non_radical_centrist
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User ID: 1327
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
To what degree should the politicians do what the general population wants, when what the general population wants is stupid? The most clear cut case of the general population wanting stupid stuff I think is price controls- the idea of keeping rent or gasoline below a certain hard cap is very popular with a lot of ordinary people. But it of course would be counter-productive- it'll only result in a lower supply of something people desperately want, and force them to start paying with their time in long lines instead of paying just with their wallets. So if 90% of the population say they want a cap on prices of something, does their elected representative have a responsibility to say "No you guys are stupid, I know what you really want" and not implement price controls?
Another example would be nationalism. A lot of times, people will be chauvinistic about their culture, and want to oppress minority cultures. Not really so much in the US recently despite all the fuss about race relations, but there are many extreme cases internationally. The majority will try to inflict on the minority restrictions on using their minority language in schools, prevent access to elected and civil service jobs, take children away from families, forcibly expel people, even execute the minorities with roving firing squads or death camps, in a brief list from least bad to worst actions chauvinism often leads to. Does a politician have any obligation to say, "No, I will not implement this policy. Not only is it immoral, it won't actually make life better for you" to the people who elected him if the 90% majority population wants to inflict those degradations on the 10% minority?
The obvious slippery slope is a politician thinking he knows better in a case where he doesn't actually know better, or deciding laws based on his own personal values instead of the general population's in a case where there is no option that's better on all metrics. E.g, abortion laws always have a trade off between the preferences and health of the mother against the fetus, and where you want abortion laws to be at depends on the ratio of which you value mother:fetus.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
- I can't go the country I wish to dwell in more than my own
Are there any other countries you can go to that, even if they're not your first choice of the US, are still better than your current option?
non_radical_centrist
2yr ago
I think of all the decisions a parent has over their child's life, circumcision is a relatively small one. Parents have the power to completely fuck over their children without it remotely qualifying as anything illegal or even justifiable to have the child taken away. The only way for the world to function is for society to assume parents have their biological children's best interests at heart, which they do 99% of the time. If parents think, "I predict my child would want to be circumcised as an adult", I think they should be allowed to go through with it, because the evidence is strong that adult circumcision greatly reduces sexually pleasure, where as the evidence that circumcision as a baby reduces sexual pleasure is weak.
There are other benefits to foreskin removal as well, like hygiene and having effects on preventing STD spread. Enough that I don't think not being circumcised is overwhelmingly better, even if on net it's probably better.
In conclusion, I think hospitals should tell parents "Are you sure you want circumcision? Here are a lot of the negative effects", and if the parents say yes anyways, it happens.
non_radical_centrist
6mo ago
I believe men are innately vastly more competitive than women. A man who trains for 50 000 hours will probably beat a woman who's trained for 5 000, even if she has a biological advantage.
The fact that women show up in the top ranks of ultra-endurance competitions at all, where as for the vast majority of other competitive events the top ranked woman will often be ranked like #203 or somewhere thereabouts, I think is strong evidence they have a real biological advantage.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
So what's your alternative solution? Do you support purity culture, or have a fourth option beyond purity culture, sexual liberation, or the author's solution of a world where people are not concerned with purity but do properly reflect on whether a hook up will actually make them happy?
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
On the salvation question- why in the world would a loving God grant salvation to someone if their spouse or national leader was a believer, but condemn an unmarried person in an atheist country to eternal damnation?
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
What are things that you could’ve started years earlier if you had only known about them/motivated yourself to do them, that improve your life?
I use a Tile tracker in my wallet, which helps me find it if I lose it around the house and more importantly if I lose it outside.
I have a morning checklist of stuff before I leave the house, including wallet, keys, brush teeth, etc.
I have the points apps for restaurants I use often, which effectively give 5% off food in addition to any coupons
I got a credit card and use it for my purchases to get cashback, and have it set up to auto-pay off from my chequing account
I use feedly, a RSS feed to keep track of blogs and comics I like
I use airpods instead of wired earbuds, and they’re a much nicer experience
I take a tiny bit of melatonin before bed
non_radical_centrist
10mo ago
LOTT wouldn't have been harmed if they did some basic fact checking to check if the story was real. The hoax wasn't that elaborate. And good journalistic practice really would be to not publish anything that hasn't been reasonably confirmed, not just not publish anything that has holes in it
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Are there any major bloggers in the rat-sphere who are significantly pro-Palestine, anti-Israel? I think everyone I follow is either pro-Israel or basically neutral
non_radical_centrist
2yr ago
Sure, but now assume the big dog illegally occupies the little dogs territory, what's the little dog supposed to do? Slink off without without fighting back?
Make a realistic compromise proposal, like the Camp David Accords. "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" just isn't happening, it isn't in the cards. The US and Israel would be happy to create a compromise where Palestine accepts becoming its own proper state, smaller border because they've lost territory due to Israeli settlement, and Palestine stops launching missiles at Israel; and in exchange, they get billions of dollars poured into them to build infrastructure.
The current situation where Palestinians live in poverty and missiles occasionally get launched at Israel and Israel occasionally launches missiles back is not good for anyone. But no Palestinian government has ever offered any deal that's even come close to being something the Israeli government could agree to.
non_radical_centrist
6mo ago
It's in the US' best interests to punish rogue states that engage in expansionist wars. Providing weapons to Ukraine is a relatively cheap way of doing so. Better to hold the line here instead of next time Russia expands into an US ally. Better to make an example of Russia than to let Iran or China think they could get away expansionism too.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Why does purity have value? If you think it has an intrinsic value, why? If you think it only has value because it deeply shapes impressionable young women, then I think that's the exact argument the author makes.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
The solution is for women to apply their own agency and to stop sleeping with those 5% of men who are dirtbags.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I wish more people were introspective and aware of their internal motivations. It's annoying to have a girl say "I'm just not feeling it" after a few dates with no further feedback.
non_radical_centrist
9mo ago
I'd have a lot more sympathy for unions if they just demanded higher wages/safer working conditions, even extreme increases, instead of fighting against automation and other measures that increase productivity.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
https://josephheath.substack.com/p/a-critical-theory-of-or-for-america
I think Canada is moving to build more housing, despite Trudeau's lip service to protecting housing prices. There's just a delay between realizing there's a crisis and actually getting housing built.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I mean she is doing porn for money now
Is that an actual bad outcome? She earns far more money than she would using her degree. If it's solely as a result that it'll be harder for her to find a job or a man after she ages and Only Fans doesn't work for her anymore, what'd go wrong with changing society not to hold Only Fans as a black mark against her?
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I don't have anything to say directly on the content, but writers like Zizek who seem to try to make their writing as difficult to parse as possible in order to show off their vocabulary have always annoyed me. There are times when a big, unusual word captures something that a shorter word doesn't, or is more convenient than using a string of shorter common words to represent the same concept. But when you're having to take a second to understand a phrase, time after time, it's irritating.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I recently got a nicer mouse that has 8 extra buttons you can customize. I have to say it's very nice and I fully recommend it. I also got bands for my glasses so they don't slip off, and it's also been nice having them not slip at all
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Scott agrees with you, except for the assertion that biological race is entirely useless. Biological race is what ancestry.com identifies you as when you do a DNA test. It's different but has substantial overlap with cultural race. Biological race is, usually, less useful than cultural race, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist like how, say, a biological Star Wars fan doesn't exist. There are lots of genes associated with certain geographic regions and cultures, there aren't genes particularly associated with liking Star Wars.
non_radical_centrist
2yr ago
I think Ukraine has a much better chance at regaining their full sovereignty through military force than Palestine does though, so Russia would have to give a lot in their compromise. In my view there's a very low chance that Palestine's current strategy will even reverse the Israeli settlements, let alone lead to something like a single state that's majority Palestinian, or a two state solution with the 1948 borders. But I think there's a good chance Ukraine's current strategy will push things back to the 2021 scenario, and possibly even back to 2013 borders.
6 years is a lot less than 60 years. If Russia held onto Crimea for another 50 years, I would say Ukraine at that point should give up on ever reclaiming Crimea. I'd also say Taiwan and China should both give up on ever unifying, and North and South Korea should also both give up on ever unifying.
So by your own logic, it's Ukraine's fault that they're at war with Russia, because they don't want to negotiate peace by sacrificing their territory to the invader, which is an unreasonably inflexible position for a country that is being invaded.
The current war started from Russia pushing far further than Crimea, not by Ukraine refusing to acknowledge Russia's sovereignty over Crimea.
But for sake of argument, let's assume Palestina is willing to compromise. Do you think Israel would accept the original 1947 borders assigned by the UN? Or the 1949 green line which assigned the Golan heights, the Gaza strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank to Palestine? I think there is no chance they would. This makes it obvious that Israel is just as guilty, if not more so, of obstructing a peaceful solution.
I do not think Israel would. But I think asking for those, at this point, is asking for too much. Palestine went to war with Israel to try to expand their borders, and Palestine lost; there are consequences for losing wars like that.
I think these sorts of problems are tricky because there are a few different lenses to view this through. One lens is, what is the best possible world, even if it's totally unrealistic? Like say I was Prime Minister of Israel and magically had 99% popularity and for some reason 99% of the Palestinians also loved me and would go along with whatever I said in the short term, what solution would I propose that would lead to the best utilitarian outcome? I think I'd want all Israelis to leave the settlements, Israel signs a binding treaty guaranteed by a bunch of countries that they won't do any more settlements, Palestine gets that land back and is officially recognized by everyone as an independent country, Palestine's military is still limited for the next ~15 years, and Israel and the US pumps a ton of money in aid and infrastructure into building up Palestine.
But that just wouldn't ever happen. So another lens is, what is the best world that's remotely possible to actually happen and we should be striving towards making? I think it would be something like the Camp David Accords, where Israel gets to keep a lot of the settlements still. Because realistically, Israel is in a much stronger negotiating position than Palestine.
But if absolutely nothing else, I think Palestinians need to actually come out with a proposal for peace. Would Palestine even actually accept the 1947 borders themselves? There can't be any sort of compromise until Palestinian leadership comes forward with concrete demands. That they don't is fairly damning in my eyes.
non_radical_centrist
8mo ago
Canada was in the Afghanistan war, we had soldiers peacekeeping during the breakup of Yugoslavia. We've had soldiers die because their equipment was inadequate. It's entirely plausible one day there'll be another 9/11-esque attack, but on Canadian soil, and we'll need to carry our fair share of the response. We need a navy that can patrol the arctic to assert our sovereignty on it over Russia.
Yes, Canada doesn't need to be as militarized as say Israel or South Korea. But at the very least I think it's totally reasonable for Canada to try to avoid some needless waste due to stuff like politicians pandering or avoiding responsibility.
non_radical_centrist
2yr ago
Miranda he 33 year old lawyer with 42 partners and chlamydia is basically guaranteed to be miserable for the next 45 years of her statistical life.
I'm not convinced a counter-factual Miranda with 0 partners and 0 chlamydia at age 33 would have a particularly easier time finding a man who'll make her happy for the next 45 years of her life.
There's lots of references in the redpill-sphere of how high body count leads to infidelity, but that sounds like something very easily prone to mistaking correlation for causation. I think it's very plausible that women with high body counts have high body counts because they enjoy having sex with lots of different people, and that that desire was already present in them before they had sex for the first time.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I've been more convinced by Richard Hanania.
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/israel-must-crush-palestinian-hopes
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/why-palestine-cant-deliver-peace
The tl;dr of those two pieces is that first, Palestinians really, really hate Israelis, even more than Nazis hated Jews, and the conflict will not be able to be diplomatically resolved. And second, even if through a mass PR campaign and enormous concessions Israel managed to get 99.9% Palestinians to accept true peace in the form of either a one or two state solution, just .1% of Palestinians sticking with Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be thousands of active terrorists, which is unacceptable to Israel.
I notice something of a negative correlation between the quality of links I post and the reception they get. I posted the recent article about sex positivity vs purity culture, and while I had a higher opinion of it than most mottizens it seems, I still wouldn't consider it among the best essays ever written. Yet it's spawned over 200 comments. I feel similarly about my other links that got the most discussion, like The Media Very Rarely Lies and Is Wine Fake?
Meanwhile, links I have posted that I thought were amazing pieces of writing that were accurate deep dives into a topic that were some best in class writing, like Biological Determinants and Homosexuality that surveyed a wide body of well done research on a controversial topic, or Njall's Saga which was a hilarious and insightful look at medieval Icelandic literature and law, got barely any interaction.
Just Toxiplasma of Rage in action I suppose.
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