non_radical_centrist
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User ID: 1327
non_radical_centrist
21d ago
I just read a good chunk of The Mystery of the Kibbutz. I'm not reading more because it got to be an awfully repetitive book, but the first few chapters were pretty interesting about how Jewish communes were relatively successful despite how one might expect a society without free markets to fail.
non_radical_centrist
21d ago
I don't think Cuba is doing that well, even if they're doing better than some of the Caribbean nations. Maybe they're evidence that authoritarianism can be better than democracy, when the voters inevitably elect populists who just turn the country into authoritarianism with a veneer of democracy anyway. I don't think Cuba is evidence that centrally planned economies are better than free markets.
https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/in-cuba-the-terminal-stage-of-communism
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
I agree with /u/freemcflurry that there's still lots of competition- Netflix has not led to much infrastructure degradation, and people can switch back to the old model or a modern competitor without much difficulty. Plus there are still lots of alternatives to television- people can still see movies in theatres, buy blu-rays, read books, watch youtube and tiktok, hell even pirate shows and movies.
Netflix has not meaningfully "cornered" the market. No more than Blockbuster did anyway, and we all know how rapidly they fell.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
Are Fast Food Restaurants raising their prices or is it delivery services/delivery prices? I feel like after price increases last year FF seems like it's stabilized, but keep seeing some insane recipts.
I don't know if they still are, but I did notice some items I buy regularly increased in response to inflation. And there was a huge spat recently about Wendy's trying to implement surge prices, even despite Wendy's best efforts to frame it as discounts during off hours instead of higher general prices. My question was just about general price increases anyways- if costumers act together as a pseudo-monopsony in response to a fast food place raising prices, what would the consequences be? Just that fewer restaurants would be opening in the area since there's less profit? Might be a good thing tbh to have 5 restaurants in a food court that are all cheaper than having 10 that are more expensive.
The big thing cheaper netflix probably impacts is the amount of media licensed or produced for the viewers of Netflix.
Do you think the amount of media licensed/produced being lower is probably worth or not worth the lower cost?
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
Andrew Tate's brother has outright said their business was a scam and that they were fleecing fools. So I've got pretty high odds on Tate being a scammer. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/brothers-make-millions-using-webcam-26508739
I don't know a ton about Dr. K, but sounds like he's somewhere between "overcharging for a somewhat useful service because he can" and "selling a great service at a reasonable market price". It really depends on how good his coaches are. I don't think they need licenses or government regulated training to be helpful, and $1000 for life-changing help that changes someone from a NEET to a functioning member of society is absolutely worth it. But whether his coaches can actually help much is an open question I think. But people can just watch his videos and decide for themselves whether that sort of therapy is right of them- he isn't advocating for anything immoral or lying to people like Tate does, so if someone wants to pay $1000 for several hours of 1 on 1 help, that's their choice.
non_radical_centrist
29d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternatives_to_Darwinian_evolution
Other thinkers had some good ideas, but they didn't come up with Darwin's.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
I wanted to write about my state banning non-"cage free" eggs
The blatant lying aside, where do you stand on animal rights? Chicken cages do look fairly torturous.
non_radical_centrist
2mo ago
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Self-immolation draws attention. It's like tossing soup on a painting that's protected by glass. It doesn't do anything by itself, but it draws attention to the issue. It may also inspire comrades to action that does actually have impacts, like voting.
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We have soldiers who'd do that because the military is a very large place with lots of people. It's against the rules for soldiers to make political statements, especially ones that dramatic in uniform, but when you're the single largest employer in the USA, some of your employees will be mentally ill and break the rules.
non_radical_centrist
2mo ago
At the end of the day though, that's how New York chose to write its law and it's being implemented as intended. It was entirely in Trump's power to avoid this outcome by simply not lying. So as far as I'm concerned, he fucked around and found out. Tough bikkies.
The other concern I've seen and that I share is that it's just him being prosecuted for this. That this sort of fraud is very common and normally isn't enforced. It'd be like if they also prosecuted him for adultery, which is Class B misdemeanor in New York.
I'm not that sympathetic to him, I agree with your sentiment that he fucked around and found out, but I am pretty concerned about this setting a bad precedent of trumping up charges against political opponents.
Also, do you have a substack or twitter or anything with more writing I could follow?
non_radical_centrist
26d ago
Personally, I've had 0 success on Bumble, and some moderate success on both Tinder and Hinge. Which app works best for an individual isn't very easily predictable.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
I don't really live by this system, but for several years now I've believed all ethical frameworks are bunk. That, for all frameworks, if you keep asking "But why do you believe that's good?" you eventually arrive at "Well, it just is okay!" or "Because God says so!" without sufficient proof that God actually exists.
But I don't think that means we should be pure nihilists where no action is any better than any other. That is because, just because we don't know any ethical framework with actual evidence behind it being meaningful, does not mean it does not exist. So I think the only ethical thing to do, in a world where we don't know what is ethical, is to search for what is ethical.
And it's possible perhaps that we can discover what is ethical through standard philosophy that we've been doing since Ancient Greece. But I think it's more likely any new break throughs will come through physics and mathematics break throughs. So in practice, the most ethical actions are whatever most quickly leads to our total understanding of physics and mathematics.
You might ask, what makes me think there's any possibility mathematics and physics could lead to ethical knowledge? What makes those spaces better to search than just choose a random spot in the ground, digging, and hoping I somehow find a note with a complete explanation? That is because physics and mathematics have often found knowledge I would've thought unknowable, yet have proven things true beyond a shadow of the doubt. The nature of atoms, the nature of galaxies, imaginary numbers, etc. all sorts of things that are true and we can use to real effect in the world like making planes fly or creating nigh-unbreakable codes have been found with physics and math. So while it may seem impossible that it could discover an ethical framework, I don't consider "seeming impossible" a guarantee it is impossible.
But in real life I don't want to be too weird so I just live as a rules-based utilitarian.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
You are typing a lot of words and I really don't understand what point you're trying to make. Can you, in one paragraph, describe what bad stuff happens as a result of our current racial and cultural appropriation policies? Then in one paragraph describe what you want the world to look like? Then in one paragraph describe why your model would be better and not have problems?
I just really need something succint and clear.
non_radical_centrist
2mo ago
Do you have any personal opinions about whether whether this was a fair ruling, Ashlael? I have little knowledge about law and can't even begin to determine how fair this case was for myself. The sources I would normally use to determine an opinion, like a synthesis of Wikipedia, liberal subreddits, conservative subreddits, and themotte comments, are all varying so much from each other and not really directly addressing each other's points that I can't come to a conclusion. But I do generally greatly respect your analysis as insightful and not particularly biased.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
I know codependency as mostly a gag in sitcoms about crappy couples. Like Jerry and Beth from from Rick and Morty.
I've never read an Ayn Rand book. I don't really know how it differs from other types of libertarianism, but I mostly see lefties mocking Ayn Rand as a dumb libertarian, and libertarians politely disagreeing with Ayn Rand as also a dumb type of libertarian. So I assume Objectivism is somewhere between wrong about literally everything and wrong about most things.
non_radical_centrist
21d ago
I still find it somewhat useful as a quick link to the people whose profiles I can check for new comments.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
Any version of an all benevolent and all powerful God where He won't grant salvation to someone if they're an atheist in a secular country ruled be an atheist, but will if they're an atheist in a secular country ruled by a Christian, feels exceedingly unlikely to be true to me.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
Maybe you do honestly believe he fails to grasp basic economics, but "Let me recommend Khan Academy/community college/a textbook" is a polite way of saying "You're ignorant and you don't know what you're talking about,"
I do believe he fails to grasp basic economics, although I'd guess it's more he doesn't "know" basic economics than "fails to grasp" basic economics. He seems smart enough from his writing ability. In his own words, "It’s an entrenched mythology of capitalism that companies lower prices based on competition". That's some pretty basic economics he's denying. Not knowing basic economics is the same thing as being ignorant and not knowing what he's talking about. The best way for him to learn, in my opinion, is to go through some Khan Academy lessons. I could've recommended he enroll in some Harvard classes instead, but that'd cost him hundreds of dollars and probably not actually be as effective despite being more prestigious.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
So I take it you're a socialist or communist of some sort?
What do you think it is that stops McDonald's from charging $10 for a bottle of water?
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
It sounds like those results are much more "the most partisan tip of lefties vs normie Republicans" than anything else, and doesn't say anything besides elites tending to be partisan lefties.
I was most surprised by how 29% of the elite thinks that China is an ally, compared to 9% of ordinary voters. I would’ve thought the elites were the hawks! Maybe some of them have commercial interests in China or they want to work with China on climate change or they’re ethnically Chinese, anyway this is really odd to me.
Obvious possibility is that a substantial amount of them are themselves twitter communist types who like the regime, although 29% sounds like a really high number for a demographic that I thought basically only existed online.
35% of the elite would rather cheat than lose a close election, rising to 69% of the ‘politically obsessed’. Only 7% of pleb voters would cheat. That seems like an underestimate to me – who goes and says ‘I would rather cheat than lose an election’ on a poll?
I've got to wonder how much of that is influenced by present circumstances. I think Trump is uniquely hated, and leftie elites are more willing to sacrifice other values like honesty to stop him. They're also aware Trump can possibly win given 2016 and don't live in delusion that they would never need to sacrifice their values since they'd never lose anyway. Meanwhile I'd be concerned that the plebs are mostly Republican and think they don't need to cheat to win because of course they're going to win anyways and if they don't win it's because the election was stolen by the other side. The "election steal" is a big part of Republican mentality, and it'd just be too incongruous for a Republican to admit they'd cheat, even if in reality they would if they somehow actually had the opportunity and it was truly necessary to get a R win.
it must be at least 1000x easier to defend the US border against stateless, unarmed mobs
A sizeable amount of that is reluctance to use lethal force, even passively. A key part of stopping Russians is killing them, which lefties can get behind in present circumstances. They do not get behind killing migrants who are seeking better lives. They don't even get behind letting migrants drown when the migrants choose to cross a river and encounter barbed wire they knew was there. Notably even Republicans somewhat agree with this, one of Abbott's key defenses of barbed wire is that by placing it, fewer migrants would try to cross in the first place, leading to less drownings in total, even if the wire itself causes an handful.
non_radical_centrist
29d ago
Would this fit better in the Culture War thread? It's roughly on topic and certainly seems fleshed out enough.
I sometimes like the lower standards of the smaller threads. Less pressure to thoroughly defend my position.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
As an addendum, if you find it impossible to get her to start talking about the topic but really want to marry her, it's better to have a straightforward discussion and ask her preferences than to try to guess. The risk of her saying "Oh... no" after a public proposal isn't worth the gains of a happy romantic memory if you're not already sure what her answer will be.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
There probably are people who will deny that there is some genetic variation in different populations if you cherry pick for radicals, but just because something is a social construct doesn't mean it has no utility.
There are lots of people who deny that race has any biological basis. If you grill them on what exactly they mean by it they might eventually realize that obviously race has some biological basis, but otherwise, they'll be pushing HR policies and going to the ballot box working under the assumption there is no such thing as biological race.
Saying something is a social construct was never meant (in a serious discussion) to mean it is useless.
He concludes with essentially saying that the social construct definition, where race is based off lived experience, is more meaningful anyways.
non_radical_centrist
1mo 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
1mo ago
When do you think a group of people are justified in seceding from their larger nation state? I generally lean towards that people generally should be allowed to have self-determination, but there are lots of complicating factors. Like imagine a county of Alphastan, majority Alphstani, which has one province which is 60% Betlish and 40% Alphstani. If that province wants to secede, when would that be permissible? What would be acceptable actions from the Betlish population if the Alphstani majority would doing things like oppressing their language in federal schools? What should the Alphstani reaction be if they had reason to believe that, if the province did secede, they'd start oppressing the Alphstani minority there? What if Alphstanis used to have a majority in that province, but then their hostile neighbor of Betland started sending settlers in as a preemptive move to try to annex that province?
All those scenarios aren't particularly important in and of themselves, I just want to have a better framework of when I should be supporting independence movements vs not. One area in particular that divides me in real life is Crimea- from what I understand, that area probably really would prefer to be part of Russia than Ukraine. But that's only after Russia has taken the region by force and increased the number of Russians living there.
Yet no one put together the theory of natural selection. People also knew objects fell when you dropped them, but it took millennia for people to really start formalizing it.
Or 4., linked to another trait that is beneficial, such that the two traits are passed down together.
Darwin's theory let him make predictions about nature. Before him, people weren't making predictions about nature, about how different environments would lead to different traits being more prevalent.
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