my interlocutor is allowed to make his argument in the first place, then I should also be allowed to repeat it back to him I do not think he has ever argued that Hamas is not pro-Islamist. But you know that, and simply demand that your caricature be respected, as your declared allegiance is high-status. Many such cases. For what it's worth, I agree that framing Israel as a pro-Islamist entity is ludicrous. But the criticism that, while fighting Hamas in its own neighborhood, Israel is not a force seeking to diminish Islamic influence in the world (or specifically where you live) is both legitimate (I'm split on whether it's true), and relevant to your rationale for support of Israel. • •
Amadan triggered and hysterical Sunshine 1d ago You didn't repeat his argument back to him. You repeated an insincere straw man back to him. There are a lot of ways you could have responded with the same essential point (regarding Hamas and whether or not his description of Israel is fair) but laying it on with sarcasm does not encourage actual discussion. It's a cheap shorthand for "Your argument is stupid and I wish to mock you." Don't do that. • •
Belisarius . dr_analog 1d ago · Edited 1d ago This is like Putin's denazification claims. Although to be fair, Israeli extremism towards the Palestinians showes a greater disregard of their rights, even though the Palestinians are mostly originally Jews who became absorbed into the Christian and Muslim religion. Just completely one sided standards that excuses the fanaticism, fascistic elements of Israeli society and the will to commit and support warcrimes against Palestinians. Religious extremism too related to the Jewish supremacist Jewish religion and its way of thinking about destroying Amalek. The behavior of Israeli elites has shown a remarkable fanaticism and disrespect of human rights. Israel is definetly NOT a democracy in respect of the Palestinians but an ultranationalist state which excludes, opresses and destroys a component of the people under its control. Plus it isn't as if "secular" Jews who retain those aspects of God given land, enslaved by Egypt, and the general narrative as the chosen ones, those always persecuted and oppressed by the evil goym who deserve to do as they wish because they are victims of antisemitism, with the holocaust taking a central role in this ideology are any less fanatics. Indeed, any secular person promoting this narrative, has inherited and adopted key aspects of religious Judaism and Jewish ultranationalist narratives. I don't disagree that it is consistent to do that and be a progressive, since progressivism is compatible with the most extreme fanaticism, racism, imperialism, dehumanizing others etc, etc. It is inconsistent with what progressivism claims to move beyond of course. The progressive movement just isn't that great and doesn't succeed in its pretenses nor does it seek to do so consistently. This inconsistency is a part of the tradition of progressivism, and liberalism. Part of what is about is treating certain groups as more equal than others. Ironically, what the concept of fascism is associated with in its worst excesses is not something progressivism manages to differs with towards its ethnic outgroups and in favor of its ethnic ingroups. You just call the ethnic groups you want to destroy as backward fascists, or white supremacist and associate their nationalism and rights with that and praise as enlightened the "superior" or "oppressed" ethnic groups you favor. This isn't to say that some progressive who opposes warcrimes against Palestinians but doesn't want to wreck Jews, doesn't have a more morally sound way of seing things than your perspective on the Israel question. Or even from a right winger who is fine with Palestinians to be cleansed even though many would end up in europe. But such a progressive would probably be disrespectful of the rights of european christians and be extremist in that way. In any case, this extreme logic you favor is compatible with progressivism and it is just a more sneaky way to support your favorite groups to the extreme, rather than be intellectually more valid than historical claims. Siding to to the highest extend with progressive groups and like Karl Marx, favoring the destruction of "reactionary" ethnic groups, is unwise and destructive on the face of it, an understatement really, but we should expect people to do this also to a great extend on the basis of sympathies. The "God is my real estate and he gave me your land", or "I deserve it because we are more progressive than you" or "we are oppressed and deserve your land" are just equally self serving narratives. Neither is inherently legitimate. Both have a similar nature of making things up to justify getting your way and trampling over others rights. • •
Sunshine Belisarius 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Israel is definetly NOT a democracy in respect of the Palestinians but an ultranationalist state which excludes, oppresses and destroys a component of the people under its control. If Palestinians are rightful Israeli citizens being denied their right to vote in the legitimate country of Israel, which includes both Gaza and the West Bank, then yes, Israel isn't a full democracy. In that case, Palestine is not, has never been, and will never be a real country, and Hamas are an organized crime syndicate akin to the Mexican Cartels. Nothing Israel does in Palestine is a war crime because they aren't at war, they're conducting a police action within their own borders against organized crime. On the other hand, if Palestine is supposed to be an independent country, then they do not have the right to vote in Israeli elections and Israel is in fact a full democracy that is not denying the franchise to anyone. The neighbouring country of Gaza, meanwhile, is a military dictatorship which hasn't held an election since 2008. This is not Israel's fault, and in fact nothing that happens in Gaza is Israel's fault because Gaza is an independent country that chose to start a war with their neighbour. You have to pick one. Palestine can't simultaneously be an independent country with the right to self-determination and a province of Israel with the right to vote in Israeli elections. • •
Lost_Geometer Sunshine 8hr ago new
You have to pick one. Palestine can't simultaneously be an independent country with the right to self-determination and a province of Israel with the right to vote in Israeli elections.
Do I have to pick one, or do the facts on the ground do it? To the extent that Israel controls the lives of Palestinians in the ways usually done by states with respect to their citizens, those people deserve a vote. The whole concept of democracy becomes meaningless if one can simply declare nonenfranchised groups to be part of a different country. Conversely, to the extent that Palestinian regions perform the functions of statehood (or, IMO, are functional stateless societies, although such things don't get respect in many places) then they may be treated as separate countries and Israel can exist as a democratic state without enfranchising them.
Realistically the balance seems different with respect to the main areas of Gaza and the West Bank, so one may not want to assign the same 3/5 of a vote to each.
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Belisarius . Sunshine 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Of course Israel is commiting warcrimes against Palestinians in either case. The issue is that they are neither allowed to be Israeli citizens treated equally. Or as individuals if we are to take the claims of individualism seriously and not to be used as concern trolling. They could also be citizens within a state that is federal and comprised of different states or something. Nor allowed to be treated, neither in Gaza, nor in the west bank as people with their own rights ruled by their own people, in their own country. You have to twist things and deny the reality of the treatment of Palestinians. he neighbouring country of Gaza, meanwhile, is a military dictatorship which hasn't held an election since 2008. This is not Israel's fault, and in fact nothing that happens in Gaza is Israel's fault because Gaza is an independent country that chose to start a war with their neighbour. The idea that Israel isn't responsinle for genocidal rhetoric, mass murder it commits,completly destroying countless homes, illegal settlement, a blockade, and choosing to commit warcrimes and kill and maim plenty of Palestinians also before Hamas attack and of course especially after, is just completely false. And of course we shouldn't forget the massive ethnic cleansing of which mass murder and the threat of more if people didn't leave of the Nakba. You are just choosing to excuse Israel crimes and your choice to shift all responsibility to Palestinians and claim that Israel isn't at fault at all for nothing it happens in Gaza is indicative of the extreme problem of fanaticism and complete lack of any semblance of justice that animates the pro Israel side. All their fault, none of ours. This is also ties to my point of the problem of Jewish ultranationalism in general which has a wildly false perspective that is maximalist for the Jews, and extremely disrespectful of non Jews and their rights. • •
Sunshine Belisarius 1d ago Of course Israel is commiting warcrimes against Palestinians in either case. You can't commit war crimes if you aren't at war, and you can only be at war with a foreign nation. I am willing to agree that Gaza is a nation with its own electorate, in which case Israel is committing war crimes but Gazans have no right to vote in Israeli elections. OTOH, I am also willing to agree that Gaza is a province of Israel and that Israel is denying them the franchise which they rightfully deserve, but in that case Gaza isn't a country, there is no war, and Israel is therefore not committing war crimes. I will accept one proposition or the other. I categorically refuse to accept both propositions at the same time. They are mutually exclusive. Either Gaza is part of Israel or it isn't. • •
vorpa-glavo Sunshine 17hr ago new
You can't commit war crimes if you aren't at war, and you can only be at war with a foreign nation.
That doesn't seem right. What about civil wars? Unless you consider any upstart group of rebels to automatically be a "foreign nation" then you can absolutely be at war with groups within a single country.
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Lewis Sunshine 1d ago Forget war crimes. Would you agree that Israel has committed crimes against humanity as laid out in the Rome Statute? • •
Sunshine Lewis 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm not a lawyer and I haven't read the text of the Rome Statute beyond a summary, so take some grains of salt, but it seems to me that at an absolute minimum they forcibly transferred populations in a systematic manner when they told everyone in northern Gaza to move to southern Gaza and then flattened the north with artillery. The point about war crimes is just what I said. "War crime" means violating the internationally-recognized rules of war, not just doing any bad thing. Killing lots of people isn't a war crime, it's just a war. • •
Lewis Sunshine 1d ago That clears things up, thanks. It seemed to me that your disagreement was mostly definitional, rather than substantive, and it appears that that was indeed the case. @Belisarius, does calling Israel’s actions “crimes against humanity” instead of “war crimes” make any difference to you? If so, I’m with the others in not quite understanding what you’re getting at. • •
Belisarius . Sunshine 1d ago · Edited 1d ago This is complete sophistry. Gaza is not a part of Israel and it isn't allowed to be a sovereign teritory. Crimes against people outside your country, or under your occupation are still warcrimes. One of the positive values of the concept of afterlife and being judged by God is this idea of allmighty justice. This kind of trying to weasel of any consequences through abusing and twisting logic, makes me imagine a story of a sinner who murdered and abused people in their life meeting Saint Peter in the gates of heaven, and asking to be let in pushing some kind of "actually" technicality bullshit that his crimes don't count because technically they aren't people, or some other ridiculous loophole. I don't think it would work. Rather, his destination would be the other side. • •
Sunshine Belisarius 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Out of curiosity, how do you think the Almighty will feel about people who spent the life He gave them shooting rockets at civilian targets? Will they be rewarded as martyrs or punished as murderers? Asking for a friend. War is pretty complicated, but I personally suspect the Almighty is less than entirely pleased to see his creations killing each other in gruesome ways. In fact, come to think of it, I think He might have written something about that on a stone tablet at some point in the past. • •
Belisarius . Sunshine 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Out of curiosity, how do you think the Almighty will feel about people who spent the life He gave them shooting rockets at civilian targets? Will they be rewarded as martyrs or punished as murderers? Asking for a friend. Having excused warcrimes against civilians with technicalities now you want to only talk of Palestinian guilt? Based on polls, and other evidence there is an imperialistic, expansionist element in Muslim nationalists, and groups like Hamas. However, it is also true that Palestinians and not Israeli live in a desperate situation and their rights are denied and have experienced far more than Israelis the murder of their own people. Israelis have a choice to impose a moderate order. I would expect Hamas members would not reach heaven neither. Although this concept of heaven should not become an excuse for being a pushover, and let evil thriumph. There are black and white moral issues and some more gray ones. The point is to act in a principled manner that both ensures your legitimate rights, while respecting the legitimate rights of others. Israel conduct here is clearly in the wrong and have the position of abusing the rights of Palestinians, while the Palestinians don't have that position. When I speak about moderation, I oppose pathological altruism and I find it indecent for groups like the Jewish lobby, to demand it to their ethnic outgroups. So if Israel avoided warcrimes and allowed the Palestinians to have their own state and Palestinians demanded Israel to revoke any view of itself as a homeland, and followed the policies the Jews in the west support in favor of oppressed minorities, for the palestinians, I would sympathize with Israelis being moderate nationalists and saying "fuck no". If Israel was to follow a moderate conduct and people trying to promote that the logic of oppression means letting Palestinians controlling Israel, I would sympathize with opposition to that. You have in this engagement completly refused to do anything but throw maximum blame on Palestinians, and constantly excuse Israel from any blame. And then once again you see fitting to ask if Palestinians shooting rockets at civilians will be punished for murder to not engage about those who have murdered far more civilians using airplanes or other more high tech methods from the Israeli side. To go back in the analogy of meeting Saint Peter, if that individual engaged with rhetoric just blaming the family off the individual he murdered because they too had sinners who wouldn't enter heaven, again Saint Peter would reject this. War is pretty complicated, but I personally suspect the Almighty is less than entirely pleased to see his creations killing each other in gruesome ways. In fact, come to think of it, I think He might have written something about that on a stone tablet at some point in the past. Well, if God will be displeased by this then maybe we should consider that the world which argues for Israel to stop its current conduct has a point. Which requires treating what is blameworthy as blameworthy, and not excusing it. Indeed, based on this paragraph God will value the end of gruesome killings over helping Jewish ultranationalists get closer to their Greater Israel dream. • •
sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? Belisarius 1d ago illegal settlement, Israel unilaterally removed settlements and even exhumed and reburied Jews (!) out of Gaza almost 20 years ago. a blockade Which started after Gaza, newly rid of the Jew (see above), continued to attack Israel and elected a party that ran on a platform of killing every jew. Gaza could have been the Singapore of the Levant by now if they cut that shit out. As it stands, there's nothing wrong with blockading people who do everything they can to kill you. • •
Belisarius . sarker 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Which started after Gaza, newly rid of the Jew (see above), continued to attack Israel and elected a party that ran on a platform of killing every jew. Gaza could have been the Singapore of the Levant by now if they cut that shit out. As it stands, there's nothing wrong with blockading people who do everything they can to kill you. False, the conflict included mas murderous ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians decades ago. Since then Israelis both had illegal settlements, and blockaded and build walls and even responded to protests by mass sniping. Each year plenty of Palestinians have died with Israel acting in disregard of their rights. It is completly propagandistic to pretend that Israel hasn't had continually its hands red in the blood of Palestinians and hasn't continually disrespected their rights. This idea that it is about Palestinians wanting to kill Jews when the Israeli goal is ethnic cleansing and dominance, is simply false. Nor is the mass murderous behavior after the war something to be excused due to the narrative you came up with. Israel has not engaged with Palestinians with a stance that has been about moderation and compromise but has continually as has been found by organizations which collect evidence for these things to have engaged with brutality. And has also disrespected the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank. Hence, the world turning sharply more negative towards it, including the opinion in european countries turning towards negative. It is also hard not to notice that the falsity in general and here too of the stereotype of Jews being seperated in many diferent opinions. Instead the trend of Jewish behavior in the motte as well is more to see a trend of siding entirely with Israel, and completly disregarding Palestinian rights, promoting an utterly false one sided narrative. This is basically the secret of the false narrative in general of saintly Jewish behavior and evil non Jews. Rather, there have existed obviously groups, including ideological groups that weren't Jewish of a very extremist self serving nature (and if I got to deal with Muslims promoting a narrative that the muslims didn't do nothing its all evil crusaders, western imperialists and Jews, I would have plenty of words to attack that false narrative), but there is a very real problem of the pro jewish faction and of the jewish community in general being maximalist for the Jews and other groups they identify with, and completly disrespectful of the rights of their outgroup ethnic groups. This willingness to constantly argue maximalist narratives for the Jews and against non Jews and distort things isn't something that should be respected and should stop. In the case of Israel, there is a choice of opposing Israel from the river to the sea without getting Palestine from the river to the sea. It is possible to have a policy preference that fits that. But it necessitates compromising with the rights of Palestinians and stop excusing and denying their mistreatment. • •
sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? Belisarius 1d ago False, the conflict included mas murderous ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians decades ago. Since then Israelis both had illegal settlements, and blockaded and build walls and even responded to protests by mass sniping. Each year plenty of Palestinians have died with Israel acting in disregard of their rights. Uh yeah we can always go back further and argue about who really started it. Plenty of bad shit on both sides.The point is that the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza was a major concession and opportunity for peace. This idea that it is about Palestinians wanting to kill Jews when the Israeli goal is ethnic cleansing and dominance, is simply false. Forcibly removing settlements and exhuming Jewish corpses from Gaza in order to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians there is some real 4D chess. In the case of Israel, there is a choice of opposing Israel from the river to the sea without getting Palestine from the river to the sea. It is possible to have a policy preference that fits that. But it necessitates compromising with the rights of Palestinians and stop excusing and denying their mistreatment. I'm not a, uh, "Jewish maximalist" and I don't support Israel from the river to the sea. However, I do not think that the blockade of Gaza is illegitimate. • •
Belisarius . sarker 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Israel has harmed far more the Palestinians than it has been by the Palestinians. And that includes those in the West Bank. The pervasive denial of their rights to movement, to receive goods, and settlement in their own lands are illegitimate whether you support them having less rights, or not. Moreover, the extremism of the past have been a very real issue, but the escalation under Likud has also been remarkable. Both from statements, and from actions, the conduct of Israel is one of commiting warcrimes, including mass murder, trying to starve them, destroying their homes, where it is clear from the rhetoric of Israeli officials that there are plans for ethnic cleansing in line with the ideology of especially the current ruling coalition of Israel. Although there is something continuous to that ideology and in fact hardcore extremists have been continually part of Israeli establishment from the beginning. Actual dissent against this maximalist, supremacist mentality and actions would be in the nature of being critical towards that. Instead you are trying to promote the narrative of the Palestinians refusing to be peaceful and being after the destruction of all Jews as in fact those whose genocidal rhetoric combines with the most extensive mass murder, is the Jewish side. And this side also in the past committed the greater attrocity, rather than the Palestinians having done so against the Jews. So, your stance is certainly extremely pro Jewish and anti Palestinian. Especially in the current timing. Hard to see how you are in practice at all an obstacle and not an aid to Jewish maximalism. • •
The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht Belisarius 1d ago Of course Israel is commiting warcrimes against Palestinians in either case. If Gaza is a province of Israel, they are merely suppressing rebellion; the question of war crimes doesn't come up because it's purely an internal matter. If it's independent, they are waging war against Gaza. Despite what we've been hearing since at least the Vietnam war, waging war is not synonymous with committing war crimes. • •
Belisarius . The_Nybbler 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Gaza is not allowed to be a province of Israel and if it was it would be a case of Israel commiting war against what ought to had been its own people. Israel conduct definitely includes warcrimes that violate international law, as found also by organizations meant to observe such things, and can be easilly noted such as carpet bombing the area, starving the populace, cutting electricity, various statements showing genocidal intent and quite more of intent to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their land and you are attempting to obfuscate here. • •
The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht Belisarius 1d ago Gaza is not allowed to be a province of Israel and if it was it would be a case of Israel commiting war against what ought to had been its own people. Can't commit war crimes against your own people. That's one of the ugly things about sovereignty. But of course the Gazans are not Israel's people. They're a people whose government has, since their foundation, dedicated itself to committing acts of war against Israel. And now Israel has gone from a limited war against them to a total one. And now they're crying "war crimes", because they think that will let them go back to committing acts of war against Israel with near-impunity. • •
Belisarius . The_Nybbler 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Can't commit war crimes against your own people. That's one of the ugly things about sovereignty. The Palestinians are obviously not the Israeli's own people because they don't treat them as their own people. But they are a different people under the influence of Israel victimized with war crimes in their own area, of which they aren't allowed to live in peace with their own sovereignity. This focus on the most banal sophistries, technicalities is revealing. The idea that you can destroy another group and act as you will against them without limitations because they are at war at you, when your group has been in the offense commiting warcrimes against them constantly, is immoral and unreasonable on the face of it. And of course, could be used and has been used towards many different groups. Indeed, various groups have often gone to war against each other and have had a hostile relationship. Your logic pushes things to the most maximum escalation towards the other group, from a position of strength, because of the hostile relationship. Where one's own conduct and honorable behavior is not expected and in fact maximum ruthlessness and maximum deflection of blame to the scapegoat is chosen instead. This escalation with the more destructive mass murderous response and end should be rejected. And it is a choice. One that encourages mutual maximalist ruthlessness. Whether followed by some ruthless fanatics who won't stop or far more likely mutually followed as others adopt the same logic in response, that would result in a much more crap world. I would rather we more sensibly oppose the most maximalist fanatics from getting their way. • •
dr_analog razorboy Belisarius 1d ago · Edited 1d ago I wasn’t making a moral claim though I was using moral language. My claim is more self-serving. What I meant, more specifically, is that I can fly to Tel Aviv and drink alcohol and take MDMA and dance to techno and feel good about being around extremely hot scantily dressed young women and even pass around this hilarious picture that I tricked DALL-E into drawing of flamboyantly gay kinda hot Prophet Muhammad and I’d be fine. Whereas hanging out in Gaza sounds nothing like this. I know which culture I want to see win. Perhaps “which place would I rather take a vacation to?” (or “which place would I want my daughter to go to university in?”) isn’t the best ethical framework for who to sell weapons to but it’s not the worst proxy. • •
Belisarius . dr_analog 1d ago · Edited 1d ago This argument then negates your claims about fascism as you would prefer living in a more prosperous society of fascists than a backward country bombed by fascists. Hardly a historical rarity for more prosperous societies to wreck less prosperous ones. You can prefer living in Israel over Palestine while not siding with Israelis doing crimes against Palestinians. Which also does affect quality of life. Rather than the super self serving way you try to advance here, one could also entertain how the world would look if the logic of people such as those rulling Israel were to be expanded. Then more places one lives, not just vacations towards would become battlefields. Perhaps “which place would I rather take a vacation to?” isn’t the best ethical framework for who to sell weapons to but it’s not the worst proxy. Of course it is a bad proxy and more like a self serving narrative rather than a reason that has any validity and there is in fact a tension between a self serving excuse and legitimate reasons. Germany under the nazis, would provide a better vacation target and be a richer society than the Soviet Union, and much of eastern Europe they conquered but I don't think you would claim that it should had been given weapons over the USSR. What happens towards conquered by aspiring conquerors should matter about whether to arm them, and how much and how often. We should actually try to think how those weapons will be used and whether such uses would be highly destructive and destabilize the region. You promoted individualism a few minutes ago in response to the OP. Was it insincere and about the Russians being individualists and the Serbs? I personally favor both individual and collective rights and there is both some compatibility and a tension here, as well as with the rights of other groups so I also favor limitations on both, and I strongly disagree with individualism as the dogma to purity spiral towards, but I disagree far more strongly with motte and bailey games. One would expect someone who favors consistently such individualism using aid, or even sanctions as leverage to get Israelis to respect individual Palestinian rights while still having their own Israeli society. And forcing the Israelis with pressure to elect people in charge who are willing to stop illegal settlements, aren't maniacs acting as if they are to destroy Amalek, acknowledge the ethnic cleansing their have done in the past, prosecute warcrimes and put in charge people who want to minimize civilian casualties and show a willingness for compromise and aren't just using excuses while having a destructive agenda. Of course in addition to the Palestinians the Jewish lobby has a problem of extremism against the rights of others in other areas. This kind of moderate faction who will defend Israel to continue to exist but willing to compromise and respect the Palestinians is not at all influential political force Israel, nor do you have a problem with siding with the worst extremists. Your progressive ideology has a particular shape that is very helpful to Likud and Jewish ultranationalists. • •
dr_analog razorboy Belisarius 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Germany under the nazis, would provide a better vacation target and be a richer society than the Soviet Union, and much of eastern Europe they conquered but I don't think you would claim that it should had been given weapons over the USSR. What happens towards conquered by aspiring conquerors should matter about whether to arm them. My heuristic is Jews are cool and people who think they're a threat are probably insane. I vote nay on attending the Love Parade techno festival in Berlin 1936. I appreciate your effort to try to derive moral consistency here but this is just not something I'm worrying about. It's as simple as: I like Jews and I empathize with them when they complain about, say, Nazis or Jihadis. • •
Belisarius . dr_analog 1d ago · Edited 1d ago The Jews are more than a threat towards Palestinians, so your heuristic about it being insane to see the Jews as a threat is obviously wrong. In fact, you refuse to engage with reality and consider as insane, the dominant perspective which is that Jews are a threat to Palestinians. Which is what the people who oppose Israel warcrimes think, but also what those who support them think but are fine with moving from threat to harm. My point is precisely that there isn't a moral consistency and is about irrational immoral ultranationalism for the Jews and being willing to excuse warcrimes. And then coming with self serfing narratives that sound nicer than that. Which is an ideology of racist extremism. In this case against Palestinians. In other cases, against other groups. So your admittance is accepted. We have dug out the truth now that you have moved from the claim of a progressive case, to it being about extreme sympathy for the Jews. Even though it is possible to support limitations on the rights of Jews to act against other groups, because you value the rights of other groups without screwing the Jews over from legitimate rights. And they do not have legitimate rights to carpet bomb gaza. Although of course that does necessitate a limitation on how much one sympathizes with the Jews and sympathizing with other groups, especially if Jews are not respecting their rights. • •
dr_analog razorboy Belisarius 1d ago · Edited 1d ago excuse any warcrimes Mmmm no there's a limit. I think if the IDF was kidnapping Palestinian children and bringing them into Israel and live streaming their beheadings in front of cheering crowds I'd say it's time to nuke them from orbit. We have dug out the truth now that you have moved from the claim of a progressive case, to it being about extreme sympathy for the Jews. Huh? Part of the reason I like Jews (and don't like, feel easy friendship with, say, Muslims) is because they're some of the more tolerant people I've met? Again, I can visit Tel Aviv and not worry if I'm acting too gay? Seems progressive! • •
Belisarius . dr_analog 1d ago Mmmm no there's a limit. I think if the IDF was kidnapping Palestinian children and bringing them into Israel and live streaming their beheadings in front of cheering crowds I'd say it's time to nuke them from orbit. The Israelis have done worse than that and after you have shifted the goalpost from the progressive case, to "place that is good to vacation towards", it fits within that paradigm. Seeing the israeli society being highly supportive of mass murder or Israeli high officials have the picture of a terrorist who mass shot Palestinians in a school, I don't actually think they should be nuked from orbit. Huh? Part of the reason I like Jews (and don't like, feel easy friendship with, say, Muslims) is because they're some of the more tolerant people I've met? Again, I can visit Tel Aviv and not worry if I'm acting too gay? Seems progressive! You are claiming to value tolerance for gays which are a tiny percent of the population over warcrimes, or other aspects of Israeli society which might not fit into a progressive viewpoint. Now my thesis is that the progressive movement has this massive hypocricy in it as part of what it is, but it is still valuable to argue for consistency. At face value, this is another bad excuse/reason and self serving narrative. But at this point no reason to take it at face value neither. • •
dr_analog razorboy Stefferi 1d ago I'm never sure what to make of the content of these interviews, especially with dictators, since they can 100% lie as it suits them. From vibe checking, I believe it's notable that Putin felt obligated to try to come across as sane and reasonable. In business negotiations you can gain a lot of upper hand by appearing insane and unpredictable. In politics, it's the opposite, you need to look very cool and collected and serious so that your supporters don't freak out. If you're a pure dictator, looking crazy is always an option because you don't depend on the consent of the governed. What to make of the fact that he wants to convince the people who watched this that he's reasonable and sane, and maybe even boring? • •
TowardsPanna dr_analog 1d ago What to make of the fact that he wants to convince the people who watched this that he's reasonable and sane, and maybe even boring? I assume he wants to gain more dupes in the US who will support Trump and then American withdrawal from NATO. Then Putin is a lot more free to imperialize. • •
ArjinFerman Tinfoil Gigachad dr_analog 1d ago especially with dictators, since they can 100% lie as it suits them. As opposed to politicians in other political systems? • •
dr_analog razorboy ArjinFerman 1d ago Is Biden just as free to lie as Putin is? Seems like he'd risk facing a lot more domestic criticism than Putin would. • •
ArjinFerman Tinfoil Gigachad dr_analog 1d ago From alt-right far right extremists? Who cares? You can make the point Biden is less cruel to his critics, or that it's not his personal decision which lies get to be uncritically promoted by the media, but I don't think you can claim that the establishment can't lie when it suits them, they do so constantly. • •
dr_analog razorboy ArjinFerman 1d ago Vibe check: like, this isn't exactly about lying to the media but a special prosecutor who Biden gave a deposition to just got done calling Biden mentally incompetent. Pretty sure anyone who did that to Putin would die? Would Putin tolerate any such deposition? • •
ArjinFerman Tinfoil Gigachad dr_analog 16hr ago · Edited 16hr ago new
Either that, if Putin himself was in this position, he would be the one ending up dead, for some oligarch to take his place.
Which is the exact same speculation we are having here: why is this report being published now when Biden's state was obvious for years? Did the DNC finally get fed up with him? Has Kamala decided it's finally time for President Harris? Yeah, Biden's critics are not dead, which is why I said you can make the argument Biden ( / democratic systems) are less cruel, but I don't think you can make the argument they're more honest. In fact, their dishonesty is probably the key reason for the relative lack of cruelty. When trust in institutions was high, the establishment could even afford things like free speech, because people overwhelmingly trusted official institutions, even when they lied, over randos on the street. Now that trust is falling, speech is being throttled, or otherwise manipulated. When America gets to Russian levels of cynicism, chances are they'll get to Russian levels of tyranny as well.
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MadMonzer Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite dr_analog 1d ago In business negotiations you can gain a lot of upper hand by appearing insane and unpredictable. This seems unlikely, given that businessmen even more so than politicians put a lot of effort into appearing sane in public. There is an obvious reason for this - the ability to hurt the other side after a breakdown in negotiations is usually much lower in business than in politics, so you want to appear sane in order to increase the perceived upside of a successful negotiation. The people who put the most effort into appearing insane in negotiations are organised criminals, and the less organised the crime the more insane-sounding the negotiators. This is, of course, where the ability to hurt your counterparty if negotiations break down is highest. • •
Botond173 Stefferi 1d ago What comes to my mind, though, is that this whole idea that things that happened hundreds or thousands of years from now should determine the now has been what the West has been running away from, especially when it comes to European affairs. [...] That's what the post-war consensus (no forcible border transfers!) was designed to get rid of; that's, in fact, a large part of why European Union exists. What sort of attitude should Western liberals then have towards Ukrainian nationalism, which is evidently very much based on the idea that "things that happened hundreds or thousands of years from now should determine the now"? After all, that's when the Kievan Rus and later the Cossack hosts existed. Jettisoning this idea would mean eroding the ideological basis for Ukrainian nationhood, and abandoning the arguments about Russians being Mongolized-Turkized Ingrian orcs. • •
hydroacetylene Botond173 1d ago And notably western liberals are mostly not making arguments about how Russians have no claim to Ukraine because they aren’t actually white. They’re making international order and territorial integrity of Ukraine post 1991 based arguments which they back up with realpolitik. • •
Sunshine Botond173 1d ago I consider myself a Western liberal, and my attitude is that history ended in 1991. It's like a game of musical chairs after the music stops. Wherever your national borders were in 1991, that's legitimate. This legitimacy supersedes any and all previous claims. All offensive wars are automatically illegitimate. The only legitimate way to change national borders is with the consent of the citizens of the provinces being annexed / declaring independence, plus the United States, plus any relevant regional powers. If any of those groups veto the transfer it is illegitimate. Frankly, war sucks so much that I'm automatically against it unless given a compelling reason otherwise. The default state should be no wars never. Any deviation from that default should need to be thoroughly justified. • •
satanistgoblin Sunshine 1d ago 1991? Give Kosovo back to Serbia then. • •
Sunshine satanistgoblin 1d ago Too late, the rules-based international order has already printed new maps. • •
ajuuiomml Sunshine 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Neat! Do you embrace pacifism in all aspects of life? If you were assaulted, would you just roll with the punches? Or if your spouse were being abducted, what would you do? • •
sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? ajuuiomml 1d ago This is a pretty weak gotcha against a guy defending supporting Ukraine against Russia. • •
ajuuiomml sarker 1d ago No gotcha and no sarcasm, actually - it was an honest question. • •
Sunshine ajuuiomml 1d ago · Edited 6hr ago EDIT: I mistakenly thought this was a response to my other post. On reflection, I still think that this was intended as a response to my other post and you just accidentally replied to the wrong one. One, war is different from interpersonal violence. The Ukrainian conscript soldiers were not given a choice to fight or surrender, and they weren't the ones being personally threatened with violence until they were drafted and forced to fight. If Ukraine had surrendered 30 seconds after the Russians invaded, I suspect there would have been far fewer deaths than there have been in the war so far. Two, if I was mugged and had a choice between fistfighting the mugger or handing over my wallet, I would just hand over my wallet. Not out of pacifism, but out of pragmatism. If nothing else the hospital visit would probably be a bigger inconvenience than replacing my credit cards. Think of how many Ukrainians have died to protect their great big useless symbol. I think Ukraine should just hand over their wallet at this point. Three, I'm not actually a pacifist. If I was mugged and had a choice between handing over my wallet and shooting the mugger in the head (and I had reason to believe that I would get away with it and suffer no consequences) then I would shoot the mugger in the head. I think the aggressor should suffer as much of the consequences of the crime as can be forced upon him, no matter how disproportionate or negative-sum that might be. However, this is not the dilemma in Ukraine. If Ukraine could march on Moscow and publicly execute Putin without suffering a single casualty then that would be grand, but they can't so that's not worth considering. Their choices are to lose sooner and with fewer casualties or lose later and with more casualties. Forcing other people to die for your pride and principles is not nearly as glorious as some people like to make it sound. • •
campfireSmoresEaten Sunshine 1d ago Does that mean you think the United States should recognize Northern Cyprus? • •
Sunshine campfireSmoresEaten 1d ago Only if they have a compelling reason to do that. Lacking a good reason, I think the United States should leave Northern Cyprus alone. All else being equal I think all countries should default to minding their own business. • •
Tophattingson Sunshine 1d ago In practice this norm was put in place after WWII, not after the fall of the USSR, with the concept of a crime of aggression. Forceful land annexations have been rare since, despite the explosive proliferation in number of countries that can annex or be subjected to annexation. Frankly, war sucks so much that I'm automatically against it unless given a compelling reason otherwise. The default state should be no wars never. Any deviation from that default should need to be thoroughly justified. It takes two to tango. Blanket opposition to all war compels defenders to surrender as much as it compels aggressors to not aggress. • •
Sunshine Tophattingson 1d ago It takes two to tango. Blanket opposition to all war compels defenders to surrender as much as it compels aggressors to not aggress. I'll bite that bullet. Russia should stop invading. However, since they did not, Ukraine should surrender. Frankly I am not convinced that living in Russia is so much worse than living in Ukraine that it's worth fighting a war over. Maybe if it was Finland - but, then, Finland is part of NATO, so it wouldn't be Finland would it? • •
The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht Sunshine 1d ago Maybe if it was Finland - but, then, Finland is part of NATO, so it wouldn't be Finland would it? Finland joined NATO last year, well after the invasion of Ukraine. • •
Sunshine The_Nybbler 1d ago The linear progression of time liberates us from the need to justify things that could have happened, but didn't. Finland is part of NATO now. • •
guesswho Botond173 1d ago Also not give a shit about it. We defend Ukraine primarily because Russia is the aggressor and they are being invaded for no reason that we respect. Not for anything having to do with Ukraine being 'good' or 'just' along other axes. • •
functor guesswho 1d ago Do we also support the Libyans, Iraqis, Syrians, Palestinians, Yemenis, Afghans and Venezuelans who are victims of unprovoked wars of aggression? • •
MadMonzer Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite functor 1d ago Of those, only Iraq was an unprovoked war of aggression (unless you are talking about the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), and the domestic popularity of the war was critically dependent on a majority of Americans (wrongly) thinking that it was provoked - majorities in US opinion polls thought that Saddam did 9/11. Elite support for the war was also based on the fact that it looked like a continuation of the (obviously provoked) 1st Gulf War. Libya, Syria and Yemen (if we are talking about Saudi military operations in Yemen starting in 2015 - the current military operation against Yemen is straightforwardly provoked by Houthi piracy) were interventions in pre-existing civil wars - Syria was already a charnel house before foreign troops turned up and Libya and Yemen were well on the way. "Foreign intervention in civil wars is net-bad and there should be less of it" is a perfectly defensible position, but it is a different question to "1945 borders should be respected" which is the claim this thread is about. The NATO war against Afghanistan was profoundly provoked - 9/11 was carried out by an Afghan client group. Israel-Palestine is complicated but the first war begins with an Arab invasion of what the UN had declared to be Israel. To call the situation an "unprovoked war of aggression" by Israel against Palestinians is a non-standard use of the word "unprovoked". Operation Gideon, which is what I think you are talking about viz-a-viz Venezuela, was a Bay of Pigs-tier farce which both the Venezuelan and US authorities treated as crime rather than warfare. To call it a "war" is to grant Jordan Goudreau status he doesn't deserve. The operation could only have succeeded if the Maduro government was hollow and collapsed when someone said boo to it. I understand why NATO's enemies (particularly the domestic ones like Noam Chomsky and Tucker Carlson) think that the "rules-based international order" is bullshit, but that doesn't make them right - in particular Iraq was a spectacular own goal (I admit I supported it, with the excuse that I was an undergraduate at the time). Compare the 1991 and 2024 political maps of the world - most of the lines that have moved have Russian troops on them. • •
functor MadMonzer 1d ago Libya was unprovoked. Financing terrorist groups within a country and then giving them air support is worse than the failed attempts at nation building. Using maximal economic pressure campaigns while flooding them with weapons is a poor excuse for stealing their oil. The US is outright occupying parts of Iraq and Syria. The NATO war against Afghanistan was profoundly provoked Why are the Americans allowed to bomb countries when provoked but the Afghans are not? What would it take for people in the middle east to be allowed to hit back? Operation Gideon, which is what I think you are talking about viz-a-viz Venezuela, was a Bay of Pigs-tier farce which both the Venezuelan and US authorities treated as crime rather than warfare. Being incompetent doesn't stop it from being a war of aggression. Compare the 1991 and 2024 political maps of the world - most of the lines that have moved have Russian troops on them. While the Russians have marginally moved borders the US has gone on an unhinged rampage killing 2 million people and displacing 45 million people while toppling multiple governments. The border of Afghanistan was the same but the state was completely replaced. Murdering the head of state of nations and replacing the state with an entirely new government is far worse than changing a border. Russia at least made the people they took into their own citizens. Americans just murder Libyans but don't want to make them American citizens. • •
Pongalh guesswho 1d ago Have a hard time believing that if South Korea up and invaded North Korea we'd think the latter were fighting the good fight and come to their defense. (But then you did say invaded for "no reason that we respect," in which case South Korea may have a reason we respect.) • •
guesswho Pongalh 1d ago Correct, I think there are some justifications for invasions that we'd approve of (we do enough of it ourselves afterall...), but absent those specific types of justifications I think we're generally opposed to the aggressor. • •
Arnaud Botond173 1d ago Western liberals don't care why the Ukrainians don't want to be part of Russia, the Ukrainian desire to maintain their independence is enough. After all, that's when the Kievan Rus and later the Cossack hosts existed. Jettisoning this idea would mean eroding the ideological basis for Ukrainian nationhood, and abandoning the arguments about Russians being Mongolized-Turkized Ingrian orcs. If you say any of this to your average western liberal they are going to look at you like you've grown a second head or decided to start talking to them in Tagalog. • •
satanistgoblin Arnaud 1d ago Confederacy didn't want to be a part of United States, does that make libs sympathise with their cause? Libs mainly support Ukraine because they hate Russia for other reasons, simple as. For example, democrat congressman Raskin on Russia: "It is a world center of antifeminist, antigay, anti-trans hatred, as well as the homeland of replacement theory for export. In supporting Ukraine, we are opposing these fascist views" • •
hydroacetylene satanistgoblin 1d ago Except Ukraine has generally more conservative social norms than Russia. Libs tend to be Russia hawks, but so do establishment republicans. • •
satanistgoblin hydroacetylene 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Establishment republicans are basically libs too, "progressives driving the speed limit" as the saying goes. Ukrainian nationalism is OK with the left because it serves a bigger purpose in the grand scheme, see Yarvin. I don't think they're more socially conservative and they certainly won't be after western integration they seek. • •
Amadan triggered and hysterical satanistgoblin 1d ago Libs mainly support Ukraine because they hate Russia for other reasons, simple as. Conservatives mainly support Russia because libs support Ukraine and conservatives hate libs, simple as. (I do not think either of the above statements are actually "simple as" that. But see how this kind of thinking leads to reductive and inaccurate thinking that borders on boo-outgrouping.) • •
FarmReadyElephants Amadan 1d ago As a conservative, my personal pro-Russia stance comes from the viewpoint of the War in Ukraine as of the genre of Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan style American interventionism. I have no issues with Russia keeping their immediate neighbors as a sphere of influence and I think it's dangerous, stupid, and counter-productive to try to rip that away from them, whether by subversion or by war. • •
Amadan triggered and hysterical FarmReadyElephants 1d ago As I implied in my parenthetical, of course I believe there are legitimate reasons for conservatives to oppose intervention in Ukraine. There is certainly a subset of rightists (including here) who just knee-jerk in opposition to anything that leftists seem to be in favor of, which was my counterpoint to @satanistgoblin accusing liberals of supporting Ukraine only for unspecified "Russia-hating" reasons. There are liberals who hate Russia for various reasons and who probably don't have well-thought reasons for wanting to support Ukraine, but generally speaking, "my outgroup believes X for stupid, shallow reasons and not based on any actual principles" isn't making any effort to actually understand why people take the positions they do. When your argument boils down to "My enemies are NPCs," it's not a good argument. • •
satanistgoblin Amadan 1d ago When your argument boils down to "My enemies are NPCs," it's not a good argument. They aren't all NPCs, some just have alterior motives and/or long standing grudges. • •
ImmanuelCanNot I dunno, if it's a battle for civilization you should probably use guns, instead of anonymous commen satanistgoblin 1d ago Confederacy didn't want to be a part of the United States, does that make libs sympathize with their cause? I think picking the least sympathetic breakaway region in post industrial history and comparing it to Ukraine is not going to get you congruous opinions. Also if the Confederacy had not been a part of the US for 30+ years and then the US attacked it unprovoked the Civil war would be remembered differently. • •
Fruck Lacks all conviction ImmanuelCanNot 1d ago I think picking the least sympathetic breakaway region in post industrial history and comparing it to Ukraine is not going to get you congruous opinions. Thatsthejoke.jpg • •
ImmanuelCanNot I dunno, if it's a battle for civilization you should probably use guns, instead of anonymous commen Fruck 1d ago Ah I believe I may have been "wooshed" • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter Botond173 1d ago · Edited 1d ago No, the fundamental argument is that Russia (as the self-selected successor nation of Soviet Union) acknowledged Ukraine's sovereignty and borders in 1991, and shouldn't be allowed to alter them unilaterally. The arguments about Kievan Rus and the Cossack hosts are interesting in themselves, but they're also mostly basically a response to Russian claims on the subject. Ukrainian nationhood does not depend on them. • •
sliders1234 Stefferi 1d ago Even if Ukranians were as Russian as apple pie is American they would still have strong motives to seperate. Poland is on pace to be richer than England in 2030. Russia is a gas station and poverty. Aligning with the rest would be what a smart middle class Russian would do who isn’t tapping money from an oil spigot. The old Ukranian stuff is just good for building the memes around the concept of statehood for Ukraine. If Russia was rich then I bet Ukraine would have no issue creating memes around their shared Russian heritage. • •
Shrike sliders1234 1d ago Russia is richer than Ukraine, though. My understanding is that the average Russian is better off (at least by somewhat imprecise metrics like GDP or average wage) than the average Ukrainian, and was even before the war began. That's not to say that many Ukrainians don't want to turn towards the West for economic reasons – I am sure they do. But the idea that Russia would drag Ukraine down economically if they were unified isn't true – it would be the other way around. • •
Tophattingson Shrike 1d ago The parts of Ukraine which are richer were also more pro-Russia than the rest, mainly because they had strong trade ties to Russian industry across the border. Not any more, of course. • •
Shrike Tophattingson 1d ago One of the many surreal things about the war was realizing that Ukrainian arms manufacturers were still exporting to Russia after it occupied Crimea. • •
orthoxerox I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink Shrike 1d ago One of the many surreal things about the war was realizing that Ukrainian arms manufacturers were still exporting to Russia after it occupied Crimea. After it occupied Melitopol, even. • •
FiveHourMarathon These hoes don't be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Meghan's Law Stefferi 1d ago However, what comes to my mind about the half-hour history lecture is that... he just doesn't understand what really drives the Western liberal support for Ukraine in this war, does he? Alternatively, Putin understands (or thinks he understands) what drives western hesitation to oppose Russia: cowardice. I don't mean that pejoratively, fear is possibly the rational course in the face of irrational Russian aggression over a bunch of villages I can't pronounce in places I don't care about. Putin just needs to inject Caution into the Western mindset, Putin just needs to make decision makers a little afraid that he might be crazy, that he might do just about anything at any time, that he will never surrender in the face of superior forces. Putin is never going to successfully convince the West in an interview that he is actually the good guy and everything they know is a lie. But what he might convince them of is some mix of A. Putin is nuts. He's raving about Rurik and Yaroslav and Stalin. He's trapped in some bizarro revisionist thing. He's irrational and never going to be intimidated or talked down. If we assume that Putin will never, ever give up, that he will pay any cost up to and including nuclear war rather than lose Ukraine, the logical move becomes to give him Ukraine rather than trade Paris, London and NYC for a "free" Ukraine. B. The conflict is one with "deep roots" that we just can't understand. You see this with Israel-Palestine, people start talking about genetics and Ottoman policy and everyone's eyes glaze over and the rational response seems to be to throw up one's hands and say "forget it." Convince the western public that the Ukrainian conflict is over some esoteric nonsense, some bullshit historical grievance based on lines in a chronicle written by the one literate guy in Kiev circa 800. Putin doesn't need to get the West on his side, that won't happen and wouldn't matter anyway. He just needs the West to be less interested in supporting Ukraine. He doesn't even need the West to stop supporting Ukraine altogether, he just needs them to be unwilling to provide every possible support and to carry any possible cost to support Ukraine. If Western support merely reduces to the kind of things they were providing in 2019, Ukraine collapses. Putin's goal was never to convert. • •
MadMonzer Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite FiveHourMarathon 1d ago I think this is correct as to the objective logic of Ukraine politics - the strongest argument for the west to abandon Ukraine is "Russia has escalation dominance because Putin is a nuclear madman and Biden isn't, therefore we should seek the best surrender terms possible now rather than starting a war we can't win." Credibly signalling to NATO that he is a nuclear madman helps Putin, as long as it doesn't get him removed by Russian elites who don't want to take the risk of being ruled by a nuclear madman. But I don't think delivering a long lecture on badhistory in Russian with an English dub with a humiliated Tucker Carlson in the room achieves anything in the "communicate that I am a nuclear madman with plausible deniability" stakes that delivering the same lecture as a piece-to-camera in Russian with English subtitles available on RT or artist-formerly-known-as-Twitter to anyone who cares. In fact, my read is that Putin knows perfectly well how to signal that he is a nuclear madman (and did so noisily at the start of the invasion), and has deliberately toned the nuclear threats down since the early days of the war when it became clear that NATO wasn't going to hand him Ukraine on a plate Munich-fashion. The most likely explanation is that NATO in effect called his bluff by arming Ukraine to the extent we did, and that he didn't think he could survive domestically if he doubled down with even louder and more credible threats. If there was a plan for Putin to get a message out to Western decision-makers (including voters) using the interview - either a novel argument for the policy wisdom of NATO surrendering (including a novel argument for why Russian victory is inevitable) or a deliberate escalation of nuclear tension, it failed badly - nothing was said that would change the minds of anyone who has been paying enough attention to be motivated to watch the interview in the first place. Given that neither Putin nor Tucker Carlson are stupid, I don't think there was such a plan. Anti-Russian Twitter is settling on the theory that Putin is using the endorsement of his ramblings by a prominent American journalist as a way of amplifying his domestic propaganda operation, and that the real target of the interview is the Russian domestic audience. I think that basic argument is plausible, but the sympathetic-neutral foreign audience is even more important than the Russian domestic audience. • •
The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht MadMonzer 1d ago The west would be extremely unwise to grant escalation dominance to Putin. Doing so means agreeing in principle to all demands by sufficiently insane nuke-holders. • •
MadMonzer Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite The_Nybbler 1d ago I agree, but lots of smart people (notoriously including Elon Musk) don't. If I was Putin, targetted "I'm Nuclear Gandhi and you're not" messaging to Western elites would be part of my playbook. So do a substantial minority of grill-pilled normies. I was too young to be sure, but my recollection of 1980's peace activism in western Europe was that the leadership were "not anti-war, just on the other side" but a large fraction of the followers just felt that whatever the Cold War was being fought over wasn't worth risking nuclear armageddon over. (They were wrong, of course). The same was true of the 1930's appeasers - lots of intellectuals were engaged with the argument that Germany deserved the Sudentenland, but the man in the street (appeasement was extremely popular) simply thought it wasn't worth fighting over. I suspect there is a similar dynamic on the US right viz-a-viz Putin and Ukraine. • •
FaibleEstimeDeSoi Stefferi 1d ago trying to discuss Kosovo 1999 with Serbs online Isn't this situation can be quite reasonably interpreted as the one that broke "post-war consensus" where NATO force was used to protect illegal separatist movement that wasn't recognized by nobody apart from the neighboring country that actively supported them(with obvious parallels to the Donbass conflict). Of course the casus belli of ethnic cleansing was far more valid in the Kosovo case, but still international law and order argument seems quite weaker after this and other similar US interventions. Serbs could and did argue that they were in the right from the legal standpoint, it was just useless against American MIC. IMHO you don't need to complicate things, Israel having support from majority of US government officials while it's leaders are making similar arguments from history is explained by Israel being US ally and Russia being enemy. You have different standards for your friends and opponents, unalienable right to self-determination for your enemies, unbreakable post-ww2 borders for your allies. Some uneasiness from supporting Israel among youngsters is a temporary consequence of some runaway tiktok trends, solid majority supported Iraq war, among them many young liberals in the past, most of the Palestine flag in the bio people will support next US intervention when needed. Average person doesn't have some principled position on foreign policy and can be easily driven in frenzied bloodlust by modern propaganda technology(specifics of it vary from country to country but result is the same), I can clearly see it "on the ground" in Russia and Ukraine right now. • •
sarker Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? FaibleEstimeDeSoi 1d ago You have different standards for your friends and opponents, unalienable right to self-determination for your enemies, unbreakable post-ww2 borders for your allies. I don't really think of Kosovo as an American ally. I mean, I guess they are, but the mouse is not much of an ally to the elephant. It's not a compelling explanation for American involvement in the Kosovo war. • •
FaibleEstimeDeSoi sarker 1d ago I don't see how could you read it this way. Clearly in this case Serbia/Yugoslavia was an enemy in the territory of which self-determination became an unalienable right. You don't need to ally to the separatists to support the ones going against your opponents. • •
FiveHourMarathon These hoes don't be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Meghan's Law FaibleEstimeDeSoi 1d ago but still international law and order argument seems quite weaker after this and other similar US interventions The USA's governing classes broadly seems incapable of grappling with the idea of universal international rules. Senators stand up in the capitol and screech about "Iranian made weapons" being used by militias to shoot at Americans, while we send weapons to Ukraine with the specific goal of killing Russian soldiers. Iran bombs places in Iraq and Pakistan and Syria that the USA bombs all the time, we are shocked that it's now just considered OK to bomb other countries without declaring war. • •
Shrike FiveHourMarathon 1d ago The US did more than screech; it launched an airstrike in Baghdad to kill someone associated with the attack, which resulted in a statement from the Iraqi government condemning it as a violation of international law and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. • •
sliders1234 FiveHourMarathon 1d ago This feels like whataboutism where the things aren’t the same. US made weapons are being sent to Ukraine to defend against an invader. US hasn’t invaded Yemen. Maybe you can get a little close with Saudi backing but still. • •
FiveHourMarathon These hoes don't be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Meghan's Law sliders1234 1d ago I was speaking more in terms of the various militias throughout Syria/Iraq that we bombed. You can probably bullshit your way into saying we weren't invading those places, but it's definitely a colorable claim. • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter FaibleEstimeDeSoi 1d ago Isn't this situation can be quite reasonably interpreted as the one that broke "post-war consensus" where NATO force was used to protect illegal separatist movement that wasn't recognized by nobody apart from the neighboring country that actively supported them(with obvious parallels to the Donbass conflict). Of course the casus belli of ethnic cleansing was far more valid in the Kosovo case, but still international law and order argument seems quite weaker after this and other similar US interventions. Serbs could and did argue that they were in the right from the legal standpoint, it was just useless against American MIC. Yes, those are valid arguments. The point was that the rather than using them, the online Serbs I encountered just rambled on about Kosovo Polje. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ Stefferi 1d ago A question to ask here is also - if we accept that the Russians and Serbs generally determine questions like this based on historical narratives, and Westerners determine them based on how it meshes with the precedent of their system of international law and human wellbeing considerations, do the Westerners make an effort to persuade the Easterners with arguments that the latter would find valid? My impression is that they don't, which would raise the question of why not. Do they not understand their audience either, or is it something different, such as the audience never being the others to begin with as some posit, or perhaps that everyone's preferred way to convert anyone to a different ethical system is to repeat it in an authoritative voice a lot? • •
MadMonzer Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite 4bpp 1d ago Part of why you can't do that is that the poor quality of sources makes arguments from medieval history inherently complicated enough that they need explaining, and if you're explaining you're losing. Noel Malcolm's history of Kosovo devotes a whole chapter to explaining the debate among serious historians about what actually happened at the battle of Kosovo Polje, and concludes that the we don't know whether the Serb historical mythology around the battle is mostly accurate or not. The other reason why trying to respond to this type of argument in kind is that it doesn't help. Apart from "facts on the ground" created by the 20th century wars, any decent Old World ethnic dispute has both sides with true claims to be indigenous to the disputed territory over 500+ years*. There are no mass settler colonialist societies in Europe (there are settler colonialist elites, such as the Norman-origin upper class in England) in the way there are in the Americas - everyone is indigenous (except post-1945 non-white immigrants, who are irrelevant to eastern European ethnic clashes). The New World woke idea that indigeneity trumps the claims of states to sovereignty within their current internationally recognised borders, or the right of current local majorities to self-govern democratically, would be absurd even if it wasn't cancellably unwoke given the existence of those non-white immigrants.
- One of the key ideas I got from Noel Malcolm's books about Kosovo and Bosnia was that a lot of toxic ethnic politics comes from the fact that the modern idea of nationhood is not compatible with the facts on the ground generated by Ottoman rule, under which all of migration-without-assimilation, migration-with-assimilation and assimilation-in-place by religious conversion were common, and nobody kept records of which had happened.
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Lewis 4bpp 1d ago Because historical narratives aren’t going to convince anyone that they’re wrong, only that they’re right. No revanchist Frenchman from the late 1800s is going to accept that Alsace is rightfully German, and no nationalistic German from the 1930s is going to accept that it’s rightfully French. Ask a nationalistic German and a nationalistic Pole who Danzig/Gdańsk should belong to, and each will claim that it obviously belongs to him, and for what he sees as compelling historical reasons. • •
RococoBasilica Actually a Quality Retribution Stefferi 1d ago My first reaction was similar to yours. Does he really think this will persuade Western audiences? How isolated is this guy? But as the interview went on, my impression changed. He isn't speaking to Western audiences. He isn't necessarily speaking to domestic audiences either. He is speaking to future historians. He is painting a picture of the kind of leader he wants to be seen as: erudite, informed, wined and dined by the world's powerful. Looking for peace but being ready for war. I am quite convinced this was about little more than his ego. • •
Sunshine RococoBasilica 1d ago · Edited 1d ago I agree that he was talking to future historians but I want to characterize it more charitably. There's a lot of speculation about how the opportunity presented by this interview could have been exploited to shift public opinion in America or Russia, and how he might have played into this meme or that to manipulate political factions across the world. And maybe he could have, and maybe that would have titled the scales ever so slightly in Russia's favor. But Putin is a dictator. He doesn't need to obsess about moment-to-moment public opinion. He's also quite old, and supposedly has cancer. I think Putin was genuinely expressing his beliefs for posterity. I think he wanted to present his side of the story because he wants people to understand why he did what he did. He didn't follow along with Tucker's prompts to talk in the direction of current-day right-wing American politics because he had something to say. And that something turned out to be a really long lecture about Russian history. A man after my own heart. • •
do_something Sunshine 10hr ago new
supposedly has cancer
There are no credible or confirmed reports of that.
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Tanista RococoBasilica 1d ago · Edited 1d ago I think this is just a mode with him. He ranted like this at Obama too, long before COVID.. 'The staffers who accompanied Obama to the meeting tried to cut it short when Putin was about thirty minutes into the rant,' The Sun reports. 'But Obama describes how he decided not to interrupt as it appeared that Putin had rehearsed the entire thing. 'It was 45 minutes before he finally stopped and Obama answered him point by point in what turned into a marathon two hour conversation. He claims that Putin seemed open but not enthusiastic to his point of view.' The historical specifics may be different but the format seems to be a thing with him. Did he really think he would win over the head of the Great Satan? Probably not. Nor was it for glory. He just seems like an aggrieved guy who has a strong theory of the case he's rolled around in his head six billion times and gets to spew because he's one of the most powerful men in the world. It's strangely relatable, same with his strange culture war detours like specifically calling out JK Rowling's defenestration over trans issues, which I see little reason to do. Frankly, it looks bad for a (alleged) civilizational competitor to even get into that sort of minutiae. But he does it, because he believes it. It's hilarious tbh. • •
faceh RococoBasilica 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Seems like a probable explanation. I had initially expected he was going to finish the history lesson then make the argument that "then these Americans, who arrived on the historical scene 5 minutes ago, step in and declare that the current borders must stand, without any concept of why those borders came to exist and why they might be in dispute, and failed to mollify our concerns about a looming conflict." Perhaps make a larger point that any other notable nation out there might find itself in a similar situation. "Americans don't respect your country's history, they will simply force you to respect the current arbitrary boundaries no matter how well-founded your grievance." But he ultimately performed what seemed like Apologia for himself. "I talked to Bill Clinton and he gave me mixed signals. I talked to Bush and he gave me mixed signals (and his CIA actively interfered in Ukraine). We had the Minsk Agreements ready to go and they were tossed aside, to my utter surprise!" So the actual audience I think was historians, as you say, and possibly his own people to justify the course of action he took on the basis that he tried many times to avert this outcome. • •
Dean RococoBasilica 1d ago My first reaction was similar to yours. Does he really think this will persuade Western audiences? How isolated is this guy? Extremely. It is not much an exaggeration that Putin lives with the sort of social connectivity typically associated with doomsday preppers. The Kremlin's aversion/fear of western cyber-capabilities is legendary, leading to media reports of rooms of typewriters and that Putin doesn't even tolerate internet-connected devices in his general proximity, and since the Ukraine war the fear of a drone attacks- combined with the relative lack of drone countermeasures- has reportedly seen him spend much of his time in literal bunkers. The paranoia level is extremely high. But as the interview went on, my impression changed. He isn't speaking to Western audiences. He isn't necessarily speaking to domestic audiences either. He is speaking to future historians. He is painting a picture of the kind of leader he wants to be seen as: erudite, informed, wined and dined by the world's powerful. Looking for peace but being ready for war. I am quite convinced this was about little more than his ego. This is a correct read. Putin has had a reoccuring theme across the last two decades which can be summarized as that he wants to be remembered as one of the great Russian leaders of history, someone who decisively changed Russian trajectories and elevated it to a new level of prestige and respect. It is very much a Great Man of History approach to legacy building. This is also one of the core reasons that Putin's nuclear saber wrattling and fear mongering typically doesn't resonate within the Russia-analyst communities. Putin wants to be remembered as one of the greatest Russian leaders, not the last. • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter RococoBasilica 1d ago · Edited 1d ago This is a legit explanation. A philosopher king, except not a king and not much of a philosopher, either. • •
Fruck Lacks all conviction Stefferi 1d ago Hey dude, I normally wouldn't mention this but you did it in the op too - except (you flipped the c and the p.) • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter Fruck 1d ago Fixed. Probably one of the more typical non-native speaker errors. • •
bro Stefferi 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Constructively in that spirit, also from the OP: this whole idea that things that happened hundreds or thousands of years from now should determine the now Reads opposite to how you intend. "from now" in this context means "in the future". This should be "thousands of years ago". • •
FarmReadyElephants Stefferi 1d ago · Edited 1d ago ...this just wasn't a particular success for Putin, was it? The first thing that struck me about this interview was that Putin was not playing for the American audience. Think of a contrast with someone like Bukele, who has previously appeared on Tucker. Putin did not sound the part of the aggrieved guest looking for sympathy from Tucker's conservative audience. Indeed, he treats Tucker with contempt. His long, patriotic exposition of the history of the Russian state was quite rude in context. He bats aside Tucker's prompts and answers how he would like. The overall impression is of something distinctly foreign and alien to American ears. And the frame of the conversation is set solidly by Putin, it is clear he is the dominant one and not Tucker, despite however many millions of eyeballs Tucker can command. Putin is perfectly capable of making an American-style argument to an English-speaking audience. Instead he wants to send a message to his Russian audience. I'm sure American media is perfectly accessible to educated, well-traveled Russians that speak English. Putin is saying to them "This is Russia. The New York Times and Tik Tok have no power here. I am in charge." There was a video circulating awhile back of a illegal migrant stopped at an American immigration checkpoint. He had perfect command over American Zoomer memes. He had long ago been catechized by Tik Tok into the American religion. Putin is showing that is not the case for the Russian leadership. He is displaying something darker, older, erudite, and, to an American, inscrutable. He gives Tucker a giant sheaf of archive papers in Russian and says "I'm sure you can find someone to translate them for you later". It's a big FU to Tucker, America, and Americanism. As Putin said, it is impossible to win against America in a battle of propaganda. Appearing on a dissident-right American news outlet is not a power move in the current year. For his current purposes, Putin wants your fear. He wants your respect. He wants you to see that he doesn't particularly care about an American news interview. But he does not want to win your hearts and minds. To the extent he IS playing to American ears, it is the ears at DoD and State whom he is directly negotiating with. Tucker, also, is more invested in the fact of this interview than its content. He wants to show he is the preeminent voice for American dissidents, willing to do the shows that others will not. I would say he has that title on lock. Whether or not that will turn into actual power at some point in the future, who knows. He thinks ending the war in Ukraine is in American interests, and perhaps it increases antiwar sentiment in the GOP at the margin. • •
remzem FarmReadyElephants 1d ago It also had the effect of making him look just competent in general. Not just dominant in comparison to Tucker. Reading the vibe on social media that seems to be the main take away. Putin can recall the dates and names of historical figures in the region going back hundreds of years and uses that as justification. The west is reduced to basically baby speech, "free free good!, fight poo poo bad man!" Compare that interview to a MSM interview with Zelensky. Didn't help that the interview occurred on the same day Biden got excused for leaking documents because he's simply to senile to have done it intentionally. Then had an emergency press conference where he talked about Mexico opening the border with Gaza to humanitarian aid. • •
CertainlyWorse Dedicated Pessimist remzem 1d ago Putin can recall the dates and names of historical figures in the region going back hundreds of years and uses that as justification. I suspect a significant part of his speech was being read into his ear by his attendants. Probably partially why he was so resolute in batting aside Tucker's interruptions. • •
do_something FarmReadyElephants 1d ago it is clear he is the dominant one and not Tucker, despite however many millions of eyeballs Tucker can command I just want to point out that on this metric Putin is blatantly dominant over Tucker. And frankly, also on basically any other relevant one. You need find stuff like "how well he knows English" for Tucker to be winning one. • •
MaiqTheTrue Zensunni Wanderer FarmReadyElephants 1d ago I do think this played well with the Conservative audience. That particular audience has long understood that you kinda have to play tough when interviewed by a journalist. Most have had bitter experiences of watching a conservative play straight with the media and then watching as the answers given are twisted into a parody of what the person actually said in order to make them look or sound stupid, evil or out of touch. Putin showed command of the situation and I think most conservatives resonate with that. The other part of this is that what he said is a lot of things that the conservative audience already believes. They believe in the deep state, they believe that western culture is being manipulated and that traditional Christianity is being supplanted by wokeness. They are at least suspicious of the narrative in Ukraine, whether they think it’s money laundering or that the money is better spent at home or that we caused the problem in 2014 by supporting the color revolution that ultimately put Zelensky in charge. Those things won’t play with a mainstream normie audience that doesn’t believe those things, but those people won’t watch and likely see the very fact the interview took place as proof that Tucker is pro-Russia and possibly treasonous. But much like everything else in the new media landscape, they don’t actually matter to either Putin or Tucker. We live in the new media landscape in which it’s entirely possible to construct a complete media bubble from music to movies to news sources that mean never hearing a contrary opinion or narrative. Putin and Tucker won’t pierce those bubbles much like NPR’s reporting on Russia is not going to pierce the alt-right conservative bubble. That’s the thing, especially for older people, that’s really hard to grasp. There is no real mainstream anymore. And most analyses that presume that a political figure failing, or looking bad in public sort of imagine that this is being shown to an audience that’s roughly in the median of American political opinion. That audience effectively no longer exists in the age of streaming. So the name of the game in political journalism is not to appeal to the mainstream but to a base of people who already share your views. And even for political parties and candidates, getting your base excited is the name of the game, because you don’t have access to all of the media, the liberal in New York isn’t watching you or listening to you. Or if you are a liberal, the conservatives in Texas are not watching your shows or subscribed to your social media channels. • •
CertainlyWorse Dedicated Pessimist FarmReadyElephants 1d ago Yeah after 2 minutes of waffle with the Tucker opening framing it became clear that this wouldn't generate anything new and was playing to domestic ears. You can't Cassus Belli from 1000 years ago. The western tradition will not accept it. I hope western intelligence agencies gleaned something out of this. For my part I just picked out what reinforced my beliefs. It was over the destruction of Ukraine as a buffer nation (euromaiden) between Russia and NATO. A waste of everyone's time. • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter FarmReadyElephants 1d ago Yes, I was thinking about him speaking to a Russian audience - quite often such opportunities with American media are used for domestic purposes, but... that's a huge whiff, then, isn't it? Putin literally has countless opportunities to address that audience! Even if we're talking about humiliating someone for the audience to cheer, it would be much better to humiliate a politician (and Western politicians and other figures have at times still been willing to talk to him) than a presumably somewhat sympathetic journalist. Furthermore, if Twitter reactions are any indication, this didn't succeed. His history lecture just came off as boring as weird. People are already memeing about him rambling about a great variety of other historical topics. Even sympathetic figures are wondering WTF he is doing. Dunno how it is playing with domestic audiences, of course. • •
DaseindustriesLtd late version of a small language model Stefferi 1d ago but... that's a huge whiff, then, isn't it? Putin literally has countless opportunities to address that audience! And he does. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've heard parts of that spiel at 5:54 AM MSK 24.02.2022, before starting to pack my shit. He's like a broken record with this History of The Fatherland 101 lesson. He doesn't really care about frameworks of other people, but if he cared, he'd have noticed that there is no audience left. Russian nationalists are memeing about ancient Aryan aliens too. • •
HalloweenSnarry DaseindustriesLtd 16hr ago new
Oh, are we getting Russian Hyperborea theories now?
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4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ Stefferi 1d ago · Edited 1d ago quite uncomfortable for even the supporters who don't have a direct religious motivation What qualifies as direct religious motivation here? American Evangelicals at least are generally known to accept the divine promise argument for Israel's landholding; I'm wondering if the "ancient civilisational narratives over either pragmatic ethics for the living or humanistic principles like democracy" mindset isn't another instance of Scott's conservative shadow people who live among us in large numbers but we rootless cosmopolitans rarely know or find relatable. On that matter, the Kosovo field battle argument is the first and last thing I hear on the topic from the more trad parts of my family too, including those that have been living in the West for decades - my sense is that they accept this line of argumentation from other peoples as well, except those whose validity as a people they deny altogether. If an ancient Gypsy homeland somewhere in Northern India were identified, they could probably be persuaded to support an Israel-style movement for it easily despite no personal stake in either side of the resulting conflict. I wonder how the American evangelicals actually receive this "history lesson" approach to propaganda, especially those whose mental defenses have already been softened by Trump=Russia messaging (though, edit, I do ultimately find @FarmReadyElephants's theory above more plausible than the theory that this interview speaks to a part of Carlson's viewership that is alien to me). • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter 4bpp 1d ago What qualifies as direct religious motivation here? American Evangelicals This. And I mean in the sense that Evangelicals would probably think of this as a particular special case, with Biblical motivations, rather than a general principle. Some might see it as a general principle, of course. If an ancient Gypsy homeland somewhere in Northern India were identified, they could probably be persuaded to support an Israel-style movement for it easily despite no personal stake in either side of the resulting conflict. In that case, though, I would surmise it would be less about the validity of such arguments in general and more about just getting rid of the Roma. • •
Borzivoj Stefferi 1d ago I mean, that was the case with Israel as well - maybe not in Britain/the US? Certainly in Eastern Europe: The new steamship line shows that the [notably antisemitic] Polish government is anxious to ensure that its Jewish citizens sail to their homeland under appropriate conditions. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ Stefferi 1d ago Right, I just wondered if "in your religious canon, but a different people as the beneficiaries" still counted as direct. In that case, it seems like at least miscellaneous European peoples like the Serbs have a potential "in", as they potentially could sell their cultural history as part of a shared European, or more narrowly Christian, one (similar to how the crusades, the Reconquista and various later standoffs against the Turks were somewhat successfully sold as a common cause to European Christendom). Note also that as recently as WWI, the cultural-religious-historical angle worked well to drum up broad-based Anglo-American support for Greek independence. In that case, though, I would surmise it would be less about the validity of such arguments in general and more about just getting rid of the Roma. Doesn't seem to be as much of a factor in the case of my family in particular; for those who stayed back in Russia, the Turkic peoples of the post-Soviet sphere are the outgroup ethnicity of choice. • •
MadMonzer Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite 4bpp 1d ago for Greek independence. For Greek independence in the lands currently occupied by Greeks, not for the revival of irredentist Greek claims on Anatolia. The premise of 19th century liberal nationalism was that each nation could get a state in the land it currently inhabited, not that nations would return to their ancestral homelands to the prejudice of the current inhabitants. • •
theory MadMonzer 1d ago There were a lot of Turks in territories today belonging to Greece. Greece only came to rule over (mostly) only Greeks after 1923. • •
2rafa theory 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Yes, but Anglo-American opinion of the Greek effort to retake Eastern Thrace, Aegean Turkey and eventually even Pontic Anatolia soured very quickly within months of the disastrous Greek campaign after WW1 (which led to the most deadly phase of the Greek Genocide in part in revenge). Remember that the US had warships stand by in the Black Sea while half the Greek population of the whole region was massacred, largely because by this time everyone considered the Greek campaign in the collapsed Ottoman Empire an absurd folly that doomed the Ottoman Greeks with great finality. The US accepted Turkish authorities barring American missionaries from saving Greek children from slaughter, even, with only minor protest at the emptying of these orphanages. By contrast the US put much more effort into intervention in both China and Russia in that early part of the 20th century. American policy has been relatively consistent on that front, supporting geographically bounded nationalisms while taking a harsher view of the most foolhardy irredentism at least until whoever it is has thoroughly cemented their grip on power. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ 2rafa 1d ago · Edited 1d ago I think the consistency argument is a bit hard to make in the face of their indifference regarding Nagorno-Karabakh, and its hostility to Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence. Geopolitical alignment really seems like a better predictor of the stance the US will take: yes to independence from enemies, especially if the newly independent polity is likely to be more pro-US, no in the converse case, shrugs when it is of no particular geopolitical valence like NK, Scotland or South Sudan. The state, then, is and was just pragmatically following incentives. On the other hand, in the Greek independence case, my impression really is that much of the propaganda aimed at the general populace was based on a philhellenic hope to reclaim the cradle of European civilisation; which parts this covered at most was tempered by pragmatic input on how much the remaining Greek polity and allied forces could reasonably occupy and hold. I mean, Thessaloniki was something like 15% Greek. If Greeks struggling for self-government in their own lands were the criterion, Izmir ("Smyrna") with its some 50% Greeks should have been given to them before the former. • •
DaseindustriesLtd late version of a small language model Stefferi 1d ago There's a popular Russian/pro-Russian conceit that Russians understand the West perfectly (due to the Americanization of culture etc.) while no-one in the West knows anything about Russia, that the historical narrative he's dropping would basically be something that would just convince everyone hearing it (for the first time) about the correctness of Russia's actions I don't think this idea is popular at all. In fact, it's obviously implausible because this isn't even the first lengthy Western interview with Putin, so I don't quite get the hype. (Wasn't there some movie with Oliver Stone?) A section of American right-wingers want to see something in Russia that they can't find at home, the stronghold of based trad etc etc. It cannot be found in Russia either and they are the ones who do not get Russia at all, because they seem surprised by Putin's spergout, yet it was the most natural thing in the world – he's behaving like a normal slightly drinking Russian boomer with a Telegram or a Youtube channel with 400-6000 subscribers, out of touch, intolerant and lost in his own narrative. I can still appreciate the attraction of such proselytism and, broadly, essentialist theories about why certain nations are more valid and interesting than other, fake and gay nations next to them (or why Malvinas belong to Argentine, or Greeks are pigs…), but that's a piss poor excuse for an armed invasion, and after having killed hundreds of thousands of people it's prudent to sober up and speak of real things at stake. Western hawks are right in that there is nothing to discuss with Putin, and the war will be settled by force of arms and destructive economic pressure. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ DaseindustriesLtd 1d ago · Edited 1d ago I don't quite get the hype I imagine it is about how brazen it was in its defiance of the Western societal consensus to make Putin a pariah. Before '22, interviewing him was at most a bit gauche and edgy, like interviewing Xi Jinping or Joseph Kony would have been; but now, we generally live in an era where we won't even suffer Starbucks to continue doing business in Russia, those who really have no other choice are expected to do so sheepishly and take the occasional public flogging, and even suggesting more dialogue or indifference is seen as a dangerously pro-enemy position. The Western leadership put out what amounts to a "please listen to us this one time, we are basically at war" call for unity (interestingly with more urgency than even in the case of COVID), and even the anti-"cathedral" forces have by and large answered it and restricted themselves to grumbling, rather than open defiance - I get the sense that if the Russian leadership didn't happen to be Russia itself, it probably would also be paying lip service to the call to cut ties with Russia now. Amidst all of this, this guy who for better or worse is still a household name in the US goes and gives Putin a softball interview loudly and proudly. If the West is fighting an information war against Russia, this goes beyond the mere Zersetzung that Orbán, the AfD or Trump engaged in with election promises and making details of support for Ukraine a bargaining chip for other agendas, and rises to the level of outright treason (however petty it may be in impact). • •
2rafa 4bpp 1d ago · Edited 1d ago I imagine it is about how brazen it was in its defiance of the Western societal consensus to make Putin a pariah. Before '22, interviewing him was at most a bit gauche and edgy, like interviewing Xi Jinping or Joseph Kony would have been; but now, we generally live in an era where we won't even suffer Starbucks to continue doing business in Russia, those who really have no other choice are expected to do so sheepishly and take the occasional public flogging, and even suggesting more dialogue or indifference is seen as a dangerously pro-enemy position. Many news outlets have tried to set up interviews with Putin since last year, he just only accepted Carlson’s offer. It’s misleading to claim that nobody else was willing to do it, CBS or the BBC or CNN would jump at the chance to interview Putin if they could. In any case, I think allowing Carlson to interview Putin was the right move, it’s hard to see many Americans watching those rambling two hours and coming away with a much better opinion of Russia. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ 2rafa 1d ago It's hard to speculate about hypotheticals - would they have gone through with the interviews if offered? Made them sufficiently hostile? Edited it editorialised them to ensure a certain position is pushed? Withheld them if this were not feasible? Either way, I agree that from the looks of it the interview wound up being hard to argue to have provided much comfort to the enemy, which also makes me suspect that a lot of the attention is running on inertia from between when people found out the interview happened and when they found out how it went. • •
MadMonzer Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite 4bpp 1d ago Agreed. If the US was the woke pseudo-democracy that Russian propagandists and dissident-right doomers say it is, then Tucker Carlson would be executed on his return. If the US was in a real war with Russia, rather than a proxy war, then executing Tucker Carlson would be the entirely proper, legal thing to do - just like Lord Haw Haw and Tokyo Rose. The fact that Tucker Carlson is able to thumb his nose at the US Deep State in this way and live makes him look brave and powerful to people who think the Deep State would want to execute him for it but for some reason can't, and makes him look edgy and transgressive to people raised in the post-sixties Western tradition of punking the Man. To people who are paying attention, it just makes him look like Putin's useful idiot. • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter DaseindustriesLtd 1d ago "Popular" is probably the wrong word to use here, I agree. I'm talking about certain, for the lack of a better word, "intellectual" pro-Russian voices, self-appointed geopolitical experts and Russia Understanders, not your ordinary conspiracy-theorist or "based Putin showing the homos their place" right-winger. • •
Goodguy Stefferi 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Yeah, I haven't watched the interview but that doesn't surprise me. The Russian government is as incompetent at propaganda as at everything else. It really makes me laugh when Americans get paranoid about super-competent Russian intelligence agencies that supposedly masterfully manipulate their elections. In reality, I'm not sure that those agencies could figure out how to manipulate their way into taking over a McDonalds, much less a country. Putin could have spent the years from 2014-2022 funding well-made videos of Donbass citizens talking about how they get oppressed by Ukraine, whether that's true or not. But he seems to not have done it, just like he didn't bother to make sure that the Russian military was actually good at fighting large-scale wars instead of just being good at stealing taxpayer money. Putin, if he was actually good at propagandizing foreigners, could make points like: 1) the US preaches to others about democracy while supporting authoritarian governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other places, so why should the US be trusted when it claims that its involvement in Ukraine is about supporting freedom?, 2) in 2014 Ukrainian revolutionaries overthrew a legally elected government, so why does the US establishment claim that January 6 was a horrible assault on democracy while also fully supporting the Maidan revolution? He could also do more to draw parallels between what Russia is doing in Ukraine and what the US did in Serbia in 1999. Even if the Serbians really were a lot more genocidal in 1999 than the Ukrainians have ever been towards Donbass, it would still make for some effective propaganda. I think he does bring it up sometimes but not as much as would probably work to his benefit. The Russian state's tendency to hold sham elections even though Putin would have a good chance of winning a real election also turns people off. So does its strange love of attempting bizarre Godfather-style assassinations like those against the Skripals, Navalny, and Prigozhin. You'd think if they wanted to make sure to send a message it should be enough to just arrest Prigozhin and then have him "accidentally" die in prison or something, the way that a subtle government would do things. No, for some reason it has to be this whole James Bond villain thing where the guy's plane gets shot down. What makes it even weirder is that they actually have had some people "accidentally" die in prison in the past, so I don't understand the desire to kill Prigozhin in such an over-the-top way. • •
magic9mushroom If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me Goodguy 13hr ago new~ The Russian government is as incompetent at propaganda as at everything else. No, on several occasions (prior to 2022) I read RT talking about the West and mistook it for a Western conservative view. That never happens with Chinese propaganda. • •
orthoxerox I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink Goodguy 1d ago Putin, if he was actually good at propagandizing foreigners, could make points like: 1) the US preaches to others about democracy while supporting authoritarian governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other places, so why should the US be trusted when it claims that its involvement in Ukraine is about supporting freedom?, 2) in 2014 Ukrainian revolutionaries overthrew a legally elected government, so why does the US establishment claim that January 6 was a horrible assault on democracy while also fully supporting the Maidan revolution? What would be the point? It's not like the American voters would've written to their representatives and demanded they stop supporting Ukraine had he done that, they have more important issues to worry about. • •
MadMonzer Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite Goodguy 1d ago I think it is possible that Putin and most of the Russian elite fail to understand western democracies because they don't believe that they even exist. Russia-sympathetic westerners (both the Chomsky-Greenwald left and the Trump-Carlson right) are putting up tonnes of material claiming that western democracy is fake and that a voter-immune Deep State actually exercises power, at least as regards policy towards Russia. And once you start believing that, you see things like Yes Minister as confirmatory evidence rather than cynical humour. Things were no better in the Soviet era - the Venn diagram of "Westerners sympathetic to Communism" and "Westerners who don't believe the conventional story about Western democratic capitalism" looks awfully like a single circle. There are a lot of core facts about how real (or even mostly-real as described in Yes Minister) democracy is possible that are non-obvious to someone without experience of living in one - how do you run honest elections when the incentive to rig them is so strong, how do you maintain political control of the military in a democracy, why don't the citizens just vote themselves gibmedats until the whole system goes bankrupt etc. Putin doesn't know the answer to any of these, and given Russian history he isn't going to find the real answer plausible. Elections in communist bloc countries (and in Nazi Germany - the system is basically the same) were not-even-fake. Similarly to Havel's greengrocer, the purpose was to humiliate, not to deceive - voting was an "opportunity" for people to tangibly demonstrate their submission to power and develop the habit of obedience. I suspect that Putin sees elections in modern Russia in the same light. • •
guesswho Goodguy 1d ago It really makes me laugh when Americans get paranoid about super-competent Russian intelligence agencies that supposedly masterfully manipulate their elections. It's more like 'Our electoral system is so dumb that almost every election is within 5% of being a coin toss, and any sufficiently large organization pouring resources into altering that can probably apply enough pressure to do so (modulo everyone else doing the same thing, which makes it more stochastic but still dangerous), and the impunity of a foreign actor to break laws and not worry about long-term consequences from being caught makes them more dangerous than domestic organizations.' Like... yeah, Russia is just one of 800 different organizations throwing spaghetti at the wall during our elections, they don't have more steering power than the other 40 largest organizations that are involved. But we'd prefer them to not have any steering power, and the whole thing is so chaotic that every feather on the scale might make the difference. • •
CertainlyWorse Dedicated Pessimist Goodguy 1d ago In reality, I'm not sure that those agencies could figure out how to manipulate their way into taking over a McDonalds, much less a country. In ex-Soviet Russia, the McDonalds Pizza Hut manipulates you. • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter Goodguy 1d ago Putin could have spent the years from 2014-2022 funding well-made videos of Donbass citizens talking about how they get oppressed by Ukraine, whether that's true or not. My understanding is that this has been a recurring feature in Russian internal propaganda. • •
DaseindustriesLtd late version of a small language model Stefferi 1d ago I never noticed a lot of it. Now, the Crimean reunion was kind of a big thing. But as for Donbass, it was always somewhere in the background, as if it were an embarrassing error, and until Feb'22 very few people cared about those 8 years of NaziBanderite terror. Even runats paid more attention to Geopolitics. • •
Goodguy Stefferi 1d ago It is, but with the billions of dollars that the Russian government has to throw around, I am surprised by how little they seem to have funded similar propaganda for foreign audiences. If they had wanted to, they could have funded 1000 well-made English-language videos about it, each supposedly made by an independent foreign observer or by some ordinary Donbass resident whose words have English subtitles. •
newport
2mo ago
2/12 thread from roughly 2/12 6am EST to 2/13 5:30pm EST. Reference time (ie what the timestamps are relative to) is 5:30pm EST on 2/13. Seems each comment is separated by two blank bullet points. Nesting is obviously broken, and comments that were nested too deep to see without clicking "more comments" are unfortunately absent.
coffee_enjoyer ☕️ 1hr ago new
“He Gets Us” doesn’t get it
The Christian advertising campaign “He Gets Us” aired two ads during the Super Bowl. The first ad asks “who is my neighbor?” interspersed with shots of mostly unsavory characters. The one you don’t value and welcome, the ad answers, to the drums of glitch-y hip hop. The second ad is titled “Foot Washing” and proved quite controversial. Among the scenes of foot washing depicted in the ad, the following have generated the most discussion: a Mexican police officer washing the feet of a black man wearing gold chains in an alley; a “preppy” normie-coded girl washing the feet of an alt girl; a cowboy washing the feet of aNative American; a woman washing the feet of a girl seeking an abortion (with pro-life activists sidelined, their signs upside down); an oil worker washing the feet of an environmental activist; a woman washing the feet of an illegal migrant; a Christian woman washing the feet of a Muslim; and a priest washing the feet of a sassy gay man. This last ad has tenfold the views on YouTube, in large part due to the negative response by Christians and conservatives, for example Matt Walsh and Babylon Bee editor Joel Berry. Joel writes,
There’s a reason the “He Gets Us” commercial didn’t show a liberal washing the feet of someone in a MAGA hat, or a BLM protestor washing an officer’s feet. That would’ve been actually subversive. Because they were strictly following oppressed v oppressor intersectionality guidelines.
I mostly agree with Joel. I think that this ad campaign is a failure.
The campaign fails to understand what brings people to a religion, or any social movement for that matter, or even any product, and as such it will not lead viewers to join their evangelical church or behave in the intended Christian manner. The audience of the Super Bowl is jointly comprised of people who care about what’s popular and cool, and people who care about remarkable feats of strength and dominance. These people are not going to be compelled to “love” their crack addict neighbor because you tell them to, because why would they listen to you? — there is no deeper motivation substantiated as for why they should do this.
In the Gospel, Jesus doesn’t say “love your neighbor because it’s nice to do that and I am guilting you”, he says “love your neighbor so as to be a son of God whom created you, and obtain His reward, or else risk judgment from the eternal judge.” This is reward-driven and status-seeking behavior, the reward being administered by God and the status being administered by the church body. In its context, it requires a belief that the person saying it is the ultimate judge of both life and afterlife. (To behave Christlike, the required motivation is the totalizing significance of Christ... hence the name of the religion.) The starting point of the faith is the most dominant and powerful person telling you to care for the poor, not some cheeky “you should care about the poor because you should.”
Again, the Super Bowl viewer cares about what is popular and what is dominant. That’s normal, I’m not criticizing it. So could you not pull anything out of the religious tradition to depict the popularity and dominance of God? What, you feel bad playing off of FOMO to get people to your church? Jesus did just that on many occasions. 1, 2, 3, 4. Do you somehow feel guilty describing Jesus as glorious and powerful? What about the 72,000 angels he commands? You don’t want to tell the viewer that their prayers will be answered, when every 10 minutes there’s an ad for betting and gambling? Viva Las Vegas, non Vita Christi. So it has to be asked, what exactly is the purpose of the campaign? How is this getting people to your church, or even just getting people to behave better? “Jesus gets me” because… biker smoker and crack addict?
If the object of the ad is to instill a sense of pity to compel the viewer to behave morally, then there’s clearly better ads to be made. Why not the focal point of the religion, the “innocent beautiful sacrificial lamb slain for our freedom” motif? The religion already comes with a built-in way to empower pity. You could say, “he gets us because he dealt with all our pain and temptation”, and that would make much more sense, while incentivizing the intended result of the ad. As is, I get the idea that the ad campaigners are afraid of any depiction of the life of Christ. I don’t get the sense that these people believe he is an essential ingredient in the moral life. And it’s fine if they don’t, that’s their business, but then dont make multimillion dollars ads about it. If Christ is indeed essential, then your multimillion dollar ad campaign ought to be directed toward producing an image of Christ that is alluring, whether this be through scenes of pity or scenes of power. In an attempt to make Christianity subversive you should not be subverting Christianity.
Back to Joel’s critique of the ad: yes, the foot washing ad is problematic. Beside the fact that it is misinterpreted (explained below), it only works to further demean the image of Christianity to an irreligious America. “If I become a Christian, I’ll have to wash an old man’s feet?” The only viewers that will be compelled here are the foot fetish enthusiasts piqued by the alt girl. You are not going to convince anyone to join your social movement by promising them the opportunity to wash a man’s feet in an alley.
The foot washing ad elevates the status of people whose lifestyle do not conjure images of Christianity, and whose status is already elevated. During a Super Bowl, it’s not subversive to elevate the status of a vaguely athletic black man wearing gold chains. The half time show was Usher! Neither is it subversive to show an oil rig worker subservient to an environmental activist. In whose world is an environmental activist not more privileged than a dust-coated oil worker? And a wholesome girl washing an alt girl’s feet is not subversive in an event inaugurated by Post Malone’s national anthem. No, no; show me a wealthy and attractive CEO washing the feet of his fat ugly employee, if you must. But don’t just reinstitute the high/low status dynamic already in place by the world.
My last criticism I’ll try to keep short: the theological ground of these ads is spurious. There is indeed a scene where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, but the writer goes out of his way to clarify the meaning behind it. It begins by mentioning that Jesus “loved his own who were in the world”, namely his followers present and future. The students are shocked when their superior attempts to perform this subservient act, until it is explained to be necessary. “If your Lord washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do just as I have done to you. I am not speaking of all of you [not Judas]; I know whom I have chosen.” So, rather than being an act that a Christian is compelled to do to anyone, we have an act that Christians do to one another, to cultivate humility and esteem for their brethren. They are told not to do it to merely self-labeled Christians, like Judas, let alone those of other faiths, as the ad suggests they do.
Foot washing was a culture-specific action that reflected the status hierarchy in a way that has no direct American parallel. An approximate American parallel would be for a boss to allow his employer to use his office, or for a boss to cook his employee’s family a dinner, or to clean his employee’s keyboard. The difficulty in understanding the event without careful study is the reason why it’s a mistake to depict it as a means of propagating your worldview. Nothing is accomplished. File this under “Christianity continues to die, but not before demeaning itself.”
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2rafa coffee_enjoyer 8m ago new
There are a lot of denials about this kind of thing, but in my adult PMC life I’ve actually known a moderately large number of very progressive liberal Christians who go to Hillsong or some other happy clappy multiracial Christian pop megachurch thing and basically believe in all of this stuff. I’m not saying it’s the majority but it seems to be less dead than some people here make it out to be.
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reactionary_peasant coffee_enjoyer 34m ago new
Great post. I was also bemused by the ad. C.S. Lewis had a passage (maybe from God in the Dock, can't find it) about how each age blows one virtue out of proportion and by doing so turns it into a vice, and in our present age this vicious virtue is clearly Charity. This example is yet another example of Christians extending the principal of charity to an absurd scope and at the expense of other virtues (see also immigration and some overseas poverty reduction).
The first question that popped into my head after watching was -- cui bono? To me, the ad reeked of this. So I tried to look up who was behind it. Apparently it's a nonprofit called [The Signatry](. Clicking through their site, I don't see any telltale signs of wokeness or progressivism. The entire board is old white dudes, every employee in the random sample I took was white and I only came across one woman. Skimming their site revealed that they created a mural of "Jesus and the children" in Oklahoma City and that they donate to what sound like bog-standard Christian charity causes. There are even negative articles about them about how they're anti-gay. One of their major public donors is Hobby Lobby CEO David Green of supreme court case fame. I'm not really sure what's going on here. A rogue department? Entryism? Or am I merely ignorant enough not to know that most Evangelicals look favorably upon washing the feet of Muslims and unrepentant gays?
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Gaashk coffee_enjoyer 40m ago new
This has the aesthetics of my aging neighborhood church. I tried going a couple of times, and they were singing about their friends in the 90s dying of AIDS, and almost the only conversation I had afterwards was a church musician mentioning his non-binary daughter. He seemed kind of sad about it, but like he thought he shouldn't be.
The steel man is probably that, despite massive amounts of propaganda lately, many people (most? It's hard to know) are being fake about accepting that, and do not actually like effeminate gays, illegal immigrants, underclass blacks, homeless druggies, (their father in law?), and so on. Perhaps a bit more propaganda, this time with a Christian flavor, will push them over into being sincere?
Which seems naive? If an attitude has been resistant to decades of extant propaganda, what is this short ad going to do? It's probably an "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" situation for people with media representation skills.
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4doorsmorewhores coffee_enjoyer 44m ago new
The most prolific American example of footwashing that comes to mind being Mr Rogers washing the feet of some black police officer on Mr Rogers neighbourhood seems to go against a large part of your post re:
1. Hierarchies
2. Familiarity with the concept of foot washing
The Pope also does this sometimes and it's in the news. It seems sort of conceited and contemptuous to assume that normies who aren't as obviously well-versed in history as you will see foot-washing and think "Wtf? Christianity is about washing old people's feet? no thank you." What reason do you have to believe that a smaller portion of viewers would "get it" vs what the ad-makers expect?
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ymeskhout 5hr ago · Edited 55m ago How The Bailey Podcast Sausage Gets Made The Bailey is the podcast I started as the semi-official companion of the Motte, and it doesn't have the most consistent release schedule. I know. Stop reminding me. Go listen to the last episode though, it's really great, and Shakesneer should be again commended for participating. I want to peel back the curtain a bit and outline some practices I've adopted that I'm surprised to hear are not all that widespread. I've previously written about the immense benefits of real-time adversarial conversations that are not easily replicated within the written medium. I never claimed that it's superior by every metric however, and one major failure point for live debates is how they're much more susceptible to the Gish gallop maneuver. This is the tactic where someone drowns out a debate by offering so many low-quality arguments that they make up for their lack of quality through sheer quantity. This is a serious enough problem that Sam Harris has cited it as a major reason he avoids debating certain topics (namely the topic of vaccination). The solution is extremely simple: require advance notice for all citations. Before every episode of the Bailey, every participant is asked to share links and sources that they think are useful or are planning to rely upon. This helps everyone have the same foundation before we hit record and lets us skip a lot of unnecessary exposition, but it also mitigates against someone appearing to win an argument but only through the element of surprise. Sharing sources ahead of time also helps to avoid the commonly tedious "the studies I'm citing are better than your studies" epistemic impasse. Advance notice takes a page from the legal profession, where evidence cannot be introduced at trial unless the other side has been notified, and a strict podcasting implementation would impose similar prohibitions for every participant. When David Pakman interviewed Jacob Chansley (aka QAnon Shaman) one of the ways the discussion kept going off the rails is that Chansley would respond with a torrential rain of purportedly supporting allegations (what Pakman described as "setting small fires conundrum"). When asked about QAnon theories, Chansley said: ...if you look into Jeffrey Epstein and what he was doing. If you look into the Finders, if you look into the Franklin cover-up, if you look into the testimony of Ronald Bernard, if you look into the Barney Frank scandal, if you look into the Michael Aquino military-based scandals. If you look into the numerous scandals coming out now regarding all these people that debunked Pizzagate and now they're being arrested and charged with child porn charges and child abuse charges, then it's quite clear that there is some sort of an elite sex trafficking pedophilia ring in DC and Hollywood. And he went on like this. Unless you've already been marinating within this sphere and are already familiar with these claims, it's impossible to substantively respond to any of them in the moment. Each individual allegation will require significant radio dead air just to get your bearings about who is involved and what they're accused of, followed by several hours/days/weeks to properly investigate. The entire purpose of an advance notice rule has always been to avoid 'trial by ambush' and it's odd why this expectation is not more widely adopted. The second practice is paired along a trust expectation. I'm the one who ultimately edits and decides what the final cut will be, but I edit with a light touch primarily to get rid of ums, silences, or (rarely) dead-end discussions that don't go anywhere. There has been a long history of media outlets engaging in misleading editing with the intent of making an ideological opponent look bad (Katie Couric's Under the Gun documentary added an eight-second pause to make a gun-rights advocate appear as if he was speechless in response to a question), and the obvious way to guard against this is to always have your own recording when interacting with any journalist. I've adopted the same practice and have always provided every participant with full access to the raw audio files, and even ensured they have a chance to listen to the final cut before it's posted publicly. Sometimes we've re-recorded or added passages, and I allow some leeway if anyone wants to take back something they've inadvertently blurted out (generally falls under the umbrella of accidental doxing details). No one thus far has asked for this, but I wouldn't allow a revision that is meant to cover a weakness in one's argument. Thirdly, I try to engage in some fact-checking though I can't claim to be comprehensive. If someone makes a factual claim that I find dubious (either on the air or during editing) I ask for a citation, and I delete the segment if they can't provide one. An example of this process is from our An Unhinged Conversation on Policing episode where I tried to fact-check some assertions about national testosterone comparisons. Doing this in real-time is more challenging but still feasible, and if a jury-rigged zero-income enterprise like the Bailey can do this, runaway successes like The Joe Rogan Experience and their largesse can easily implement something more than just Jamie and his perfunctory Googling. If I had more resources and a steady roster of guests, I'd have one or two paid fact-checkers whose sole job is to interject when they sniff out some bullshit. I look down on podcasts that do nothing on this front, and it's particularly inexcusable when they can afford way more. And lastly, I've also accommodated requests to mask or modify voices. The easiest way is to pitch shift or fuck with the equalizer. The more elaborate and superior method is to hire a voice actor to redub the whole track, which we did for the Multi Ethnic Casting episode by replacing Ishmael with a thematically-appropriate Nigerian woman. That cost only $120 back then, and AI advances have already made this basically free. Admittedly, all this adds more work for me but I find it worthwhile to have some standards. I'm always open to having more civil conversations about contentious culture war topics, so don't hesitate to reach out ymeskhout[a]gmail.com if you have a topic in mind. • •
Glassnoser ymeskhout 1hr ago · Edited 1hr ago new
Your email link doesn't work.
This is interesting information. I was confused about why it sometimes sounded like you were picking up from a previous discussion about the topic. Now, I know it's because of the shared references.
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ymeskhout Glassnoser 54m ago new
Thanks, Markdown drives me insane sometimes. And it's interesting hearing how the conversations sound from your perspective, having a shared foundation always seemed like a natural way to have a good discussion.
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Being ymeskhout 3hr ago I look down on podcasts that do nothing on this front, and it's particularly inexcusable when they can afford way more. I think this is the core of it and your claim is actually too narrow. Your podcast is tiny and low budget (no offense), yet you manage to take all of these precautions. Coming up with these precautions wasn't some groundbreaking discovery; it didn't take years, countless academics, or a multitude of thinktanks to develop. Which leaves the big question of if you can do it, why can't/doesn't anyone else? And this isn't just podcasts: radio can and should implement these rules as should journalism as should politicians (during senate hearings at least) as should public debates..... I can see only two options: 1. Either they are all grossly incompetent (unlikely). 2. Their goals are not your goals. They are optimizing their discussions for something other than intellectual discovery (less charitably: truth). The extent to which we judge a podcast or other forum for this shortcoming should depend on how they position themselves. Joe Rogan, for example, I don't think deserves much criticism (at least relative to others). He is a meathead who is clearly optimizing for topics he is interested in rather than the truth. If seeing him spend thousands of hours talking about the looniest conspiracy theories and admitting every time that he just thinks they are fun (and not necessarily true) doesn't convince a listener that his primary goal isn't truth, I don't know what would. Likewise, I think his lack of accuracy is less worth of disdain because I think he is less capable (I understand this is a dangerous argument, but I will make it nonetheless). This is a guy with basically no education whose team consists of only one other person: a regular joe whose only skill is being able to Google things and do basic audio "engineering". If anything I'm impressed he manages to have as much intellectual rigor as he does. When you are a major news station with entire teams capable of (and ostensibly dedicated to) researching yet you still manage to regularly underperform Joe Rogan in intellectual rigor, I think it's hard to overstate the level of failure. I suspect most Americans agree and this is why we see the trust in media approaching the lizardman constant (at least with certain demos).
I do think that your description of the gish gallop is incomplete and your solution isn't a great solution as a result. I think a gish gallop is better understood as creating (deliberately or accidentally) an asymmetry of work: throwing a whole bunch of citations at someone takes MUCH less time than reading, evaluating, and developing a critique/counterargument for each of those citations. In the internet era it's never been easier to compile the gallop so we see them being trotted out more and more often. Having citations "pre registered" doesn't really address this asymmetry. A guest can still throw out four hundred citations and his opponent will be overwhelmed trying to dig into each of them even if he is given weeks to prepare. The reason the gish gallop works is because most listener's aren't equipped to understand it correctly - they aren't using the correct Bayesian reasoning. I think this is easiest to explain with an idealized (both debaters are reasonable and participating in good faith) example: • Galloper cites 100 claims. • CounterGalloper says "That's a lot, let's start from the top. Claim 1 is false because a, b, & c." • Let's assume that CounterGalloper is correct AND convincing: the audience agrees that claim 1 is false/irrelevant • Galloper typically responds, "I don't think you're correct in discarding it, BUT EVEN IF YOU ARE the remaining proof is overwhelming" • Most listeners end up very slightly discounting the Galloper, but still think is thinking something like "Sure, the galloper may not be right on every single detail, but most of the evidence (99% !) supports him.
If the listener were using proper Bayesian logic they should instead be thinking something like "Of the claims CounterGalloper addressed, so far 0% have been correct. Therefore, I'll adjust the probability that the remaining 99 claims are correct downwards."
If both debaters are competent the interaction continues: • The CounterGalloper points this out with something like: "If this one claim is false, the others probably are too." • The Galloper (likely correctly) says something like: "You just cherry picked the weakest claim. Even if one or two of my claims are weak, the majority are facts that you can't disprove." • The CounterGalloper may move onto the next claim in the gallop. The Galloper is free to make the same "CherryPicked" argument. We find ourselves trapped in this loop. • In real life, this about when both debaters and the audience become exhausted and the debate is no longer productive.
I hope this, perhaps contrived, example shows the problem and the solution: you need to shift the burden of narrowing down which claims should be evaluated from the CounterGalloper to the Galloper. If you leave that choice on the CounterGalloper, the Galloper will always be able to retreat to the "just cherry picked" defense. I believe a good way to accomplish this is to do what you are doing with preregistering evidence but demanding that the participant choose for himself which evidence of his is the most compelling. In reality, a galloper will likely still try to gallop if he finds his supposed best evidence collapsing. In this event, the host/moderator should remind the participants and audience that these claims were the ones the Galloper himself found most compelling. • •
OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum Being 1hr ago new
The CounterGalloper should ask something like, "What do you think is your strongest claim?" and then target that.
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ymeskhout Being 1hr ago new
Your podcast is tiny and low budget (no offense), yet you manage to take all of these precautions.
Oh no offense at all taken, that was kind of my point. I wouldn't try to hold JRE to any standard if he didn't put up a thin veneer of verification with Jamie-pull-it-up. If I had to guess why more rigorous fact-checking isn't more prevalent overall, I'm guessing one under-appreciated component is that many within the media ecosystem are fixated on not jeopardizing the networking relationships they rely on. If you earn a reputation as a hardball interviewer, you'll end up with fewer people willing to do interviews with you (I don't know how Isaac Chotiner manages to convince people to talk to him). There used to be more of a division between 'paid' and 'earned' media coverage in the form of marketing vs PR, but it's near impossible to tell it apart nowadays. Journalism has long had to wrangle with the problems of "access journalism" where critical coverage can get you frozen out.
I believe a good way to accomplish this is to do what you are doing with preregistering evidence but demanding that the participant choose for himself which evidence of his is the most compelling.
Yes I agree with you completely, so the guidance I described is incomplete. It's just not practical to go over 100 different sources in any reasonable amount of time. I have suggested exactly this for an episode on 2020 election fraud allegations that never got recorded where I ask the other person to pick whatever they think are their three strongest claims, and then we can focus on just that instead of go on a neverending safari.
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ZeroPipeline Being 1hr ago new
This is handled in a legal context by barring the introduction of cumulative evidence so perhaps a similar solution can be applied here.
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cjet79 ymeskhout 3hr ago I am still interested in doing the Nationalism episode. This is helpful to read ahead of time. I'm not sure I plan on submitting anything as a citation. I have in person conversations occasionally, and generally feel like I have lost them when I have to start citing stuff. General knowledge of history and current news feels like it should be sufficient for most topics. • •
ymeskhout cjet79 1hr ago new
I don't want to give the wrong impression, almost every source we rely upon tends to be be mentioned in the show notes and you can see that it's usually a dozen at most. Most of the time it's background reading material that gets everyone up to speed. Advance notice of citations are generally only useful if someone is about to make a contentious factual claim.
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some ymeskhout 3hr ago The solution is extremely simple: require advance notice for all citations. Moving away from the allegedly superior oral-only debate towards one which requires the written word is a big admission of the harms of the position advocated in one of your previous top level posts. True rigour, substanstive argument requires background, works of others, which would be to slow to explain to another by speech. I could tell you to google the key words I hope will give you the page I am citing, but that is unreliable. I could tell the URL but that could take minutes, and is prone mistakes. But even if eliminate problems with giving cites by mouth, your demand (which I find justified, and support) that they be given before the actual debate, means that the principle of live debate is weakened. It is turned to one in which the can not just tune in and see the argument being demolished, she needs to also read the texts upon which the debaters will be relying. but it also mitigates against someone appearing to win an argument but only through the element of surprise. But that is one of purported benefits you touted in your past post. Sprining up an unexpected line of reasoning onto a person allows you to hang a person with their own words, but sometimes it is easier to make the argument, than to refute it. Bullshit Asymmetry Principle attests to this. And he went on like this. Unless you've already been marinating within this sphere and are already familiar with these claims, it's impossible to substantively respond to any of them in the moment. Which also a problem with the "Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be." rule. Both are subjective. Because you are exposed to arguments appearing to increase the likelyhood of "Trump did J6" being true, you wouldn't demand cites for them. Likewise the mods, if they are trapped in English speaking bubble, are more likely to be unfamiliar with claims which are common knowledge among people whose native language is another. Discourse is permitted with less effort, if one makes stays within the overton window of 21st century US. But if one steps outside it, a burden of citation is placed on them. Which wouldn't as a problem, if what determines the arguments and statements of fact with which the people are acquainted with, would be sufficiently diverse and not subject to partisan interference. But this isn't the case. • •
ymeskhout some 57m ago new
My cross-examination post frequently gets misunderstood as me saying that oral-only debate is superior to writing but I didn't claim that. My argument was how some elements of one medium are superior and cannot be easily replicated within the other medium, and that applies in both directions. When I decry the element of surprise here it isn't based on springing an unexpected line of reasoning (which I think is generally fair game) but rather unveiling evidence that would have otherwise fallen apart if there was enough time for scrutiny.
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gattsuru 16hr ago · Edited 2hr ago Mediated group hallucinations and consensus reality There's a joking-not-joking post, a while back, from JonSt0kes. At the risk of pulling the setup apart from the punchline, the setup is what I'd like to highlight. Me: I refused to turn on my AR glasses & see the barista as an anime fox otherkin spirit. Her glasses flagged that my filters were off. It's a bit of surrealism, and probably intended as foil to comment on more immediate political conflicts outside of the scope of this discussion. There's certainly people who'd love augmented reality avatars, and while none would want to force them on others, well, tomorrow is another day. It's not even really possible right now. VTubers are a small genre focused on presenting a virtual avatar to their viewers, sometimes in surprising genres, but they generally depend on carefully calibrated cameras and nearly-ideal lighting conditions to correctly recognize precise pose details. Body tracking (and even estimation) works, sometimes, for incredibly controlled environments. Even the best augmented reality systems are too bulky and have too short a battery life to be worn around all day, or even for long parts of a day. And heaven help anyone who wants to implement a standardized communication protocol that works between different headset vendors without a ton of unreliable jank. Some of these technical limitations might not be solvable, period: modern tech has done amazing things with microlenses, but optics are a cruel mistress. There's spaces where these technical limitations don't exist, or can be maneuvered around. Hence the many references above to tech driven by virtual reality gaming, primarily but not solely chatrooms like VRChat. You can control lighting, and have multiple calibrated cameras at set distances and angles, and have everyone in a room wearing multiple inertial measurement units all speaking the same language. There is little background noise that makes audio transcription and voice manipulation jank in the real world. Far fewer chances for reality to break the illusion, excepting when you find furniture the hard way. In those environments, it's not only common to define how you and others are presented, and where. It's often unavoidable. In VRChat specifically, some clients ("Questies" and more recently cell phone users, as opposed to those using full-blown computers with connected VR displays) can't see more complicated avatars or even enter some environments, if they use too many resources to be practically implemented on their headsets. Individual users also have a complex system of less direct control through a privileged user system, as well as more traditional block/mute capabilities. And that, if anything, is the low end: VR environments tend to think of a person's self-presentation as sacrosanct, and as a result, it's much harder to make someone into something they aren't than to hide them. That's just not some fundamental part of technology. As a comparison, Final Fantasy XIV is an (acclaimed) MMORPG. Like many MMOs, it officially prohibits third-party modifications. Like many MMO mods, they still exist, and unless you're cheating on a world first race or being incredibly obvious about it, there's not really a lot that the game-runners want to do. There's actually some fascinating technical work being done here; where earlier tools swapped references to asset locations on disk while the client is closed, modern tools can dynamically reload or redraw on arbitrary triggers at arbitrary times, and there's even a tool for synchronizing between users in certain configurations, even transferring mods from one user to another (with accompanying security concerns). This can quickly get bizarrely recursive: there are now mods that exist solely for the purpose of overwriting other people's vanilla glamours. Some of this goes exactly the direction anyone who's seen Skyrim modding would expect, and there's no small amount of comically oversized dick and/or boob mods, sometimes even for different genders. Some of it's more subtle modifications down that path, as the default models are about as featured as a ken doll even above the hips, or to smooth things out when desired.. Sometimes it's weirder than you would expect [bonus for those willing to log into the site (cw: no genitals or female nipples, possible spoilers? SAN damage for those familiar with those spoilers?)]. But a good portion of it's far more expressive. Tired of Dark Knight being Shadow The Edgehog? Swap to Devil May Cry, floral, or light-themed. Instead of naruto-running as a Ninja, you can practice your gun-kata. A lot of design-space exists and revolves around fluffy tails, goofy dances, capes, bizarre accessories, even posture. And then there's pages after pages of hairstyles, or mods that just turning on hats. Want to get rid of Lalafel or replace every PC with their alternate universe Roe version? There's a tool for it! Yet it results in a world that's not just distinct from the what the developers designed, or what some unaffiliated observer might see, but where multiple people in the same room might have wildly different worlds that they're interacting with, even when sharing some mods. And there's some easy objections, here. Sex is the easiest. Someone running male nudity mods in FFXIV will find out the hard way (hurr hurr) that several comedic quest chains normally involve a very animated older gentleman running around in his smallclothes, who is now Very Happy to see you; someone aggressively doing so can change every single player and (humanoid, non-special model) NPC into their desired gender and species. And, of course, someone who wants to do something intentionally has far broader space available. There's no small number of other ways to embarrass people, of course. If you think a three-foot dong would be a little beneath your standards, there's some political statements that could have far more impact. And that's at the low end of the discussion space, and going into video games is the lower risk environment. Trace has spoken about someone beaten as a nazi in part due to time spent with a (stupid) Garry's Mod avatar. It's easier to think of things that offend Blue Tribe sensibilities that can play that role, over Red Ones, but it's not actually that hard to come up with Red Tribe or more general offenses. As ironic as "don't misgender me" will be when it's some social conservative getting involuntarily catgirl'd, I'm not sure what'll happen if thirty people start passing around screenshots or video of a well-known person's character marching like a member of the SS, but we're probably going to find out eventually. And you don't have to be Neal Stephenson or Cory Doctorow to come up with heavy-handed approaches that these technologies could use. From the other direction, this (cw: censored 'female' nudity) particular description of events could genuinely reflect someone with neither correct boundaries nor behaviors, and maybe that's more likely than not -- minors getting into adults-only spaces, and adults not acting responsibly in unsecured or insufficiently age-gated areas, have been genuine problems on the internet since usenet. But it could also have happened if the interviewer running default settings was the only person in the room seeing everyone there. Of course, VR(/AR/XR/spatial computing) is doomed. MMORPGs are funny, but they aren't going to change society, and game mods, no matter how technically impressive, are even less likely to do so. Beyond that, there is an argument, and not an entirely wrong one, that these environments are 'fake' in some philosophically important way. People (mostly) exist playing VRChat, but they don't actually live in VRChat. FFXIV has a single source of truth on its servers, but they're probably stored as a mess of position information and arbitrary numeric values, and definitely not some litrpg virtual world. Even if this expands to other purely-digital or even digitally-augmented fields, why should you care if someone does the 2028-equivalent of a lazy photoshop? This isn't even as life-like as deepfakes, or as humiliating as a really dedicated adversary could go -- the possibility someone on the other end of a conference might be putting your camera feed on top of some nudes would be offputting, but the risk of someone Toobining it has predated modern telephony. Who cares? Block these sites in your uBlock Origin so you won't see that shit in your searches. If you want others to have a clean internet, feel free to share this post! I maintain four main blocklists for the Fediverse. A browser addon that highlights transphobic and trans-friendly social network pages and users with different colors. Thus, the Trump Filter is presented as part of the antidote for this toxic candidacy. This Chrome extension will identify parts of a web page likely to contain Donald Trump and erase them from the Internet. Download this extension to simplify your BDS commitments. PalestinePact automatically scans products on all major websites and blurs them if they are linked to the BDS list. and By refusing to exit the Russian market and continuing to pay their taxes there, some companies are implicitly supporting the war in Ukraine. This extension identifies their products while shopping online so you can boycott their products. And, perhaps worse: i love the new feature of phones where they figure out what you’re trying to take a photo of and then hallucinate it for you There's an old joke, by modern standards, about how once one could be certain that the man in a corner of a subway angrily shouting into the air at a person who wasn't there was a schizophrenic, until cell phones and bluetooth meant that could just be a businessman talking to someone you couldn't see. What happens when ten million people see something you don't? Can't? To cut to the chase, quite a lot of things that you care about either aren't real (do you think your bank account is a bunch of coins in a safe?) or hasn't reflected the real thing, already. There are already tools, some of which you should already be using (get uBlock!) to filter what you see, in your normal usage of the web. An increasing and surprising amount of your world will be passing through these sort of mediators, unless you put increasing efforts into avoiding it. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this! The hallucinating cameras are just trying to get the picture you wanted to take. Blocking results you were never going to check in Google Searches can be one of the few ways to avoid the Dread Pinterest. There's a block function on this site, after all. I try to avoid blocking as a matter of principle, but there are definitely ways that has hurt, rather than helped, my ability to seriously engage with both reality and some political perspectives; it's not something I would recommend for everyone or even most people. And there are defiiiiiiinitely people and tags even I block aggressively in, say, the context of a certain furry booru. The bare concept is not even new. Filter bubble was popularized as a term in 2010, with Eli Pariser writing a book on it. BlockBots date back to 2015, if not earlier, and filter lists to the usenet era. From the other political valience, progressive views on talk radio or Fox News as a conservative bubble aren't entirely right, but there certainly are a lot of people who even then only listened to (and later, watched) what they wanted to hear. But I think we're going to see things no one thought anyone would want to implement in 1997, or 2010, driven by forces far more varied and far more subtle than anyone expected. St0kes mostly highlights the filter bubble from the context of politics, even if he sees, rarely, where it breaks against him. Eli Pariser considered algorithmic (and business drives) toward the separation of filter bubbles. There's no shortage of modern-day writers discussing AI, and a Dead Internet where people find it easier to talk with carefully-tuned ChatGPT instance rather than fight increasingly-useless Google is definitely a possibility. I think they all overlook the power of human meat and spite. As far as I know, there is no tool that will filter your Google Map search results by the political donations and rumors thereof. Yet. There is no flight planning website that drops flights where layover or transfer involve states with undesirable gun or gender politics. Yet. I don't know of a crowdsourced tool to check your phone contacts and Facebook friends for (alleged) criminals or bad actors or meanies. Yet. There's no way to crosscheck a dating profile against social media phrenology. Yet. No off-the-shelf tools to use Nextdoor to hide the neighbor with the yappy dog from my phone or doorbell. Yet. No headphones that noise cancel people you don't want to hear from. Yet. And a thousand, thousand other things that could be possible, as we invite others have more and more influence on how we see the world in the most literal sense, and make it harder and harder to avoid doing so. "What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?"—so asketh the last man and blinketh... "We have discovered happiness"—say the last men, and blink thereby. They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loveth one's neighbour and rubbeth against him; for one needeth warmth. Turning ill and being distrustful, they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbleth over stones or men! ... No shepherd, and one herd! Every one wanteth the same; every one is equal: he who hath other sentiments goeth voluntarily into the madhouse. "Formerly all the world was insane,"—say the subtlest of them, and blink thereby. They are clever and know all that hath happened: so there is no end to their raillery. People still fall out, but are soon reconciled—otherwise it spoileth their stomachs. "We have discovered happiness,"—say the last men, and blinketh • •
drmanhattan16 gattsuru 6hr ago An interesting topic for sure, I think one of the myriad Chesterton quotes I've seen thrown around in this space says people from adversity/seeing something new, or something along those lines. Human history is rife with people talking about how new experiences can fundamentally alter how we see things, perhaps even sending us on wild adventures. Segregating oneself from those experiences as a cosmopolitan observer instead of a traveler in a new land can prevent learning and change. Have you see this old Tom Scott video? He goes into this same idea, about how we might one day live in a world where multiple societies could co-inhabit the same spaces but never interact because they literally can't see each other due to chips in the brain. It terrifies my mind for the reasons above, where people may never learn how to appropriately deal with the shock and anger that comes with realizing "immoral" people walk past you as if it's their land, not yours. At the same time, there's a TracingWoodgrains post about how valuable it can be to let a community define itself for those within it. He was talking about race, but it seems to be a universally valuable trait in that no one would like the idea that before they can even construct a defense against it, the world has already implanted an image of who they are in their own mind. • •
gattsuru drmanhattan16 2hr ago · Edited 2hr ago Human history is rife with people talking about how new experiences can fundamentally alter how we see things, perhaps even sending us on wild adventures. Segregating oneself from those experiences as a cosmopolitan observer instead of a traveler in a new land can prevent learning and change. Yeah, my objection here is definitely along these lines, rather than mere principle or aestheticism or even fear about this. There's reason I've got "They're paving over the wrinkles so you can't think!" on my draft list. Have you see this old Tom Scott video? I hadn't seen that, but it's definitely an interesting (and funny!) piece. It tunnel-visions a bit from being so comedy-focused on setting up its punchline, to an extent that I'd expect a lot of people reject it for the dependence on tech that doesn't exist and may never be accepted, but the punchline is pretty well-delivered. The other side that I think Scott's joke overlooks the breadth of possible problem space. He mentions friends sharing blocklists organically, and blocking, but in many ways there's a lot of pragmatic reasons that might not be what ends up mattering as much, especially in the next ten or twenty years. You can play a hundred hours with someone in FFXIV with Mare Synchronos, and not know their character's 'real' gender or race. We can share not just blocklists, but criteria for how things get blocked, and crowdsource and bulk ingest ways to fill them. We can list everyone's worst moments and dumbest mistakes, or their proudest successes, right by their heads; turn our opponents into ogres making the dumbest arguments in the most grating voices and our allies into halo'd elves. We can make things perfect. At the same time, there's a TracingWoodgrains post about how valuable it can be to let a community define itself for those within it. He was talking about race, but it seems to be a universally valuable trait in that no one would like the idea that before they can even construct a defense against it, the world has already implanted an image of who they are in their own mind. Perhaps, but I've got pretty badly mixed feelings. I've seen a lot of communities formed before social media tried to eat the world, and a lot of communities try to form afterward. There's reasons the modern day therian communities are the way they are, and maybe they are the end result of twenty years of the crucible going til the dross overflows. But it feels like people tried to replace a crucible with iron bars, and then were proud that now, with a prison around the whole world, they were the only ones free. • •
drmanhattan16 gattsuru 1hr ago new
But it feels like people tried to replace a crucible with iron bars, and then were proud that now, with a prison around the whole world, they were the only ones free.
There's certainly an extreme, ala Tom Scott, where we have sanitized the world to the point of making Paul Kingsnorth have an aneurysm. But there is also some value, I think, in letting people have their...I don't like the term safe space for this, so let's call it a "normalcy space". Where the dominant perception of you and your peers, your community, etc. is defined primarily by you and no one else. You can and arguably should be able to step into a world which doesn't cater to you or anyone in particular, but I don't see anything wrong with being able to sanitize at least some part of the ideological and cultural landscape to be fit for you.
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gattsuru drmanhattan16 just now new
There's an irony in having this conversation now.
I think wanting to sanitize part of the ideological and cultural landscape is understandable, and I wish there was nothing wrong to do so. And it's important for people from outside a community trying to talk in, who want to be taken credibly or honestly, to understand the sort of motivations that make subcultures curl in on themselves.
But it's very easy for a community that successfully cuts itself off from the outside world to go wonky.
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WhiningCoil drmanhattan16 6hr ago It terrifies my mind for the reasons above, where people may never learn how to appropriately deal with the shock and anger that comes with realizing "immoral" people walk past you as if it's their land, not yours. They'll learn when people start going missing Well, given the outcome of the scandal... maybe they won't after all. We don't even have AR yet and it's head in the sand all the way. • •
faceh drmanhattan16 6hr ago He goes into this same idea, about how we might one day live in a world where multiple societies could co-inhabit the same spaces but never interact because they literally can't see each other due to chips in the brain. A solution to the housing crisis that involved multiple people 'owning' the same house and being electronically manipulated so they never interfere with or even perceive the others, and all interior decorations being completely virtual so they can enjoy exactly the environment they individually prefer is kinda funny to think about. • •
drmanhattan16 faceh 6hr ago I don't know if you could get to that point. Atoms, after all, can't be tricked by AR, and even in his description, Tom never says you fundamentally couldn't notice another person (sorry, I made that point too strongly). You could bump into someone and you should probably be able to see them regardless of your filter at that point. I actually think I'm there, in a sense, because I don't interact with the Christian community around me despite there being a large church near my house. They might as well be dark matter to me, imperceptible in some way, a presence I acknowledge only intellectually. • •
faceh drmanhattan16 6hr ago · Edited 6hr ago I'm just saying if someone was fully plugged into AR goggles with noise-cancelling headphones and a little brain-stimulation tech to keep you from actually bumping into anyone, in theory you could have like three people occupy the same living space but not be truly 'aware' of each other. I say three people because if you managed it just right, each one could have a different 8 hour shift where only one of them is using the main bed for sleeping at any time and thus minimizing the risks of 'collisions'. A weaker version of this is where everyone only temporarily rents the space they're using for a brief time. You summon a car for transport on an as-needed basis, you rent out a particular bed/bedroom for the evening, you can't be sure if its the same one from the night before. The AR Goggles just impose a consistent view (the car always looks the same in-goggles, the bedroom looks the same, etc. etc.) so you don't notice that you are actually a transient with no permanent belongings. • •
TIRM faceh 3hr ago you are actually a transient with no permanent belongings Some might say you will own nothing and be happy. And if these chips make ground bugs taste like veal, then you'd presumably feel fine eating a tasty dinner in your sleeping pod. • •
faceh TIRM 1hr ago new
That phrase has been turning over in my head a lot. Would it really be SO BAD if we lived in a social order where personal ownership was a rare exception? Imagine if you could visit any given city on earth and rent a comfortable place to reside in for the duration of your stay. Where you can borrow a car on demand and not have to worry about icky maintenance expenses and fixing it if it breaks. Where you don't have to worry about upgrading your phone every year or so because you just turn it in at the end of your lease period and they issue you a new, state-of-the art upgrade. Where you don't have to move a huge collection of physical media with you because you can access your shows and movies where-ever you are using your streaming accounts. Where swapping jobs is as easy as selecting a geographic area and uploading your resume to find a suitable gig.
Being functionally rootless with no personal possessions or dedicated 'home' to return to means you have absolute freedom to move around to where-ever the market takes you. Not so bad a thought?
Bad. The entire concept is bad (to me).
But if you accept the underlying premise/logic, a world where AR makes you feel like you own things and gives you the psychological assurances that come with personal ownership whilst also having the convenience of having no real possessions other than a bank account associated with your name seems like a no-brainer.
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TIRM faceh 35m ago new
Some rootless young person might like it. But I am very much tied down with my family. I have my yard with my garden next to my house that I worked hard to renovate and my kid sleeps in their room, etc, etc.
On one hand this is all just stuff. On the other hand I really like my property and my stuff and I worked hard and paid a lot to set up things my way (or really the way my wife likes it, but close enough). No bug paste in a pod can replace what I have and value.
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faceh gattsuru 8hr ago · Edited 6hr ago Hitting a slight tangent, I've considered that the "killer app" for augmented reality (if we assume a situation where almost everyone is wearing glasses all the time) is allowing attractive females to be extremely selective of who gets to pay them attention and enjoy their good looks. As in, a world where the hottest females will wear the equivalent of burquas everywhere they go, but have the option to select various bystanders who they find attractive and allow those bystanders to download an avatar of their real appearance and see what others are missing out on. Maybe they intentionally appear as a green, knobby-skinned orc creature to the plebs ("jokes on you I'm into that shit") but when a 6' chiseled chad walks by he gets the full view, and also access to her phone number/metaverse ID if he wants. Add a layer of dystopia and maybe other plebs can unlock the real view but only by paying the fee which is prominently displayed in their vision. Really go the extra mile and maybe big data allows the user to dynamically alter that fee depending on who is looking and their apparent ability to pay + their apparent willingness/desperation to look at hot women. In a sense this is a natural evolution of the current state of the web where every piece of content worth seeing is paywalled and microtransactions are everywhere and even basic human interactions becomes more transactional in nature (see for example livestreamers who will only read messages that users directly pay to send them). But I honestly don't think this is the particular version of the future that will come to pass, ONLY that there are probably a LOT of people who would willingly jump into this instantiation of the tech. It solves a particular class of problem for certain people (hot people who only want to interact with other hot people and avoid getting excess attention from plebs) even if it probably creates new problems we haven't even thought of. The advent of AR tech and the apparent aplomb with which some subset of the population are adopting it is my Squidward moment for realizing "holy cow the world really is going to fly off in a weird direction that I am unprepared to deal with." Whatever else it is worth, it really makes me desire to increase my connection with baseline reality rather than weaken those ties. Whether simulation hypothesis is true or not, it seems to me there IS something meaningful about living within the actual constraints of the physical world rather than trying to escape to a world you 'know' to be artificial. Edit: And I think that, perhaps ironically, AR can be used to increase ties to baseline reality when you use it to elicit more true and factual about your local environment. I.e. if you have a display giving you an accurate temperature reading of our immediate area and telling you the composition of the air you're breathing and displaying a live feed of your personal biometrics, you are in a sense becoming more entangled with the matter that composes your immediate surroundings, in much the same way you would be if you had directly augmented your sense of sight or hearing. So I'm not coming at this from a technophobic viewpoint, I think. • •
gattsuru faceh 4hr ago I've considered that the "killer app" for augmented reality (if we assume a situation where almost everyone is wearing glasses all the time) is allowing attractive females to be extremely selective of who gets to pay them attention and enjoy their good looks. I think access to the phone number/metaverse username will drive more than access to 'hotness', at least for women putting themselves out there. There's definitely already spaces in FFXIV that you can go and won't see what's really going on unless you pass some level of (usually text-focused) checks, (and/or, as with The Willow Street link above, put down some cash), but the same people put no small amount of effort into how they'd look for non-synced people -- Glamourer is nearly as critical as Mare Synchronous to this class of users, in many ways, since otherwise you end up wearing BurlapSackv3. Some people do use Discord in a kinda similar or overlapping role. I dunno if there's something similar in the het online dating world. Kinda surprising if there isn't, although I guess the median and mode purchaser on het dating websites isn't a woman, anyway. And I think that, perhaps ironically, AR can be used to increase ties to baseline reality when you use it to elicit more true and factual about your local environment. Yeah, there's a pretty wide variety of spaces there. I've got a few microdisplays I've long been futzing with to try to integrate everything from voice transcription to waypoint and map marking to live translation to sense augmentation on, and I've separately tried replicating this (no luck, but might just be me). This hit my interests for other reasons, but using mini-EEG, eye-tracking, and other sensors to put yourself into the world more completely has a lot of potential. Probably won't get anywhere productive, I'll admit, but it's been something that's driven my attention since at least the first time I saw Ghost in the Shell: SAC. And I'm not really opposed to virtual or 'fake' worlds, in no small part because I don't think the line is quite as clear as people want to draw. That said, while AR/VR/spatial whatever makes a great scifi twist feel, a lot of this filtering capability can happen well outside of it, and I think it is worth recognizing it. Even smart phones fell out of popularity, I don't think we could put the genie back in the bottle now. • •
WhiningCoil faceh 7hr ago Whatever else it is worth, it really makes me desire to increase my connection with baseline reality rather than weaken those ties. Whether simulation hypothesis is true or not, it seems to me there IS something meaningful about living within the actual constraints of the physical world rather than trying to escape to a world you 'know' to be artificial. A part of me wants to believe AR won't ever take off beyond a few Glassholes or whatever the Apple misnomer is going to be. The notion of it going full Black Mirror, where nearly everyone has it implanted directly into their eye with the government having ultimate control of what people are even allowed to see, seems beyond the pale. Then again, it wouldn't be the first Black Mirror episode that came true. All this inspires in me feelings not unlike the fundamentalist Christians who believe having a drivers license or a social security number is the mark of the devil. Probably been 30 years since I last saw a headline about someone like that. Maybe in 30 more years I'll make headlines for ranting and raving about how having a "Z-Eye" is the mark of the devil, and I'm no longer allowed in most businesses or government buildings because of it. • •
faceh WhiningCoil 7hr ago where nearly everyone has it implanted directly into their eye with the government having ultimate control of what people are even allowed to see, seems beyond the pale. We'd be seeing something like that in some of the more aggressive dictatorships around the world before we saw it in the West, I think. Not that it's too much solace. And implementing such a regime would create such intense demand for jailbreaking I doubt it would be sustainable. The Black Mirror episode that seems closest to coming true right now is Nosedive. Combining the concept of an ongoing universal rating system and augmented reality would create some interesting outcomes when people can define how they appear to others based on those others' relative scores. Zoomers seem to be willing to adopt something like this, notice how the prevalence of cheating in online games is leading to increasingly intrusive countermeasures, and then add on behavior/toxicity scores. That is, they're willing to accept a panopticon-esque policing systems if it means avoiding unwelcome interactions in the games. So these sorts of systems could just hop straight over to the real world with AR. And on the one hand, a 'gentle' type of behavior regulation is quite possibly a positive development for reigning in antisociality (but who defines that?). But as you say, if the punishment is something like having your eyeballs shut off or being made literally invisible to all other people, and having to desperately cowtow and beg for positive ratings to regain status, well, I don't want to be part of this future. • •
TIRM faceh 2hr ago antisociality It would be things like denying that transwomen are women that would get you in trouble. • •
WhiningCoil faceh 7hr ago We'd be seeing something like that in some of the more aggressive dictatorships around the world before we saw it in the West, I think. Not that it's too much solace. I wish I could believe this. But frankly our social media overlords have instituted speech regulation regimes just as bad, and virtually indistinguishable in effect, from the most aggressive dictatorships. To say nothing of all we've learned from the Twitter files and whistleblowers at Facebook and Google about their own constitution violating relationships with Federal government agencies. IMHO, the allure of gooning 24/7 with AR will be all it takes to convince a significant portion of the population to submit to a reality censorship regime. • •
faceh WhiningCoil 7hr ago Yes, I think there's a distressingly high number of people who would willingly plug into the 'matrix' and never unplug. For the older people, there's the promise of not having to be stuck with their own failing health and decrepitude. For the young, the ability to live up to all that potential they thought they had, and to pretend to achieve milestones that they are missing in real life. And porn, of course. I can't say that I'm NOT tempted by the allure of infinite AI-generated sex partners who are willing to cater to literally any whim you might have, rendered in high enough definition that your brain doesn't really care that it knows it is fake. But again, increasing ties to the real world. Sexual intimacy with a committed partner and all the mess, neurotransmitters, and weird physical sensations it can entail is probably going to continue to be more 'authentic' than any virtual experience until they can manage direct neural stimulation. And getting another human pregnant and producing offspring is still, in my view, the ULTIMATE entanglement with reality most humans are capable of. Literally enmeshing your genetic code, thousands upon thousands of genes, with another person to produce something new and unique that will then go forth to have further influence on reality. We're a long ways from simulating THAT in high fidelity, I think. • •
thrownaway24e89172 naïve paranoid outcast faceh 6hr ago And porn, of course. I can't say that I'm NOT tempted by the allure of infinite AI-generated sex partners who are willing to cater to literally any whim you might have, rendered in high enough definition that your brain doesn't really care that it knows it is fake. Any whim you might have that doesn't offend the sensibilities of the majority too much anyway. • •
TIRM thrownaway24e89172 2hr ago They sell child sex dolls. Someone will make a child version of future VR super-porn. • •
thrownaway24e89172 naïve paranoid outcast TIRM 2hr ago new
I don't think child sex dolls, which I'll note do have legal restrictions in a number of places (eg, at least 5 US states, Canada, and the UK), are the best comparison here. I think such VR is more likely to be treated like pornography and thus more strictly regulated than sex toys through existing obscenity laws.
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faceh thrownaway24e89172 6hr ago True, but the current trend of nearly every sort of kink and sexual proclivity finding at least some mainstream cachet might be extrapolated forward to say that in the future NO sexual behavior is off-limits so long as it is purely digital in nature. Not a prediction, just a note. • •
ThisIsSin A psychosexual analysis of the worlds and words of George Orwell faceh 4hr ago nearly every sort of kink and sexual proclivity With the small exception of wanting it with attractive young women, sure; you can have all the sex you want as long as the participants are sufficiently ugly (the symptoms of this being things like PornHub recommending you drag queens and other nastiness when you type "teen" in the search bar; there was a thread earlier this year discussing this but I don't remember which week). Orwell didn't call it the "Junior Anti-Sex League" or point out that the availability of the bog-standard kink pornography for proles was maximized within the first couple chapters of his book for no reason: the kink porn is the distraction, making things ugly forever except for those in power is the end goal of power. in the future NO sexual behavior is off-limits so long as it is purely digital in nature. Liberals and progressives are different; the latter continues to wage holy war on loli (and seeks to expand its definition, #fightfor25) while exempting everything else for this reason. • •
thrownaway24e89172 naïve paranoid outcast faceh 5hr ago From my perspective the trend is the opposite, with the things I'm interested in becoming more and more off-limits--a change largely driven by the same people pushing for the wider acceptability of other kinks and sexual proclivities. • •
WhiningCoil faceh 6hr ago And getting another human pregnant and producing offspring is still, in my view, the ULTIMATE entanglement with reality most humans are capable of. Literally enmeshing your genetic code, thousands upon thousands of genes, with another person to produce something new and unique that will then go forth to have further influence on reality. Well, the western worlds plummeting fertility rates don't bode well for this being a sufficient motivating factor. I can totally imagine AR hooking people young, before they are of an age when they are even considering kids. And then it's just over for them. • •
faceh WhiningCoil 6hr ago There's an open question of whether this will just mean that the most pro-natal/fertile groups will end up picking up the slack over a few generations. People with the propensity to check out of society so easily are probably not going to be genetically represented as much in the future. Ultimately, SOMEBODY has to live outside the simulation to keep things running. (I'm intentionally eliding any reference to human-level and above AGI, because that changes the game in several irretrievable ways) • •
WhiningCoil faceh 6hr ago There's an open question of whether this will just mean that the most pro-natal/fertile groups will end up picking up the slack over a few generations. Maybe. But how damaging of a filter would it be if public schools hooked every kid on heroin in middle school and then we waited to see which ones were "strong enough" to get over the addiction and live productive, happy lives as adults and start happy, well adjusted families? I don't view the proliferation of AR much differently. Sure, some version of humanity might emerge from the other side the stronger for it. But it doesn't seem worth the cost if we can avoid it. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Freddie deBoer has a new blog post out, in which he argues about that there is an unjustified double standard between lefties being quite willing to accept environmental impacts on outcomes including in particular intelligence, such as lead exposure, actively hostile to genetic impacts, as the circumstance that its baseline value is most likely highly heritable. He also leads the article with the observation that they are simply avoidant about the intermediate case of premature birth, which has a documented high adverse impact on intelligence, but while being non-heritable is as arbitrary an seemingly beyond our current capacity for intervention as the genetic ones are. However, this point does quickly take a back seat to the environment/genetics disparity, and I think his core thrust is in the following paragraph. I have often wondered why environmental influences on academic performance appear somehow more “polite” than genetic, to many people. I think it has something to do with the assumption that they cannot be changed, which again leads to fears of leaving children behind. As committed critics of behavioral genetics often point out, just because a condition is influenced by genetics does not mean that the condition necessarily cannot be changed. But then, the obverse is also true - just because an influence is environmental does not mean it can be changed. I have seen this question come up in "hereditarian left" (h/t to Scott) discussions repeatedly, and I'm surprised at the surprisal, because it seems to me that there is an obvious answer. Even though it has slightly fallen out of fashion in the atomic age, the idea that ambitions failed and injustices suffered by one generation can be vicariously made up for in the next is well-rooted in our culture. People on the left and right alike have some version of these stories that they enjoy, such as those involving Latin American immigrants braving jungles/cartels/CBP to pick pomegranates in the California sun until they die from skin cancer at age 50 but at least they get to send their Dreamer kids to a good state school and thence into the American white-collar life, or the middling academic/craftsman/artist/feudal lord/tiger mom giving up on their childhood dreams and instead going all in on raising their offspring to have more of a head-start at the family calling than they did, or just any historical concentration of misery that was on the causal path to our present prosperity (slavery, war, the industrial revolution). If intelligence is the sine qua non of worth and attainment, someone who is cognitively lacking because of lead poisoning or FAS, was born prematurely, raised by wolves or dropped on their head too much still can have smart children; like in these stories, their personal failure may be tragic, but the their tale may yet end in some form of redemption (you could in fact even think that cosmic justice will balance the scales, as the children will be able to turn their experience of hardship into an advantage - be it in the form of grit and experience or good material for the admissions essay). But if intelligence is heritable, then many of the people who must suffer in this world will also never find succour in the genetic afterlife: not only are they themselves stupid losers, but so will be all their descendants in direct proportion to the degree to which these descendants are of their own flesh and blood and positive weight in the value function. (Sorry for the stilted prose. I'm too sleep-deprived to be writing, but I figured that my attention span for this topic wouldn't last long enough that I'd still bother to post post-sleep.) • •
Felagund 4bpp 1d ago I think many people are more okay with saying that some individuals are smarter than others, due to genetics, who are not okay with saying that some racial groups are smarter than others. (And probably, though it amounts to nearly the same thing, people are more willing to say that groups are above average, but not that groups are below average—it's probably a lot less culturally fraught to say that Asians or Jews tend to be smart, than to argue that other groups are low-IQ.) So I'm not sure how that affects this. Because it's concern about classes of people, if undergoing some environmental problem doesn't cause one to think of a class as inherently less smart (on average), possibly due to the temporary nature of the effect, or because the class of people who experienced the harm are not along the lines that peope might tend to identify along, then that make people more comfortable with the environmental factors. • •
Goodguy 4bpp 1d ago You make an interesting point, but I think that in reality the vast majority of people who get the ick from intelligence hereditarianism do so because for them it is axiomatic that human races do not differ in intelligence and that anyone who questions the truth of that is almost certainly a racist who is motivated by a desire to hurt non-white people. To be fair, a large fraction of the people who question the truth of that really are motivated more by a political agenda rather than by a simple desire for truth, which muddies the waters. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ Goodguy 1d ago I get the sense that I've seen the same resistance to intelligence hereditarianism in many societies where racial/ethnic averages were not much a topic in the public debate (ex. Germany around 2000), so it may not be appropriate to generalise from the Anglo-American societal experience. • •
netstack Texas is freedom land 4bpp 1d ago I’ll second what @guesswho said—at least in the US, the subject has been politicized for decades. It really was a weapon in the battle over public schooling and other forms of segregation. As with all such weapons, when someone new picks it up, opponents are going to draw the same conclusion. • •
Southkraut Rise, ramble, rest, repeat. 4bpp 1d ago There is no broad, social consensus on this topic in Germany. For many Germans, the heredity of intelligence is variously a plain fact of nature or either implicitly taboo or explicitly denied, and these positions do not map cleanly to political leanings even though leftist ideologues do obviously prefer a blank slate reading, but are also obviously motivated by moral concerns rather than any intention to state objective truth. But mostly it's just not a headline topic. • •
f3zinker Its A/B testing all the way down Southkraut 1d ago This got me thinking. Is there any society out there that just accepts HBD and moves on ? As in takes it as a matter of scientific fact. At the very least, doesn't taboo the idea of IQ? • •
tikimixologist f3zinker 21hr ago In India it's generally accepted - tambrams are smart, Punjabis proud, gujus good at money, etc. It's not a major topic, more just something of occasional intellectual interest. India also has open and honest affirmative action/quotas, and data on entrance exam scores of reservation admits vs general pool are easy to find. • •
2rafa tikimixologist 5hr ago That’s similar to cultural stereotypes about cheap Dutch, profligate Italians, lazy Spaniards, humorless Germans and so on, I don’t know that the average Indian believes that Brahmins are genetically more intelligent than other castes and in fact a lot of Indian media seems to be about people from humble backgrounds outwitting those from wealthier ones. It’s kind of like how Americans often buy into stereotypes about Asians being good at math, but if you actually ask them “are Asians more intelligent than white people because of their genetics” they’ll say no. • •
The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht 2rafa 5hr ago It’s kind of like how Americans often buy into stereotypes about Asians being good at math, but if you actually ask them “are Asians more intelligent than white people because of their genetics” they’ll say no. Those that understand the question know the acceptable answer, so that doesn't really tell you anything. • •
2rafa The_Nybbler 4hr ago I don’t believe any great fraction of American whites - including those who would pride themselves on an opposition to political correctness - believe in their heart of hearts that East Asians are hereditarily intellectually superior to Europeans on average. They may believe they’re better at math or more successful in life or even ‘smarter’ in the colloquial non-HBD sense where studying hard at school makes you smart. But they ascribe that to tiger moms and forcing kids into tutoring and pressure to perform and studying all day etc, not to anything ingrained. • •
RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! f3zinker 21hr ago Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, he had a bunch of speeches where he pointed out the statistics and explained this was why he wasn't going to demand equality of outcomes or introduce affirmative action. He was big on IQ too. “I started off believing all men were equal. I now know that's the most unlikely thing ever to have been, because millions of years have passed over evolution, people have scattered across the face of this earth, been isolated from each other, developed independently, had different intermixtures between races, peoples, climates, soils... I didn't start off with that knowledge. But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, and then bullying my way to the top, that is the conclusion I've come to.” • •
2rafa RandomRanger 5hr ago · Edited 5hr ago I think LKY believed in HBD but the official policy in Singapore that he started and encouraged definitely doesn’t promote the idea that Chinese are smarter than Indians or Malays and in fact is very big on affirmative action, promoting the idea that someone from any background can do anything etc. LKY used ethnic quotas to rebalance numerous professions to replace the British (arguably HBD-aware) colonial system in which different groups found niches based on ability (eg merchants, soldiers, administrators). • •
IGI-111 f3zinker 23hr ago · Edited 23hr ago Lots of historical examples, most caste systems or organic society concepts are a way to make sure society explicitly caters to the interests of all strata and to maintain social cohesion in the face of the plain reality that some people are just better than others at most useful tasks. You can be a smart cookie and a great conqueror, but noblesse oblige. And even if you're the most backwards idiot peasant, you still have a role and a duty in the great machinery of your nation and the universe. I think the current hangup about this is actually fairly odd and specific to Liberalism and offshoots because it was explicitly founded on tabula rasa. Most people throughout history were very ostensibly aware that intelligence (and character in general) is heritable. • •
roche IGI-111 22hr ago Reminds me of that study which asserted social mobility has no major impact on who ends up where, as if there's a small-ish contingent of people who keep bumping up against the glass ceiling in low-mobility environments, but as a rule we're born into specific strata for a reason. There is some combination of intelligence, stability, drive, and health which is handed down genetically and which nearly all successful people share. • •
Goodguy roche 21hr ago Can't much of this wealth persistence be explained by people passing their wealth to their descendants rather than by intelligence, stability, drive, or health? • •
sodiummuffin Goodguy 20hr ago There's been some studies looking at historical cases like land lotteries indicating that randomly-obtained wealth doesn't tend to persist across generations. Off the top of my head this SSC post has some discussion of this. Similarly, the children and grandchildren of those who were sent to the gulag in the Soviet Union are today more likely to have a college education than the descendants of those who were not, and the areas where they were resettled to are now more prosperous. The gulag may have taken away everything else, but it disproportionately targeted groups like educated professionals, and those that survived still had their genes. Unfortunately it looks like they didn't have individual economic data from the survey, just education, it would be good to confirm that they're individually wealthier rather than having to go by area. • •
guesswho Goodguy 1d ago or them it is axiomatic that human races do not differ in intelligence and that anyone who questions the truth of that is almost certainly a racist who is motivated by a desire to hurt non-white people. The first half of that doesn't have to be true for the second half to be true. In my experience, most of the left agrees with the second half, and believes that there's not compelling evidence to reject the null hypothesis of no difference on the first half (with the caveat that the existing data is suspect for various reasons, largely having to do with the second half). But yeah, within the bailey this is mostly an arguments as soldiers thing. Most people don't know much of the science about this topic and have no reason to care about it except in as much as it affects the political landscape, so when it comes up they're not going to enthusiastically support their opponent's side of the question. • •
doglatine 4bpp 1d ago If your interpretation were correct, you’d surely expect everyone (but especially the left) to be very excited about polygenic embryo screening for intelligence, since it allows people to have children who are significantly smarter than themselves (and once you factor in CRISPR, the sky is the limit). In practice, though, the main people who get excited about polygenic embryo screening tend to be oddball techno-utopians, like many of us here. • •
hydroacetylene doglatine 20hr ago I think that- moral concerns aside- polygenic embryo screening will actually have a dysgenic effect, and crispr will probably make it worse over the medium to long term. ‘But hydro, it can select for higher IQ’- nonsense. In practice it selects for higher IQ people having fewer kids, because well educated upper class people are the natural target audience and it’s absurd to think it won’t suppress fertility among early adopters. And frankly I expect crispr selection for intelligence to be in vogue for about ten years before it switches over to selection for a ‘cute, obedient, phlegmatic temperament and probably athletic’ package. Yes, my bias is obvious. But factually high TFR groups today won’t use eugenics tech, because they’re either religious fanatics or underclass who don’t give a shit, and it won’t cause the people who do use it to have a rise in fertility because their low TFR is not caused by ‘but what if the kid turns out to have a 108 IQ instead of 112?’, it’s caused by not wanting to have to raise kids. I know there’s a motteizean technoutopian crowd which thinks artificial wombs with genetically engineered babies will bring about a rapidly growing 130+ IQ talented tenth. And it would be nice to have more 130+ IQ people around who want to behave in pro social ways, but someone still has to raise the baby for two decades. • •
doglatine hydroacetylene 11hr ago someone still has to raise the baby for two decades It’s not really two decades; more like 13 years or so. As Bryan Kaplan points out, by early teenage years parents are more interested in spending time with the kid than vice-versa. I also expect AI to play a progressively bigger role in parenting. Not so much the physical side (diaperbots may be further away than non-embodied ASI) but AI teachers and entertainers. “Hey Alexa, I have work on my presentation. Can you watch the kids for a couple of hours? Call me if there’s an emergency. Jonnie can watch TV until 6 and then you can help him with his homework.” • •
hydroacetylene doglatine 5hr ago This seems delusional, because AI has a long(some would say infinite) way to go before it has the capabilities of a mark I human teenager. It’s a meatspace task- whether the kid is 8 months or 8 years, if you want him to actually do his homework someone has to keep an eye on him. An AI can’t do it because it is a computer program, and if Alexa controls a shock collar on Johnny AI still has to be able to tell that he’s actually working on his homework and not, say, keeping the screen up while he plays on his game boy. Any 12 year old can do this. AI is a very long ways away. • •
ArjinFerman Tinfoil Gigachad doglatine 11hr ago I also expect AI to play a progressively bigger role in parenting. Not so much the physical side (diaperbots may be further away than non-embodied ASI) but AI teachers and entertainers. “Hey Alexa, I have work on my presentation. Can you watch the kids for a couple of hours? Call me if there’s an emergency. Jonnie can watch TV until 6 and then you can help him with his homework.” Oh god, thank you for giving me one more reason to join the Butlerian Jihad. It wasn't quite enough that hostile teachers try to indoctrinate kids and turn them against their parents, or that Google curates my access to information, let's go ahead and combine the two, and hand the kids' indoctrination over to Google, because the current system is clearly not efficient enough. • •
SSCReader doglatine 1d ago If your interpretation were correct, you’d surely expect everyone (but especially the left) to be very excited about polygenic embryo screening for intelligence, Well that pattern matches to eugenics. Which has a negative rhetorical valence to many people (whether deserved or not). Remember facts matter less than feelings when it comes to the positions most people hold. If position A logically leads to position B, but position B is felt to be bad, then people can simply accept A and not accept B. We are excellent at that as a species. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ doglatine 1d ago Interesting counterpoint, but I think there are some arguments against it. I can't quite commit to a single line of argument, but think that in reality all of these might be a factor. • The objection to gene editing might exist for orthogonal reasons, such as the usual dystopian fiction priming. Compare to the widespread left-wing opposition to nuclear power (though this seems to have gone through a cycle of sanewashing into a hairier-to-refute "actually nuclear was never profitable to begin with"), or even more relatedly GMOs in nutrition: the idea that nutritional deprivation could be addressed with something like Golden Rice was received somewhere between coldly and with outright hostility, and I imagine you wouldn't want to argue that all these people don't actually want to solve vitamin A deficiency in the third world. I am actually not sure where typical right-wingers can be said to stand on GMOs, beyond a certain expectation of default support because left-wingers are against it and corporations stand to benefit. • Somewhat relatedly, the modern mainstream Left seems to be wary in general of proposed solutions that involve increased individual agency, particularly when exercising that agency correctly is difficult and depends on the confluence of a lot of complex enabling factors. Here I would draw a comparison to the widespread opposition to homeschooling and even school choice in general, even though you might think that if one considers education (as an environmental factor) important and some state schools are bad this would also be the natural response. Leftists surmise, perhaps correctly, that such agency tends to benefit those who are already winning and are better-prepared to make the right choice - indeed, an objection that I hear frequently to human genetic improvement is that rich first-worlders would be the most likely to give their children the best genetic enhancement, widening the gap further (and in particular breaking what little there is left of the karmic mechanism that rich kids squander their wealth but poor kids raise themselves up by their grit). If the person objecting gets drunk and edgy enough, they may even say the other half that if poor people do get access to genetic enhancement they may use it to make kids with Kim Kardashian's bum rather than Stephen Hawking's brain. • Separately, your argument presupposes that people actually, on some level, do accept that intelligence is heritable, and then doublethink it away: a process like "human differences in intelligence are due to genetic differences; such a reality would be far too horrible to accept; I shall therefore pretend to believe that it is not so", rather than "a reality in which human intelligence differences are inherited would be far too horrible to accept; I believe in a moral universe; therefore I earnestly conclude that it is not so". In the latter case, they may not think of gene editing as a candidate solution to the problem of human differences in intelligence at all; rather, it would be a frivolous undertaking that is still subject to the two objections from the previous bullet points - note that "current differences in human intelligence are not due to genes" is not incompatible with "gene editing could introduce inherited differences in human intelligence, such as a caste of superhuman rich white kids". I doubt that most people would constantly live with the cognitive dissonance of the former. • Finally, what do we know about the attitudes towards polygenic embryo screening of people that do actually accept that intelligence is heritable and gives rise to observed human diversity in intelligence? Are there major groups of people who fall in this class and don't belong to either of the three categories (1) apolitical, (2) oddball techno-utopians and (3) motivated racists? (1) will by definition defer their stance on gene editing to people somewhere on the convex hull in opinionatedness and prestige space, (2) is us, and (3) are surely not any more enthused about the prospect of creating new ethnic outgroups that are not intellectually inferior than they are about the existing ones. Also, last time heritability of intelligence was actually a mainstream prestige belief, we didn't have the knowledge base to propose DNA editing, but as far as I understand people were in fact very excited about eugenics. • •
RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! 4bpp 21hr ago into a hairier-to-refute "actually nuclear was never profitable to begin with" It's true that they say this (and it is better than saying it's grossly unsafe when coal kills thousands of times more) but they're still lying outright. You can find articles online decrying US nuclear plants receiving subsidies when they're already profitable. https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/586260-profitable-nuclear-plants-dont-need-subsidies-put-the-money-toward/ And then there are the graphs showing that even in America, a toxic regulatory environment, they're usually profitable year over year. Page 388 gives year by year profitability over a bunch of nuclear plants. https://www.monitoringanalytics.com/reports/PJM_State_of_the_Market/2021/2021q3-som-pjm-sec7.pdf • •
sodiummuffin RandomRanger 20hr ago Talking about the year-over-year profitability of something where the cost is overwhelmingly from initial construction is pointless unless you're specifically talking about whether to shut down existing plants. By that standard the business plan of "fill a tank with oil, then pump it out and sell it over the course of 10 years" is a profitable way to generate energy. • •
RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! sodiummuffin 19hr ago It includes capital cost, fuel cost, operating costs. In 2017, seven nuclear plants with a total capacity of 12,658 MW, in addition to Oyster Creek and Three Mile Island, did not recover all their fuel costs, operating costs, and capital expenditures. In 2018, one nuclear plant, with a total capacity of 894 MW, in addition to Oyster Creek and Three Mile Island, did not recover all its fuel costs, operating costs, and capital expenditures. • •
sodiummuffin RandomRanger 18hr ago It includes incremental capital expenditures during that year, in particular estimated maintenance costs. The analysis of nuclear plants includes annual avoidable costs and incremental capital expenditures from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) based on NEI’s calculations of average costs for all U.S. nuclear plants. Notice how in chart 7-20 the listed capital cost per MWh is identical for almost every plant, even though they would have cost different amounts to make, because it's based on estimated maintenance costs. Or how it can have a large difference between years for plants that are already constructed: NEI average incremental capital expenditures have decreased since their peak in 2012 (45.6 percent decrease from 2012 through 2019 for all plants including single and multiple unit plants). NEI’s incremental capital expenditures peaked in 2012 as a result of regulatory requirements following the 2011 accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/incrementalcost.asp Incremental cost is the total cost incurred due to an additional unit of product being produced. Incremental cost is calculated by analyzing the additional expenses involved in the production process, such as raw materials, for one additional unit of production. In this context, incremental capital cost would be how much more you have to spend on capital per MWh to keep the flow of additional units of electricity coming. • •
RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! sodiummuffin 17hr ago Ok, good point. I missed that part. Even so, many US reactors are paid off which indicates they must've repaid their capital costs, despite the ridiculous operating conditions (including the US's refusal to build a permanent waste dump despite spending billions on the matter). Nuclear energy in more competent countries like South Korea is cheap and reliable, despite political interference. Nuclear energy has been bailing out their expensive coal and gas imports. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/skoreas-nuclear-power-inflection-point-advocate-wins-presidency-2022-03-11/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL3N2X403F/ Here's a pro-renewable estimate, since it excludes costs of transmission or connecting to the grid (which will be worse for intermittent, geographically sparse renewables). Nuclear is competitive when compared to anything else, provided operation happens over the long-term (60 years), p46 https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-12/egc-2020_2020-12-09_18-26-46_781.pdf • •
netstack Texas is freedom land 4bpp 1d ago the usual dystopian fiction priming Now I’m a little curious about how much of an effect dystopian fiction has on actual decisions. There’s an obvious angle where policy gets influenced by the general mood on a technology or movement. But the reverse seems just as plausible. If we’re looking back on best-sellers or even cult classics, we’re getting a very curated sip from the firehose. For comparison, there’s a decent amount of mainstream entertainment dedicated to American race relations. It’s hip at the moment. By Sturgeon’s law, a small fraction of it will be good, and will be analyzed or referenced in the coming decades. No matter what happens socially or politically in the coming years, our grandkids are going to assume it was due to the vibes. • •
lagrangian 4bpp 1d ago Finally, what do we know about the attitudes towards polygenic embryo screening of people that do actually accept that intelligence is heritable and gives rise to observed human diversity in intelligence? Are there major groups of people who fall in this class and don't belong to either of the three categories [...] (3) motivated racists? [...] (3) are surely not any more enthused about the prospect of creating new ethnic outgroups that are not intellectually inferior than they are about the existing ones. As someone in all three categories, I think the conclusion here about 3 is sometimes (I'd say often) incorrect. My primary racist complaints would be solved by higher IQ, assuming it came with higher conscientiousness etc. "Those groups that annoy me" with high IQ start to quickly look a lot like "those groups that don't annoy me." So to whatever extent the new outgroups replace the existing low IQ ones, I say - great. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ lagrangian 10hr ago · Edited 10hr ago I don't know, it seems to me that not being annoyed by any other ethnic group is a rare position for card-carrying racists. Our very own forum went through a period of "soulless amoral bugmen" posting for East Asians, which as I gather is a pretty standard view for European and Caucasian-American (3) \setminus (2) as well; for other major high-IQ groups, a parallel poster already commented. I think it's quite likely that when you imagine other ethnic groups engineered to the average intelligence of yours, you actually also envision them engineered to have your aesthetic and value preferences, which are in reality largely orthogonal to intelligence; this would be hard to achieve in a genetic engineering campaign not only because you couldn't get the targets of the engineering on board, but also because you couldn't get the existing intelligent and successful ethnic groups to agree on what aesthetic to engineer in. (Imagine the heated debate in the International Congress of Racists about what level of Blind Filial Piety the New African Man ought to have.) (Also, I would think of (1) as mutually exclusive with the others...) • •
aqouta 4bpp 6hr ago Our very own forum went through a period of "soulless amoral bugmen" posting for East Asians Did we? • •
hydroacetylene aqouta 6hr ago Yes, the guy who posted about Chinese babies constantly. • •
hydroacetylene lagrangian 1d ago I dunno, the Twitter DR seems not to like Brahmins or Jews much. • •
Hoffmeister25 American Bukelismo Enthusiast hydroacetylene 18hr ago The part about conscientiousness also being important is probably the piece of the puzzle you’re missing. DR complaints about Jews (outside of a few cranks like Neema Parvini doing a contrarian bit to make a point) do not actually deny the high IQ and considerable talents of Jews not Brahmins. Their complaint is that both groups are amoral, ethnonarcissicistic strivers who use their cognitive gifts to achieve selfish and/or malevolent ends. High IQ is only an unalloyed good when paired with a conscientious desire to do good and to play fairly. • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ Hoffmeister25 10hr ago · Edited 10hr ago What's an example of an ethnic group that's generally considered by racist members of another ethnic group to not be amoral and ethnonarcissistic (the "striver" part probably comes for free whenever there is conscientiousness, which would surely be introduced as part of any uplift genetic engineering)? (I suspect that this sentiment is more or less equivalent to "I'm okay with other ethnicities being competent as long as they use that competence for the benefit of mine rather than their own".) • •
Hoffmeister25 American Bukelismo Enthusiast 4bpp 8hr ago What's an example of an ethnic group that's generally considered by racist members of another ethnic group to not be amoral and ethnonarcissistic Finns would be an obvious example. Unassuming, introverted, conformist, and, in the modern era, pathologically welcoming to other ethnic and racial groups. Sweden would be a very notable example of the latter tendency. Look at what the influx of Somalians and Syrians has done to their country. And it’s not just Swedes in Sweden; Scandinavian-Americans in Minnesota are a full-on prey species at this point, with black and Somali gangs and political machines turning what was once one of the most well-functioning and high-QOL regions of the country into a basket case. Look, I’ve defended Jews in this space a number of times. But claiming that they’re just getting the exact same criticisms that every high-IQ ethnic groups gets is risible. Jews do in fact have very specific complaints which have been leveled at them consistently numerous times throughout their existence in Europe. Those complaints cannot reasonably be summarized as “I'm okay with other ethnicities being competent as long as they use that competence for the benefit of mine rather than their own". This is a total dodge, rather than a serious attempt to deal with the topic at hand. • •
Stefferi Chief Suomiposter Hoffmeister25 4hr ago Finns would be an obvious example. Unassuming, introverted, conformist, and, in the modern era, pathologically welcoming to other ethnic and racial groups. Well... • •
4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ Hoffmeister25 6hr ago Finns and Swedes Isn't the one making a judgement of them as not amoral and ethnonarcissistic here you, who would also not hesitate to consider Swedish-Americans and Finnish-Americans as belonging to your own ethnicity? I am not so sure that racists who outgroup them would actually agree with that assessment (and I am not willing to consider the mere clannishness of Somalians and Syrians to qualify as racism; that in my eyes requires believing in the inherent superiority of one's macroscopic genetic cluster rather than just "I stick up for my family because that's the Right Thing to Do"). Surely, racist Asians, Jews and African-Americans seem to push the line that all the Caucasian peoples around them are amoral and ethnonarcissistic. Those complaints cannot reasonably be summarized as “I'm okay with other ethnicities being competent as long as they use that competence for the benefit of mine rather than their own". Huh? What are standard racist complaints about Jews apart from (1) severe ingroup preference (i.e. they are competent and use that to their own benefit) and (2) a distinct style of wordceldom/"Jewish physics"/the differing aesthetics that are seen as particularly disagreeable to the speaker? • •
Jiro Hoffmeister25 6hr ago Those complaints cannot reasonably be summarized as “I'm okay with other ethnicities being competent as long as they use that competence for the benefit of mine rather than their own". Yes they can. People are normally racist against other ethnicities when those ethnicities are around. There are a limited number of other ectnicities that are around. • •
lagrangian hydroacetylene 19hr ago That tracks, I'm Jewish • •
TheDag Per Aspera ad Astra doglatine 1d ago Idk, I think if there were somehow a guarantee that embryo screening would be equally available for all then many lefties would be stoked for it. Unfortunately they have an extremely realistic concern that the rich will be the first to get genetic therapies, which will be expensive, and the intelligence differential will only continue to widen massively. • •
Skibboleth TheDag 1d ago · Edited 1d ago It depends. There are equity concerns, where the rich are going to get the earliest access which will lead to a literal genetic aristocracy (or, perhaps worse, genetic superiority will be used to justify elites' supremacy all out of proportion with the actual impact of such technology). Or that the rich are going to get the safe and effective options while the poor are going to be compelled to accept risky technologies to stay economically competitive. Or something to that effect. However, there's also something something diversity of human experience. On the more reasonable end, you have concerns that parents are going to hyperoptimize for a narrow conception of success over broader flourish, creating a monoculture of [your pejorative of choice for upper middle class professionals]. On the more extreme end, you have the "disabilities are a social construct" crowd, who will declare that you're trying to genocide deaf people by allowing parents to select embryos that don't have congenital deafness. On the other hand, I am reminded of a remark I saw like ten years ago about how transhumanism will never be a thing because when we finally get effective transhuman technologies it will be called "healthcare". I think effective embryo screening will probably win out if it ever becomes possible because the people who want their children to be smart, beautiful, and healthy will vastly outnumber the people who think we're losing some vital part of the human experience. • •
IGI-111 Skibboleth 23hr ago The most likely outcome is that we have a few idealistic people create notorious human disasters, label the disasters after them, say "never again" and proceed to keep doing the few things they did correctly forevermore. It is after all, exactly what happened to eugenics. • •
disposablehead Hipster eugenicist doglatine 1d ago That your kids will be better off if we can cut out the parts of their heritage that make them think like you and replace those parts with contributions from your (no longer only ostensible) betters seems like a cosmic cucking. • •
aardvark2 disposablehead 7hr ago If you have 2 children normally, you do not propagate, on average, about 25% mutations unique to you. If you want everything to continue from you, you need cloning or very difficult genome editing. • •
sun_the_second aardvark2 2hr ago Even that assumes your mutations are unique to you, when in fact it's that particular combination of them that is unique. • •
aardvark2 disposablehead 8hr ago East Asians are less smelly than Europeans (who are in turn less smelly than). I, European, would want my children to have genes in this regard, that's only 1 gene. • •
jkf aardvark2 4hr ago Considering the (supposed?) importance of odour to human attraction you are opening your gene line up bigly to some evil genie action with this request. • •
hydroacetylene jkf 2hr ago new
Is this the reason for low oriental fertility rates across nations and cultures?
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jkf hydroacetylene 22m ago new
Probably not -- IIRC it's more of an aid to assortative mating in that people tend to prefer partners who smell like their own family. Maybe it would make it easier for one's sons to pick up Asian girls?
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2rafa hydroacetylene 1hr ago new
They can’t be that low historically given how many Chinese there are, surely.
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The_Nybbler Does not have a yacht aardvark2 7hr ago Said by someone who has never been on a bus in Seoul. There's environmental factors, man. • •
aardvark2 The_Nybbler 7hr ago Low effort 'gotcha'. Educate yourself: non-functional variant of gene ABCC11 which has near 100% frequency in East Asia reduces earwax and armpit smell. I never said East Asians are completely odorless. Where were you in Seoul, did your compare everything-adjusted buses of Koreans, Europeans and Africans on how they smell? • •
Fruck Lacks all conviction aardvark2 1hr ago new
Actually the most important element is the bus. For some reason we have been engineering buses over the decades to make them nigh perfect mobile bo incubators. The first buses didn't stink at all actually - they were like covered wagons with rows of pews in the bed, open to the air and everything. But the bus travellers didn't smell enough, so we remade them with windows on the sides to trap in the odours. Then we perfected our technique - rearrange the seating so we can cram as many people in as possible. Take out the long skinny windows near the roof that let in air and replace them with giant full body windows that can't be opened, just let in the sun to cook everyone up and get them sweating. Put in air conditioning and then have it break down at least half the time. I assume the final step will involve sealing the bus and adding heated stones and jugs of water.
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sun_the_second disposablehead 1d ago Just because your genes tell you to reproduce them as perfectly as possible does not mean it's a good idea. You would prefer your child to remain weak where you are weak, no stronger than you where you are strong? All for the sake of "genetic heritage", a particular contribution of aminoacids that will dilute to 50% already as you merge your gamete with a partner's? This is an attempt to derive your goals from how your biology works that is as backwards as wireheading yourself. In reality, nearly all parents I observe do not want their child to think like them. They want them to think perhaps the same things, but better. • •
disposablehead Hipster eugenicist sun_the_second 1d ago A list of possible genetic modifications: 1. Fixing obviously broken genes; curing cystic fibrosis 2. Introducing novel genes not native in the human distribution; shark immortality, octopi neurons 3. Replacing all deleterious variants with beneficial variants sourced from across the human genome; fixing heart disease, dementia 4. Replacing all deleterious variants with genes from Chad Chaddicus, who is the perfect human specimen; maximizing population longevity, IQ 5. Replacing all genes from you and your partner with genes from Chad Chaddicus, the perfect human specimen; maximizing aesthetic beauty of the new human race 1 seems obviously good, 2 feels prometheian with large risks and benefits, 3 seems fiddly but cool if reality is kind enough to evenly distribute genetic health across all of humanity. 5 means you’re erased. Gnon has decided that the things that make you you are not worth holding on to, that the future belongs to a rival who through no particular personal effort ended up with the whole of the future, you get nothing, you loose, good day sir. 4 depends on your proximity to Chad. If Chad is your cousin(let’s call this 4+), sweet, you had most of those genes anyway, your kids just get a light tune-up. If Chad is from a rival population with whom you have beef(4-), then the future belongs to the [insert ethnic slur here]. Human destiny is your blood-enemy living in the skins of your grandchildren, forever. PvP is a default setting for human cognition. I don’t think you can get people to entertain the possibility of 4- in a serious way; see the static conversation on the Black-White IQ gap. When group A says “Huh, looks like this objective metric shows group A is just better than B,” group B hears, correctly, fighting words, even (especially) if A is correct. ‘Same thoughts but better’ is step 3 on a process that gets your thoughts and values thrown on the dungheap of history a few iterations later. • •
sun_the_second disposablehead 12hr ago · Edited 12hr ago Once 2 and 3 are achieved, it appears trivial to have "native" aesthetics and Chad Chaddicus hardware. The PvP instincts seem (thankfully), like all evolved whims of biological beings, to be mostly skin-deep, even if the differences aren't. I doubt anyone but the most intellectual racists (as opposed to instinctual racists) will care that their children's leg muscles originate from Kenya, social acumen from Ashkenazim and focus capability from Asia, so long as they look "like them, but with a tune-up" and inherit the same memes. Speaking of memes, you appear to be either not noticing or severely downplaying the effect that shared memes have on perceived kinship. And to expect your memes to be eradicated if you introduce another genepool into yours might be justified when you live in caveman times, where this means you've been invaded and your women were taken into another culture. In a society that has routine genemodding, the correlation of genes and memes ought to be recalculated. In any case, are you arguing that genemodding ought to be seen as cucking by you and me, or that it will be seen as such by most? • •
disposablehead Hipster eugenicist sun_the_second 4hr ago Memes and genes aren’t cleanly distinct; genes dictate what memes are palatable to a population, and memes dictate which genes are desirable enough to propagate. Joseph Heinrich has written good stuff on this. I’d also gesture towards the genetic similarities of friend groups, or the increased incidence of abuse with step-parents. I want GMO kids, but I think I’m close enough to our hypothetical Chad that they would still feel like my own children. If instead they turn out to be brilliant but agreeable bureaucrats then I’m not interested. • •
2rafa disposablehead 54m ago new
I think the point is that for most people it is about aesthetics. Indians and Malaysians and Japanese won’t want ‘white’ kids but their designer babies will look like biracial white-and-themselves versions of them. And that’s what most people would be content with.
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sun_the_second disposablehead 3hr ago It doesn't appear that the coupling of memes and genes is that tight. The material capabilities and capacities of civilizations (i. e. environment) affect both the meme palatability and the extent to which the memes are capable to affect sexual selection a great deal. Incidence of step-children abuse looks explainable enough by the plain issue that parenthood would often be only incidental for the non-genetic parent. They married the father/mother, the kid wouldn't be their first priority even if they're amicable. As for genetic similarities between friends - sure, I can see how there'd be a correlation, given that you'd need to share a language, often location, some interests, necessitating a shared non-aversion to those interests... Would have to read the study to know if it's pronounced enough to necessitate some special focus on "genetic correlation". What I'm getting at... if the kid popped out of you and you raised them, I doubt that the intellectual knowledge that their genes have been altered would affect the instinctual attachment much, unless you let yourself be convinced that not sharing genes is bad. A kid that I sired which was then modified doesn't appear harder to love than my own vanilla kid, to me. If they came from a sperm bank - sure, there'd be visceral aversion to raising the spawn of some actual, personified Chad. But otherwise, it feels more important to me to pass on my memes. Perhaps it caters to my pride more to think of myself as a collection of ideas that lived in a smart monkey body, rather than a smart monkey that had some ideas. Would you rather raise the child of your enemy to be your most ardent ally, or have your child be raised by your enemy to be their most ardent ally? • •
aardvark2 sun_the_second 8hr ago so long as they look "like them, but with a tune-up" and inherit the same memes. how we will know if 300 IQ engineered Russians would be still Russians? If they annex planets on first opportunity and say "cyka blyat", they are. • •
hydroacetylene aardvark2 2hr ago new
But they sold the rocket fuel…
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sun_the_second aardvark2 2hr ago new
If that's a joke, then sorry, this is the place where something like that might be argued completely sincerely so I failed to laugh.
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4bpp このMOLOCHだ！ sun_the_second 1d ago Keep in mind, this child is still you. Simply, the best, of you. You could conceive naturally a thousand times and never get such a result. Gattaca evidently anticipated this concern, but still went on to build perhaps the most important relevant dystopian tropescape in our public culture with the "embryonic selection only" variant. • •
guesswho doglatine 1d ago When polygenic embryo screening is free to every citizen, maybe the left will get excited about it. Until then it's just GATTACCA, another way for the rich to give their offspring even more advantages over everyone else. • •
Hyperion guesswho 1d ago Are you such an egalitarian you would prefer people be born less intelligent, strong and healthy than they could be, just because some other people don't get the same benefit? GATTACCA is fiction, a fine movie, but it's fiction. You shouldn't generalize from fictional evidence! • •
sun_the_second Hyperion 8hr ago If you could make someone a physical God, would you do it with the same readiness whether: 1. it would be you 2. it might not be you 3. it is for sure not you, but someone you agree with 4. it might be someone you disagree with 5. it will for sure be someone you disagree with? Do you really have to be "such an egalitarian" to be apprehensive about giving a subset of people such an advantage over others? • •
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42 Hyperion 23hr ago Are you such an egalitarian you would prefer people be born less intelligent, strong and healthy than they could be, just because some other people don't get the same benefit? I for one don't need to be an egalitarian, just selfish and look at, me and my genetics and my bank account. Large-effect genetic technology that will be available to members of the millionaire class but not my family? If it becomes a thing, the price-point better come down soon or I will, dunno, despair. And no need to argue from fictional evidence. We have seen how highly unequal human societies have played out since the dawn of agriculture. There was a great deal of unpleasantness for the great majority of people. • •
guesswho Hyperion 1d ago First of all, when were we talking about me? Second, when did we jump from not being 'very excited' to, what,. wanting to ban it or something? • •
ulyssessword guesswho 18hr ago First of all, when were we talking about me? When you replied. That's usually how it works. Second, when did we jump from not being 'very excited' to, what,. wanting to ban it or something? As far as I can tell, in that sentence right there. • •
ArjinFerman Tinfoil Gigachad Hyperion 1d ago · Edited 1d ago Are you such an egalitarian you would prefer people be born less intelligent, strong and healthy than they could be, just because some other people don't get the same benefit? Yup, I'd take one for the team. It's not even about equality, it's about turning humans into something to be deliberately engineered. Gatacca barely scratched the surface of where that leads to, though Darwin is of course wrong about when the left will get excited about it. They're already pushing it in some countries, and they're promoting a bunch of other human engineering technologies from euthanasia to surrogacy. • •
hydroacetylene 4bpp 1d ago I think you’re getting at a major difference between progressives and conservatives- progressives believe that utopia is doable and making progress towards utopia is the most important thing. Conservatives believe it isn’t and not making it worse is the most important thing. Pretty much everyone is upset with the status quo in America. But looking at the complaints- progressives complain ‘we haven’t improved on real wages since x date’, conservatives on the exact same thing complain ‘housing has gotten less affordable because of price growth compared to wages’. These are very similar statements but framed differently. It’s an occasional theme of my posts that western society is definitely post-Christian in a way that it isn’t post-Islamic or post-pagan. I think this is connected very well here; key to Christianity is the concept that we had perfection once, ruined it, and this world is fallen and can’t be restored by human action, we will attain perfection only in the next life. Conservatives being, well, conservative, still hold onto that Christian concept even when they sleep in on Sunday mornings. Progressives keep the concept of the fallen world and believe that we can attain perfection here- we can fix it. This is a very post-Christian dichotomy to hold to. • •
guesswho 4bpp 1d ago · Edited 1d ago I feel like this has to be performative ignorance from deBoer to at least some degree, right? Like... It's impolite to talk about the genetic component of intelligence because it's been a historic justification for all types of oppression and atrocity, from slavery and colonialism to restricting rights and excluding from professions to just generic racism and sexism. It's impolitic to talk about the genetic component of intelligence because we're in the middle of a culture war over equity vs equality, and one side wants to use 'genetic low intelligence' of various groups as their explanatory variable for why equality of opportunity doesn't produce equality of outcomes. It's low-status to talk about the genetic component of intelligence because all the salient examples of everyone at every point in the past who has done that has ended being laughably and disastrously wrong, and over-correcting by not talking about it has more social dignity than saying 'yeah everyone else who ever said anything like this was hilariously wrong in hindsight but I have actually figured it out and am definitely correct this time.' It's not rocket science! deBoer might think those are bad reasons to not talk about it, but they're really obvious and salient reasons that people talk about all the time! Freddie deBoer may be the type of high-decoupler who doesn't even think about all that context and consequence when discussing a topic that he considers scientific rather than political or social. But it's hard to imagine he's actually baffled about why other people care about those things, and how it affects their behavior. (also, you know, everyone cites heritability statistics taken within low-variance populations such as college freshmen, but heritability is inversely proportional to the environmental variance in your sample) • •
aardvark2 guesswho 7hr ago because all the salient examples of everyone at every point in the past who has done that has ended being laughably and disastrously wrong Reality: Judicial predictions of reduction or elimination of the RAG through color - based decisions approached the l udicrous. In rendering the decisive vote on the High Court decision Grutter vs. Bolling (539 U.S. 2003) and endorsing a continuing legality of quotas, Justice Sandra Day O ’ Connor averred, “ ...the Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences of social performance will no longer be necessary. ” In 2012 and having concurred with Justice O ’ Connor in the 2003 ruling, Justice Breyer acknowledged evidence of the unchanging RAG but noted only nine of the 25 years had passed. Puzzled by remarks of Justices O ’ Connor and Breyer, Otis Graham , writing in the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal , recalled the 1976 statement of Constance Baker Motley, an African - American judge, at a Conference on Affirmative Action at the Center for Studies of Democratic Institutions: “ I despise the necessity of reverse discrimination but I swear to you we will end it in 25 years.” Twenty years had passed when Graham noted this in 1997, and it is now 16 years since then. • •
aardvark2 guesswho 8hr ago of everyone at every point in the past who has done that has ended being laughably and disastrously wrong what? what? what was 19th century Francis Galton and early eugenicists wrong about? Right now, your tribe restricts access to genetic databases. • •
RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! guesswho 21hr ago laughably and disastrously wrong The cost of affirmative action and interracial redistribution is vast. Trillions of dollars gone down the drain, destruction of urban centres, the toleration of gross institutional incompetence, a long-term drain on economic productivity and a source of political strife. • •
guesswho RandomRanger 18hr ago That seems like a pretty extraordinary claim. Happy to examine any extraordinary evidence you have for it. • •
RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! guesswho 16hr ago It stands to reason that affirmative action reduces productivity, which is the primary source of economic growth. Everything from non-competitive government grants to minority businesses, corporations hiring diverse rather than competent workers and being unable to fire them, legal costs, huge diversity bureaucracies... Decade by decade, all around the West, that adds up. Plus there's been well over a trillion in aid sent off to Africa. If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to provide specific evidence. I'm rather interested by this statement: It's low-status to talk about the genetic component of intelligence because all the salient examples of everyone at every point in the past who has done that has ended being laughably and disastrously wrong I struggle to see how everyone who talked about the genetic component could be laughably wrong. Those of us who believe in evolution have little choice but to recognize genetic differences in intelligence, just as there are genetic differences in height, weight and every other factor. • •
Sloot RandomRanger 19hr ago In particular, subsidization of the survival and reproduction of negative fiscal, low human capital populations within and across countries. • •
2rafa RandomRanger 21hr ago That’s not redistribution, that’s social engineering. The latter can involve a form of the former, but it’s entirely possible to have redistribution, even reparations, without destroying the inner cities or political strife. The key is whether redistribution is designed to achieve some form of equality of whether it’s simply designed to improve the quality of life of the recipient population. I think social stability in the USA likely requires some measures by the majority that support the black minority, but it’s the nature and purpose of those measures that should be debated. • •
RandomRanger Just build nuclear plants! 2rafa 18hr ago But the engineering is designed to redistribute. It involves the mobilization of resources which are produced by whites, whether that's goods or more intangible things like good neighbourhoods, companies or schools, university entrance placements... These resources are used to advantage blacks. Necessarily that will mean disadvantaging whites and Asians compared to if there was no such redistribution. White kids get bussed to black school districts and get beaten up while the legal and educational establishment look the other way when at all possible. There's nothing the state can do that doesn't have some kind of cost. Now the original plan was that it would be an investment, that after the investment was made the problems would disappear and you'd have all these great black scientists, engineers and so on. Social harmony would be greater than before. The investment hasn't paid off after 40-50 years! Such a business model should be scrapped, not revamped and relaunched time and time again. There's no investment case any more, just bribery and betrayal of civilized, meritocratic principles. De facto, US blacks have gotten trillions worth of reparations in welfare and affirmative action. They get their culture celebrated and lauded before the whole world. The death of a black drug addict with dubious morals is blown up into this huge global tragedy worthy of massive riots, the harms blacks cause are swept under the rug. There's no shortage of such stories - teachers strangled and raped by students, women inexplicably executed by black police. US blacks get wealth, they get status and preferential treatment from the authorities. What can more reparations possibly do, other than raise the bar for future demands? I'm considered pretty sympathetic to Russia on this forum but I'd draw the line well before offering Putin an open-ended subsidy to uphold the stability of Europe. That's actual appeasement and of a particularly abhorrent kind. • •
2rafa RandomRanger 17hr ago Even accepting your disagreements it still doesn’t follow that not intervening is preferable. Consider that for all your criticisms of programs that have disproportionately benefited African Americans, African American militancy is down significantly since the 1960s and 1970s. • •
aardvark2 2rafa 6hr ago African American militancy is down significantly since the 1960s and 1970s. It is true, albeit it is also true that African American militancy is up significantly since Jim Crow times. • •
2rafa aardvark2 4hr ago Jim Crow led in part to huge migration out of the South into those large northern cities, and as hydro said many of the nation’s most infamous race riots occurred during it. • •
hydroacetylene aardvark2 5hr ago Jim Crow featured regular race riots. • •
Fruck Lacks all conviction guesswho 23hr ago It's impolitic to talk about the genetic component of intelligence because we're in the middle of a culture war over equity vs equality, and one side wants to use 'genetic low intelligence' of various groups as their explanatory variable for why equality of opportunity doesn't produce equality of outcomes. Is that the explanatory variable you have seen? Because chance is the actual variable. Give two people two dice and the first one to roll snake eyes wins. Equal opportunity, unequal outcome, no discrimination necessary. • •
MartianNight Fruck 22hr ago Chance alone can't explain the differences in outcome between different groups, because the influence of chance on the individual level disappears on the group level. In your analogy: assume 1000 whites and 1000 blacks each roll a die. Now you take all the people who rolled a 6. There will be approximately equal number of whites and blacks in that group. But that's not what we see when it comes to income level, educational attainment, employment rate, life expectancy, crime participation, or a myriad of other metrics that people who care about equal outcomes care about. • •
Fruck Lacks all conviction MartianNight 20hr ago Groups are manufactured. And as you yourself note, individual levels and group levels follow completely different rules. In this setting the white people have an advantage as a group, because they started rolling the dice first, let's say a minute first, but only the people who roll snake eyes actually win. And if you change the rules, to say, give the black people a minute to catch up when the white people can't roll, once again only the people who roll snake eyes will win. Everyone else is a loser, but due to skin colouring you have decided some are winners. Winners who get none of the benefits of winning, but still winners somehow. Equity proponents aren't asking for equality of outcome, if they wanted that they'd focus exclusively on the people with all the money regardless of skin colour, because money is the only thing that will fix those metrics. In reality equity proponents are asking one group of people (poor whites) to suffer even more than usual for strangers because they share their skin colour with another group (rich white people). And spinning up racial tension. It's a repugnant and ridiculous philosophy. • •
TitaniumButterfly guesswho 1d ago · Edited 19hr ago It's low-status to talk about the genetic component of intelligence because all the salient examples of everyone at every point in the past who has done that has ended being laughably and disastrously wrong I don't think so. What are some examples? We're constantly told this but I don't think it's true at all. Our ancestors were pretty sharp and had a pretty solid understanding of racial differences. More likely the 'laughable and disastrous' examples (if any) are being cherry-picked or misrepresented. E.g., blacks really do have smaller skulls (and therefore brains) than whites. But mention this to most normies and they've been trained to roll their eyes at the notion. • •
FiveHourMarathon These hoes don't be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Meghan's Law guesswho 1d ago It's low-status to talk about the genetic component of intelligence because all the salient examples of everyone at every point in the past who has done that has ended being laughably and disastrously wrong, and over-correcting by not talking about it has more social dignity than saying 'yeah everyone else who ever said anything like this was hilariously wrong in hindsight but I have actually figured it out and am definitely correct this time.' Around the Lunar New Year a Chinese friend and I were chatting about it, and my hot-take was that Chinese Zodiac was the worst of all the Zodiacs because it was like some people are DRAGONS and some people are RATS and that's just stupid. Where the Western Zodiac is at least mostly decent things. You fucking KNOW that the guy who codified the Chinese Zodiac was born in a Dragon year. ((Why yes, my older sister was born in the year of the Dragon while I was born in a shitty animal year, total coincidence...)) I generally distrust any effort to sort people by "types" that is written to clearly elevate the speaker. Richard Florida is vastly guilty of this in all his work on Class in America: he's happy to accurately describe and hilariously send up the foibles of the upper class and the lower class, but then excuses himself from them with his creation of the CREATIVE CLASS who transcend all those hang-ups and are perfect and free of class problems. So often, these kinds of sorting systems are nothing but a method for the proponent to neatly place himself at the top of a "natural" hierarchy. I'm instantly suspicious of them for that reason. • •
Hyperion guesswho 1d ago It's low-status to talk about the genetic component of intelligence because all the salient examples of everyone at every point in the past who has done that has ended being laughably and disastrously wrong, and over-correcting by not talking about it has more social dignity than saying 'yeah everyone else who ever said anything like this was hilariously wrong in hindsight but I have actually figured it out and am definitely correct this time.' They weren't wrong though. Galton was right. Everything he said about intelligence and it's heritability was correct. His estimate of the White-Black IQ gap is nearly identical to the modern estimate. Galton and his heirs were right, it's just that leftists discredited them through propaganda, not by ever refuting the evidence. • •
Sloot Hyperion 20hr ago · Edited 19hr ago A more amusing and egregious example is Morton’s 19th century skull measurements, which found negro skulls had smaller brain sizes than Caucasian skulls. Gould infamously “ahktually”d this claim in a paper and his 1980s book Mismeasurement of Man, attributing any differences in measured brain size to Morton’s racism without putting in the physical work himself. Morton became another punching bag for Pale Stale Males and their evul scientific racism. A team of researchers later went back to remeasure the skulls (around 2011 or so), and found that Morton’s measurements were largely on point. Whoopsy! Yet, Gould was on the right side of history, and Morton and the 2011-ish wrong thinkers were not. The notion of blank slatism, and that human evolution is conveniently skin deep and stops at the neck, remains the dominant paradigm with no sign of being unseated in ${CurrentDay}. Gould remains a well-celebrated scientist and scientific communicator (where the communicator aspect is/was doing a hard-carry for the scientist aspect, like Neil deGrasse Tyson). It was Gould’s emotional truth and good intentions that count. Morton remains in the dustbin of wrong-thinkers. The researchers involved, instead of being celebrated for doing the unsexy but crucial work of replicating and verifying past research, gained a quasi-pariah status, their work at best being a begrudged, inconvenient footnote for what should had been a slam dunk for Gould upon the racists in anthropology textbooks published in the 201Xs and on. • •
Baila 1d ago · Edited 23hr ago A summary of The Socialist Phenomenon by Igor Shafarevich A free online version of the text can be found here. In The Socialist Phenomenon, Shafarevich examines socialism from antiquity to modern times. Throughout the book, he examines the invariant qualities of socialism and attempts to explain its origins, its driving forces and the goal to which it is driving. The book is split into a preface and three parts. In Part One: Chiliastic Socialism, Shafarevich examines socialism in antiquity, socialism of the heresies, and socialism of philosophers. Part Two: State Socialism examines socialism in South America and in the ancient orient. Finally, in Part Three: Analysis, Shafarevich discusses the contours of the phenomenon, surveys a variety of approaches to socialism, examines the embodiment of the socialist ideal, and the relationship between socialism and individuality before progressing to his ultimate analysis of the goal of socialism. This post will cover the preface and the Introduction to Part One.
Preface (p. 9-14) In the preface, Shafarevich introduces his topic and explains his overall approach. He notes that rigorous discussions of socialism are often derailed for a number of reasons, including the copious and contradictory writings of self-avowed socialists. The author’s solution is given by an analogy to religion. Shafarevich finds that while religion has many functions which greatly impact many domains of life, such as social function, and economic function, or a political role, the fact that religion impacts these domains “is possible only because there are people who believe in God and because there is a striving for a union with God which religion creates.” From this perspective, that Shafarevich seeks to uncover the “fundamental tendency” which enables socialism to impact various domains of life. Pursuing this approach immediately leads one to notice a set of apparent contradictions in socialist writings and thought. Proceeding from a critique of a given society, socialism cries out for justice and puts forth a program for a utopia. However, calls for freedom and utopia are nearly always immediately followed with equally strong calls for extreme violence and maximized, regimented coercion. A work entitled “The Law of Freedom” describes an ideal society where in each small commune there is a hangman and anyone who has been remiss or disobedient is flogged or turned into a slave. Being a mathematician by profession, Shafarevich explains that he seeks to find a description of socialism free from contradictions. That is, he seeks to understand socialism from the socialists’ point of view. While we may not be obliged to accept Marx assertion that man has no existence as an individual, only as a class, “why not accept that he is describing a view of the world inherent in certain people….it is quite possible that they are conveying a view of life in which the entire world evokes malevolence, loathing and nausea (as in Sartre’s first novel, Nausea).”
Part One: Chiliastic Socialism Introduction (p. 17-21) Shafarevich begins by stating that: The word “socialism” often implies two quite different phenomena:
- A doctrine and an appeal based on it, a program for changing life, and
- social Structure that exists in time
Rather than take the assertions of a particular socialist on faith, Shafarevich seeks to study both concepts of socialism independently and without any presuppositions. Beginning with the concept of socialism as an appeal, Shafarevich finds that all such doctrines:
are based on the complete rejection of the existing social structure. They call for its destruction and paint a picture of a more just and happy society in which the solution to all the fundamental problems of the times would be found. Furthermore, they propose concrete ways of achieving this goal.
Borrowing from religious literature, he characterizes this view as “chiliastic socialism.”
Shafarevich then proceeds to contrast two doctrines of chiliastic socialism separated distinctly in time in order to show their continuity. Turning first to Aristophanes comedy The Congresswoman, c. 293 B.C. In the comedy, the women of the city are disguised as men in the assembly and vote in a resolution to seize absolute power, after which they introduce a series of measures.
PRAXAGORA: Compulsory Universal Community Property is what I propose to propose; across-the-board Economic Equality, to fill those fissures that scar our society's face. No more the division between Rich and Poor...We'll wear the same clothes, and share the same food...My initial move will be to communalize land, and money, and all other property, personal and real.
BLEPYROS: But take the landless man who's invisibly wealthy... because he hides his silver and gold in his pockets. What about him?
PRAXAGORA: He'll deposit it all in the Fund....I'll knock out walls and remodel the City into one big happy household, where all can come and go as they choose....I'm pooling the women, creating a public hoard for the use of every man who wishes to take them to bed and make babies.
BLEPYROS: A system like this requires a pretty wise father to know his own children.
PRAXAGORA: But why does he need to? Age is the new criterion: Children will henceforth trace their descent from all men who might have begot them. ...
BLEPYROS: Who's going to work the land and produce the food?
PRAXAGORA: The slaves. This leaves you just one civic function: When the shades of night draw on, slip sleekly down to dinner. ... The State's not going to stint. Its hand is full and open, its heart is large, it'll stuff its menfolk free of charge, then issue them torches when dinner's done and send them out to hunt for fun.
Shafarevich then contrasts this with a direct comparison of quotes from the Communist Manifesto and Principles of Communism. For the sake of brevity I will not provide all of the quotes here, but the author matches each claim made above by Praxagora with an exact match from Marx and Engels. Shafarevich notes that across more than a two thousand years, these sets of ideas have strikingly similar and durable features: (1) abolition of private property, (2) abolition of the family, (3) purely material, (4) freedom from the necessity of work. These key features of chiliastic socialism are then examined by the author in the remainder of Part One.
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stolen_brawnze I am the way Sia says "batteries" in that one song. Baila 1d ago Please can you cut it out with the humongous title text. I try to read these at work on my phone and don’t have an abundance of privacy (shared space no partitions). Every flick of my thumb risks exposing something ridiculous like “Are the JEWS hiding the TRANS truth about BLACK CRIME?” Yours is fine, but it’s a trend I’d be happy to kill anyway. • •
Rasgard 1d ago Have all my fellow Beyond The Dutiful Chuckle searchers (still left feeling dry by the false prophet of Babylon Bee) heard of FreedomToons? This is it for me, it exists, for sure. Indubitably, conclusively, forevermore, this is where I cease my wandering in the desert and build my house upon the sweet sweet spring of Right Wing Comedy That Is Actually Funny. I mean I've watched about ten videos but this is incredibly promising. Every video is ideologically pleasant, and there's great variety in what's going on in them. They're way more than a string of "left wing doctrine lived precisely goes into absurdist death spin" stylistic tributes to each other. And it goes back years! Hopefully he's always been this good. He seems to be a young guy, maybe young enough to be free of a certain sarky jaded bitterness in the spirit of his work that takes the air out of much right wing comedy, but old enough to look down on TicTocers with grizzled maturity. Highlights: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4_2BYLnii6s The CoronaVirus appears on Fallon Objectively funny! Objectively funny! Fauci brutally beating down the actorly yearings of Classically trained Covid to break free of the politicisation of his work is a concept that will prove eternally ticklish. Sadly, I missed the chance to get an early BTDC with a great gag about the Left Wing Dutiful Chuckle that I would have Right Wing Shouted A Laugh At for sure but I didn't get it smoothly enough. https://youtube.com/watch?v=5blyjF9whN4 TicTocers Try To Understand Relationships If you enjoy the faces and sound effects here see also Tucker Carlson watching the J6 footage. https://youtube.com/watch?v=COThKm3ftTo A Day In The Life Of Jordan Peterson I have probably loaded about 200 hours of JP content down the years and watched 2 cos of his voice, so this video was a classic from the moment of its writing and will be until the heat death of the universe. • •
Southkraut Rise, ramble, rest, repeat. Rasgard 7hr ago This is trash. I regret wasting two minutes on it based on the incorrect assumption that people on the Motte either have taste or the good sense to keep their guilty pleasures to themselves. • •
netstack Texas is freedom land Southkraut 6hr ago I'm afraid I still have to ask you to hold to our usual civility standards. Consider this the most gentle of warnings. • •
jkf netstack 4hr ago Perhaps a gentle note to the producers of lame-yet-lengthy toplevel posts (as is already done with ones that are considered too short) would be a way of improving content without the harsh words. I wanted to write something like this in response to "Big Headings Guy" last week, but couldn't think of a civil way to put it. You may have noticed that this thread is increasingly withering on the vine -- I submit that this may be due to the policy of punishing pithy-yet-interesting content with no equivalent system for the long-yet-boring. (Also overpolicing of civility making people reluctant to post their true opinions at all, but we already talked about that) • •
netstack Texas is freedom land jkf 3hr ago Which content do you have in mind as pithy-yet-interesting? I appreciate that you didn’t make an uncivil response to Big Headings Guy. In the end, someone politely requested smaller headings, and he complied. Is there a problem with this exchange? • •
jkf netstack 27m ago new
It wasn't the headings (well they were weird too), it was the lengthy repetitive uninteresting content. I much prefer posts of the form
[pithy description of culture war event/local happening] [potentially inflammatory (or not) take on said events] [call to discussion/sharing of alternate takes]
But people don't make this kind of post anymore, because they are liable to be scolded by the (recently enlarged) mod squad.
So instead we get long boring contentless 'effortposts', and are not allowed to let the poster know how lame they are because of course they are apparently in line with the mission statement.
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reactionary_peasant Rasgard 9hr ago I used to watch some of his stuff. The smugness-to-humor ratio is way too high. Uncharitable in the extreme and subtle as a ton of bricks. Yet sadly probably one of the best conservative humor channels out there. • •
non_radical_centrist Rasgard 1d ago I'm generally centrist, leaning right fiscally and leaning left socially. The videos got a couple small chuckles from me but I didn't particularly find him funny and won't be watching anymore. I find Babylon Bee has a lot more jokes that land, although they have a lot that miss too. •
I have the last few days 2/9 4am EST to 2/10 6pm EST of the feb 5th thread and most 2/12 6am EST to 2/13 5:30pm EST of this week's thread in open and loaded firefox tabs if anybody can tell me the best/easiest way to dump them
Pasted the raw text into a word doc in case microsoft decides now is a good time for an update but this obviously breaks formatting
Edit 2: microsoft did, in fact, decide it was time to update on the way out of hibernation after the battery died so I no longer have the tabs. The raw text was preserved however, and is now in the dump thread.
newport
3mo ago
For the benefit of the unaware, South Africa is a particularly interesting case w/r/t nuclear technology: they already have a single 1980s era nuclear power plant (supplied and partially owned by the French nuclear power company Framatome), and formerly had nuclear weapons until dismantling them in the lead-up to the end of Apartheid/power transfer to the ANC.
I wish I were knowledgeable enough to provide commentary on this state of affairs but I don't know much beyond what's on these wiki pages.
newport
3mo ago
It's Scrooge (1970) for me as well! I had no idea the whole thing was on youtube, thank you so much and merry Christmas!
That's actually kinda keyed all things considered, might have to adopt that
So the status quo allows ADHD to be treated without introducing the wildcard of amphetamines. This makes sense. From what my Indian friends and acquaintances tell me, mental/psychiatric health awareness in general is minimal there so I'm not surprised there is no urgency to make changes to a system that provides at least some avenue for treatment.
I know multiple people that purchase all of their pharmaceuticals, from OTCs to scheduled drugs like modafinil, from online Indian pharmacies (mostly as a work-around for various insane US pharma and insurance pricing) so that also makes sense. Thanks.
newport
3mo ago
Any idea why this is the case? I don't know what the situation is in India, but I have read about other countries prohibiting medical amphetamines and allowing medical phenidates. I've never seen an explanation for the distinction though. Is it just fear of the second order effects of introducing a legal path to acquiring the, ahh, better stimulants?
They're legally (and for the most part medically) considered equivalents in the US. Though as you note and in my own experience, one is a lot better than the other in terms of side effects etc.
newport
5mo ago
To echo a sentiment from the pink site, I am surprised the would-be thieves did not notice it was a government vehicle. Even if unmarked, it's hard to miss a lightbar under a windshield if you're within car theft distance of the vehicle.
newport
6mo ago
overly fawning
I like how you broke this down because I don't think I've ever heard anybody explain it so straightforwardly. It makes sense.
At the same time, I am left facepalming at the eternal incongruence between male preference for directness and female preference for a million layers of build-up and plausible deniability. If it works out and a longer term relationship forms, the not-initially-called-a-date meeting will probably end up being retroactively referred to as a date.
newport
8mo ago
I probably will once I find a browser that USPS.com tolerates and/or they fix their website (uBlock is not the culprit, I already checked). But I'm fed up enough that I need to take a break from trying. Might try county services instead since they're actually closer to me than my post office and it appears that they can handle them.
newport
8mo ago
I wouldn't think any of the CW elements would extend to passport issues for existing US citizens with all of their documents and no criminal records but I guess I'm just wishfully naive. Has anybody tried campaigning on this particular issue? (I don't really keep up with mainstream politics obviously.) This is clearly causing serious problems for people that need to travel internationally for reasons other than vacationing.
Why is the US passport application process still so ludicrously, unacceptably, insanely backlogged?
Some friends are considering an international trip during the holiday season so I took a look at how to get a passport. The wait time for non-expedited processing is three months. Paying an extra $60 for expedited processing takes this down to two months if you're lucky. The state department is still blaming covid (which I can understand on some levels; there's more demand now that international travel is allowed to happen again) but this has been a problem for a year now.
Nobody seems to know the specifics as to why this is happening beyond "record numbers of applicants". Asking about this without qualifiers on reddit is liable to get you labelled pro-trump. I'm seeing comments that just a decade ago the process only took a few weeks at most.
I've been meaning to get one for a couple years now simply to have a backup form of ID but never had a compelling reason to apply until this potential trip entered the equation. It looks like it's already too late for me to get one in time. Guess I'll try again in a couple years.
On top of all that, the postal service's online appointment scheduler is either broken or incompatible with both Firefox and iOS safari.
newport
8mo ago
With younger people especially, a lot of climate activists seem to lean towards an extreme, almost fatalistic view of the situation and consequently advocate things like mass deindustrialization and other civilization-suicide-adjacent solutions. As much as I appreciate the writings of Kaczynski, these solutions seem absurd without even getting into practicality.
The number of people with these views seems to be steadily growing at a rate I'm not sure I can fully credit to media coverage. Is it cyclical? Can anybody here that was around in the 70s provide some context? Maybe it's just edgy kids using twitter as an unprecedentedly powerful megaphone and we're still at the same base rate of this sort of thinking. Or maybe it's just a manifestation of greater general polarization.
See also: this stonetoss edit. Being nuclear-optimistic is now right-coded somehow.
newport
8mo ago
Ryan Gosling (via characters he has portrayed) is a sigma male zoomer meme, and so is Cillian Murphy in the same sense. This context is at least partly responsible for the unlikely combo popularity.
What if the 50-year-old white guy grimaced visibly upon seeing this death-trap and demanded all kinds of expensive tests and redesign work?
https://abc7chicago.com/missing-titanic-sub-oceangate-lawsuit-david-lochridge-submersible/13409850/
Exactly that happened. And they fired him.
I don't think the firing had anything to do with his race or age though, it appears to have happened purely because he was saying "wait a minute, I don't think this thing is safe".
newport
10mo ago
If the API crackdown is really about LLM training data (which it probably is), old.reddit is almost guaranteed to be either eliminated completely or cut down to nu-reddit levels of functionality (only showing 3 comments at a time) because it is so easily scrapeable in current form.
I expect this to happen as soon as the hype around the API lockdown dissipates.
The trees in my parents' neighborhood have finally matured enough for barred (not barn) owls to move in, and now I hear them every time I visit. One night about a year ago I woke up to find one sitting on a branch outside the window, maybe 8 feet away from me. Its size was awe-inspiring.
newport
10mo ago
Maybe it's diluted by a bunch of users who only use it for a few minutes per day.
I strongly suspect this is it. API requests are measured in exact numbers, so a reddit addict that spends 10 hours a day scrolling on Apollo will rack up roughly an OOM more request cost than a causal user that spends an hour or less scrolling on RIF. I'd hazard a guess that heavier users may prefer a different interface than casual users.
Exactly the same for me. Smoked more often than is healthy for several years as a teenager/early-20, for a couple of those years basically daily, and always enjoyed it. Stopped completely for a year or two and now a single puff will trigger a panic attack. Did not realize this was a common pattern. Would love to know why this happens.
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