omw_68
5d ago
This is false, the blockade will obviously persist.
If it's that obvious, then you should be able to lay out the evidence and argument which makes it so.
Please do so.
TIA.
omw_68
6d ago
You can make whatever argument you want for metric, but F is objectively superior to C in daily life. There's no 'metric' advantage to C, you don't multiple or divide temperatures real world use cases. Both are effectively arbitrary.
I basically agree. The strongest argument I can think of for Celsius is that the freezing point of water has some degree of relevance for day-to-day life, and therefore there is some basis for making it 0 instead of 32.
That being said, people mainly use temperature to discuss air temperature not water temperature. And as a lot of people have pointed out the scale from 0F to 100F does a pretty good job of roughly capturing the variation of temperature experienced by people. Much better than the C scale does.
omw_68
6d ago
Why the hell is everyone telling me this? I don't doubt that the US can get very cold. I'm just asking what unit of measurement is used. Most of the world uses celsius. In a story where the temperature is highly relevant it would be best to specify the unit.
In the United States, it's very unusual for native speakers of English to report outdoor temperature in anything other than Fahrenheit. Even among scientists and engineers who regularly use the Metric system.
As a side note, it seems pretty clear to me that Fahrenheit is a much better scale for discussing weather since (1) 0-100 roughly covers temperatures your typical person experiences, including the occasional extreme; and (2) there's no real need to convert to other units like there might be among inches, feet, yards, and miles.
omw_68
6d ago
As AIs improve, I suspect we’ll end up in a situation where no one will be able to tell whether something was written by a human or an AI. The thing that makes AI writing uncanny now is that it’s much better than average (seriously, most people suck at writing), while at the same time curiously devoid of real content.
I agree. I've gotten a lot better at recognizing AI-generated content, but given the rate of progress, it seems like a losing battle.
omw_68
6d ago
When you mention temperatures are you talking F? So, less than -12 C?
For what it may be worth, there are a lot of places in the United States where the temperature is plausibly in that range.
That being said, the story does feel a bit like it might be concern trolling ("I support immigration restrictions but I have some concerns . . .") or just straight up trolling.
omw_68
6d ago
I guess I don't think it is a "decision" to save a dying man.
It's absolutely a decision. And I don't blame you for making it, but it's one decision among millions which, when combined together, have a very noticeable and significant impact on life in the United States.
I think it's worth keeping mind that in a lot of situations, your neighbors end up subsidizing your compassion. For example, in this case, everyone in the community will have to pay for emergency services as well as hospitalization for this individual. Which is not a huge deal in the case of a one-off situation, but as someone who lives near a large American city, I can report that situations like this can multiply rather rapidly. Especially if word of local kindness/compassion makes it back to whatever low-trust society the person came from.
Edit: By the way, I don't know where you are, but assuming that half of the expenses for this guy were reimbursed by the federal government, I would estimate that I personally paid 1 or 2 cents for your decision. Merry Christmas!
omw_68
7d ago
ICE is in Minneapolis for the same reason federal troops were deployed to Arkansas and Alabama back when segregation was the hot-button issue of the day.
I basically agree with this. For the system to work, it needs to be made clear that rioting and obstructionism won't have the desired results.
omw_68
7d ago
There is a natural desire to not be duped, trapped, enslaved, or subordinate, and there is also a desire to be aware of one’s surroundings
I agree, except that a lot of people will happily accept these kinds of things if they can be convinced that it's COOL. Or if they can be convinced that doing so will make them respected, which is very similar to being cool.
omw_68
7d ago
If people need to be convinced that the experience machine is high status in order to enter it, does that not prove that people value status over pleasure? It seems to me you are in agreement with Nozick, only you expand on his idea by suggesting a candidate for the thing which people value over hedonism.
I see your point, but I think that this is kind of a semantic issue. Would a hedonist seek out the experience of feeling that he is important; of feeling that he is superior; of feeling that he is "cool"? It really depends on the definition of hedonism. Normally when one thinks of hedonism, one thinks of experiencing pleasures such as those provided by sexual stimulation; opiates; tasty food; and so on. But I think it makes sense to think about hedonism in a broader way. When some political activist pursues activities that are very unlikely to accomplish anything except to make the activist feel good about himself (and we've all seen examples of this), how is this not fundamentally a case of hedonism?
omw_68
7d ago
Well, first of all thanks for choosing to not offer examples of political movements you think fit the bill; that would almost certainly just have turned your post into a crude "DAE my outgroup is deluded" exercise that made some readers feel fuzzy and others mad, while this way we can discuss the proposition for its own value in the abstract.
Good point -- I was actually pretty close to doing that.
It may be philosophically/poetically appealing to draw comparisons between ideological frameworks/theories and a putative machine that literally puts artificial data into the user's brain's input stream
Absolutely, and I think that the analogy is not bad. Either way, you are living a lie.
the political Grand Theories, which both with an outside and an inside view are purporting to explain how actual, material, top-level reality functions, are not at all similar to a Matrix-style spinal tap,
I disagree . . . as stated, I think that certain ideologies are, in effect, crude Experience Machines. One takes advantage of a "spinal tap" as you call it, the other takes advantage of what could be called "more traditional channels."
Either way you live a lie, and either way, you get certain positive experiences in exchange for drinking the Koolaid.
omw_68
7d ago
And I don't think this is just because it's low social status to have your spouse cheat on you.
That's a very interesting question. One thing I do know is that marital infidelity tends to cause a lot more drama if the affair partner is someone in the innocent spouse's social circles. "How could he humiliate me like that!?" is a question that is often asked. To me, this suggests that, at a minimum, issues of social status play a significant role.
Being a cheated-on spouse is definitely low status, although I am having trouble thinking of additional scenarios to tease out how significant this is.
omw_68
7d ago
Thoughts on Nozik's Experience Machine, Hedonism, and the Culture War
For many years there has been a lot of discussion of Nozik's "Experience Machine." The idea is that there is a hypothetical virtually reality type setup which allows the user to experience a great life, full of pleasure and accomplishment (with just the right amount of suffering), while in reality they are in a Matrix-style pod the whole time. To make the experience even better, the machine is set up so that while you are using it, you are not even aware that the life you are living is a big lie.
Apparently most people, when asked whether or not they would choose such a life, decline the proposal. To Professor Nozik (the man who came up with the thought experiment) this is evidence that people reject hedonism; that most people agree that there is more to life than simply maximizing good feelings.
Having had a chance to think about this in the light of matters I learned from the community, I've come to disagree with Nozik's conclusions. There are various factors in play, but I think one of the biggest is peoples' strong desire for social status. It's simply low status to be so obviously living a fake life. For evidence, consider The Matrix. Put aside the question of who is happier and ask which group is cooler: The Red Pill types who know what's really going on or the Blue Pill types who spend their lives in ignorance. As another example, consider the John Wick movies and ask who is cooler -- the professional assassins who comprise an underworld hidden in plain sight, or the everyday people. The same point could be made about the Harry Potter universe, the world of international espionage (both fictional and real) and so on.
From that perspective, I'm pretty sure that most people would actually choose Nozik's Experience Machine, provided that it was marketed properly. The people pushing the Experience Machine would promote the idea that the life you live inside the machine is actually reality; it's everyone else who is living a lie.
How does this relate to the Culture War? Well, it occurs to me that the Culture War actually offers people a crude version of the Experience Machine. Certain political movements allow people the option to believe in huge obvious lies. In exchange those people enjoy the feelings of (1) moral and intellectual superiority; and (2) social acceptance. I'm talking about false beliefs where there is no possible way that any reasonable, non-deluded person could harbor such beliefs. (I'm sort of conflicted as to whether I should offer some examples, since people who are plugged into the Matrix, so to speak, tend to freak out at the suggestion that they are living a lie.)
My conclusion, based on the above reasoning and evidence, is that Nozik is wrong. A large percentage of people would in fact choose the experience machine and most people are in fact hedonists. You just need to factor social status into the equation.
omw_68
8d ago
Not agreed. It started backing up while he walked towards it. It was backing up as he walked in front of it.
Well do you agree that the car was stationary while he was behind it photographing the plates?
omw_68
8d ago
He has eyes. He saw her stop and then turned and faced her
I don't understand this.
The car was stopped the entire time he walked around it, up until the point where he was standing in front of it. Agreed?
omw_68
9d ago
[personal attacks deleted]
Whatever.
No jury is going to be on the fence about whether to convict Ross, see this photo, and immediately think "oh my God! I didn't know Renee Good once set foot on a beach! Send him to the chair!"
This is an attempt to confuse the issues and it's hard to see as anything but deliberate. Any competent defense attorney would object to that picture coming into evidence and any fair judge would exclude it from evidence. Obviously it's not just the fact that at some point she's visited the beach.
Anyway, I don't engage with people engage in "strawmanning," which means ascribing exaggerated positions to others as a way of making them seem less reasonable. You've clearly done that here by pretending that it's just a matter of whether she's visited the beach.
demanding that I change it because my choice of photo might hypothetically bias some prospective jurors ruling on Ross's case who are reading my blog post for some reason.
This is obviously more strawmanning. I made no "demand" that you change the photo. Rather, I made a polite request. Moreover, I did not cite potential juror bias as a reason for my request.
I have no patience for these sorts of misrepresentations.
This exchange is concluded. Goodbye.
omw_68
9d ago
you're going about it in such an obnoxious and condescending manner.
I find your hostility all the more baffling
this sort of paranoid mind-reading:
Looks to me like you are experiencing cognitive dissonance, but I'm disinclined to get into a meta-debate about it.
Even if I'm being totally rude and obnoxious, it doesn't change the basic fact that you wrote a blog post complaining about irrelevant and unflattering evidence regarding Renee Good while at the same time pushing irrelevant evidence that does the opposite.
omw_68
9d ago
Yes, I would mind.
Why? I mean, you say that you don't think there's a big difference. If there's not a big difference, you shouldn't have a problem substituting one for the other.
Actually, that's just a rhetorical question which you don't need to answer. We both know why you (and the mainstream media) are using the smiling femme beach photo of Renee Good and not the smirking dykey car photo. And any reasonable lurkers also know.
Anyway, there's not much else to say. You wrote a blog post focused on complaining about irrelevant negative evidence regarding Good. In the same post, you included (and/or alluded to) irrelevant positive evidence regarding Renee Good. As mentioned before, it's hard to take your blog post seriously.
omw_68
9d ago
I think she was trying to get away and had no intention of running down the officer but still the officer was justified in shooting her since he had a reasonable belief that she was trying to run him down from his own perspective.
I agree. My point is that her intentions have little or no relevance to the guilt or innocence of the shooter. If you are going to write an article arguing that Good's criminal history is similarly irrelevant, then it doesn't make logical sense to state or imply that her intentions were relevant. Nor does it make sense to include a picture of Renee good with long hair, smiling, on a beach. When on the day of the shooting, she looked . . let's just say "less sympathetic."
omw_68
9d ago
I'm open to the idea that the photo of Good used by many publications wouldn't be admissible in a criminal trial,
So you concede it's totally irrelevant to Ross' guilt or innocence?
It's just a photo of her standing on a beach and smiling:
In your view, is there a big difference between the two photos? If you think there isn't a big difference, would you mind swapping in the second photo on your blog post?
And please explain to me how the question "if Good struck Ross, did she do so intentionally or through negligence?" would be inadmissible in a criminal trial.
I was talking about evidence of her intentions. The question you pose in your blog post suggests that in your view, such evidence is directly relevant.
Suppose the prosecutor said something like this in his opening statement: "You are going to see evidence that the Defendant gunned down a woman in cold blood who was merely trying to get away"
In that case, I'm pretty sure that at a minimum, the defense would be entitled to a jury charge along the following lines: "In deciding whether the shooting was justified, you should not consider Ms. Good's intent. What matters is whether the Defendant reasonably believed that he faced a grave threat of death or serious injury."
Yes, I agree that in the second photo she looks more like a stereotypical angry aggressive lesbian. But she doesn't look much like a stereotypical angry aggressive lesbian, and I think your phrasing was a bit weaselly.
For what it may be worth, the second photo pings my "butch" radar. And I think that if you could show the two photos to Americans who didn't know the context and culture war issues, most would agree that the woman depicted in the second photo is MUCH more likely to be a stereotypical angry aggressive lesbian.
Of course the first one is more flattering. But I don't think it's remotely indicative of media bias
I'm talking about your bias, not media bias. Ironically, the sort of photo you posted in your blog post is typically NOT admissible in criminal trials, except in some states which have passed "Victim Life Photo" statutes. I don't know if Minnesota has such a statute in place, but I tend to doubt it given that it's more conservative states which have passed these kinds of laws.
In short, I'm pretty confident that the photo you posted in your article would be inadmissible as evidence in a hypothetical trial of the shooter. At a minimum, it is totally irrelevant to Ross' guilt or innocence. Certainly at least as irrelevant as Good's (possible) criminal history.
(As far as media bias in photo selection goes, let's just say the whole situation with Trayvon Martin has heavily informed my views on this issue.)
Anyway, it seems that in arguing that Good's (alleged) criminal history would be inadmissible at trial and therefore should not be considered by the public, you simultaneously include pro-Good evidence which would likely be inadmissible at trial. One example is the photo at the top. Another example is Good's intentions. (" if so, did she do so intentionally, or through negligence? ")
As a result, it's hard to take your blog post seriously.
omw_68
9d ago
You're confusing UBI with "Bullshit Jobs" both of which are actually quite different. In bullshit jobs the workers still need to show up to the office and pretend to work in order to collect a check, while in UBI people can go out and party and still collect their check.
As a side note, society might be much better off if the UBI laws required that people had to do some kind of busy work in order to collect their check.
For example, suppose one way you could get your UBI was by playing Fortnight for 6 hours a day. The requirement would arguably give people a much greater feeling of meaning in their lives (even if the work is ultimately meaningless) and it would also keep them off the streets.
omw_68
9d ago
That any given woman could find a well off man to marry through the apps in her early 20s?
I think you are underestimating just how attracted men are to a young woman who is in great physical shape. Just my humble opinion.
Good enough to try out, not good enough to be planning her entire life around.
That's a separate issue. This is just a thought experiment.
Anyway, are you saying that my hypothetical plain girl with a smoking hot body started going to church events, she should be able to attract a well-off marriage minded man?
omw_68
9d ago
But I also don't think a compassionate stance towards lonely men requires that we assume every one of them is deeply a good guy, or will always be a great partner to women.
I agree, but that's a different issue. As long as you agree that some appreciable percentage of lonely guys are in fact serious and commitment-oriented, then my point is supported.
I'm not sure I understand you here. Is this sarcasm?
I would have to disagree with this. F really does appear to be better for discussing air temperature, for reasons mentioned by me and others.
More options
Context Copy link