omw_68
9d ago
I rarely watch mainstream media that features black people anymore, even when their presence is technically plausible within the setting. Not because I harbour some pathological hatred of blacks (I don't), but because experience has taught me that “plausibility” is almost entirely incidental.
Well I think that once a black person has been cast, there is a lot of pressure on the show runners, directors, producers, etc. to follow certain rules about how that black person must be portrayed. And if they follow those rules, it makes the wokeness of the content that much more prominent and obvious.
- But I know why that is stigmatised. This is not some aesthetic evolution that emerged "neutrally". It is the product of constant feminist cultural policing of traditionally male spaces
As I mentioned above, while I think that there is a taboo against this kind of fan service, it's nowhere near as strong as, for example, the taboo against portraying a black character as being unintelligent. For example, as mentioned above, in Landman there is plenty of male gaze type content.
Also as mentioned above, it seems to me there may be another factor in play, which is the easy availability of sexually stimulating material online.
Here's another example of what I mean: In the 1980s, there were a few very popular movies which featured a lot of female nudity. For example, Stripes. At the time, if you wanted to see a movie of naked women taking a shower together, going to see Stripes was the only practical way of doing so, apart from going to an extremely seedy movie theater or adult book store.
So it seems to me that there is less incentive for filmmakers to include this kind of content. Because there is not as much demand for it.
The messaging is that male desire is low-status and must be disavowed in public, female desire (and its equivalents) is high-status and may be displayed openly.
I agree, but I think that in the absence of internet porn (broadly defined), plenty of content creators (including big budget films and television shows) would make lots of male gaze type stuff. And even with the internet (and with feminism) there still is a decent amount.
omw_68
10d ago
But I often want to see cute girls going through the early stages of romance, blushing, being cute and awkward, wrestling with really feelings.
Perhaps my point was more narrow than it should have been. I was talking about the practice of putting sexy women, typically in sexy clothing (or no clothing at all), into television and movies where from the context it seems that the main point (or a large part of the point) is to titillate viewers. For this type of stipulation, it seems like online pornography would be a pretty good substitute.
I don't want to really see trashy sluts getting banged all the time, just sometimes
I think it's worth pointing out that online pornography (or at least what I would call online pornography) is a lot broader than this. For example, a website which is devoted to showing pictures of women in short dresses and skirts. So defined, it's easy to see that there is a lot of overlap between online pornography and the sort of fan service I am talking about.
Sometimes I'll see a movie that features that and it grabs me.
Well would you say that what you have described (cute girls going through the early stages of romance) has become (to some extent) taboo due to the influence of feminism?
omw_68
10d ago
That's been possible for a long time. Choosing a pass phrase is optional when setting up these hardware wallets
That's good to hear.
But... Reportedly, even someone who had chosen a pass phrase for their buggy Coldcard got their account emptied. Hmm. Maybe the hackers ran some simple brute forcing on the accounts they couldn't get straight into?
I have very little knowledge about computer security in general or this situation in particular, but it seems to me that the solution is to have a delay on password attempts. e.g. if you get your password wrong, you have to wait a minute to try again. After the second failed attempt, you have to wait 5 minutes. After that, 10 minutes. After that, an hour. It seems to me that this would make brute force attacks extremely time consuming.
Also, after a couple failed pass phrase attempts, the account holder could be texted and emailed so that he has an opportunity to lock down his account.
omw_68
11d ago
Using a passphrase ("13th word", or 19th or 25th etc) in addition to the shitty random number would have kept them safe, right?
I don't know, but I was thinking of something similar. If (1) in addition to your lengthy crypto passkey consisting of a long random number, you also need to enter a simple one word password; and (2) you get only one try every 5 minutes, it seems like it would be far harder for people to steal your money.
It's a similar principle at work with ATM cards. A thief needs both the card itself and a simple 4 or 5 digit code. Neither of these is an insurmountable barrier, but combining them makes it exponentially harder to get into the person's bank account.
Anyway, I'm not an expert on computer security so I wouldn't be surprised if there were something important I were missing. But that's how it seems to me as a layman: That it's preferable to condition access to the account on two reasonably challenging obstacles as opposed to one obstacle which you believe to be super-duper challenging.
omw_68
11d ago
Genuine question - why can't they implement some kind of two factor authentication? So that using your analogy, there are two keys to your vault. Stealing one key is not enough. Wouldn't that make it exponentially more difficult to steal peoples' money?
Maybe it's not a good analogy, but getting into my bank account requires both a password and a code number which is sent to my mobile phone. Obviously this is not perfect security, but it seems like it makes things much harder to break in.
Or here is another question: Why can't crypto currency be stored in the equivalent of a "checking account" and a "savings account." Most of the money is in the "savings account," and money can be moved from the "savings account" only to the "checking account" with a 48 hour delay. So that the user can check his account every day and if he sees an unauthorized transfer, he can lock the account down before any of the money makes it to the outside world.
I propose the argument that feminist ideology has reached a level of cultural influence in the West sometime around 2008-2012 where unironic* depictions of conventionally attractive, sexually alluring, non-girlboss female characters have become taboo in the eyes of normie women**.
I don't watch much television or movie content, but what about the television show Landman? It seems like there are a lot of female characters who are basically there to be eye candy. For example:
-
In an early episode, there is a scene where some of the characters order coffee from a coffee shop called "Babes 'n Brew." The girl working the counter is an impossibly attractive young woman wearing a bikini top. By "impossibly," I mean that in real life you would pretty much never see a woman this attractive, dressed like that, working a job like that, in that part of the country.
-
One of the main characters, played by Billy Bob Thornton, has a college-aged daughter who is highly attractive and spends a lot of time parading around in a bikini.
-
In another scene, there is a drug smuggler type who is shown taking a call from Billy Bob Thornton's character while sitting in a strip club; in the background there are various unrealistically attractive women dancing around while wearing very little.
I do concede that the culture has become more hostile to this sort of fan service. For example, I remember the movie "The Fifth Element" from about 30 years ago. The movie has numerous attractive, sexily dressed female characters working in roles such as stewardess, receptionist, and fast food clerk. I think it would be hard to make a movie with roles like that today, in part due to the influence of feminism. But I also think there's another possible factor, which is that pornography has become so easily available that it's not as much of a selling point to include this sort of stuff in a movie.
omw_68
12d ago
Perhaps this person would consider something along these lines: Suppose there is $100,000 to invest. You put roughly 2/3 of that into a 10-year US treasury, or whatever the amount is that means you will get $100,000 back at the end. You put the remainder into a broad stock market index fund.
The psychological selling point of this strategy is that no matter what happens in the stock market, you are more or less guaranteed not to lose any principal. Obviously this is a questionable strategy if the goal is to maximize your returns. But for those who are extremely risk averse, it might be appealing and the expected result is arguably quite a bit better than if you'd put everything into a high yield savings account.
omw_68
13d ago
That's the classic guilty-party three-step,
Thanks for the clarification. However I am certainly not claiming that Israel didn't do this. Since I am not a member of the Israeli government, I do not know. My position -- which is correct -- is that the evidence is weak. And you don't seem to dispute this.
Nor am I claiming that the situation has been exaggerated.
Pick one: either they didn't do it, or they were justified in doing it.
Why should I pick one? There's no contradiction.
Arguing both at once is just telling on yourself.
Dude, I'm not Bibi Netanyahu. I'm just a random guy on the internet who's not a representative of any government, let alone the Israeli one.
The fact is that (1) the evidence of Israel's involvement is weak; and (2) it would have been a good idea for Israel to do something like this. My pointing these facts out does not inculpate the Israeli government. How could it? As mentioned above, I don't speak for Israel or any other country.
omw_68
13d ago
it never happened, it was exaggerated, and they deserved it anyway
I'm not sure what your point is here. Would you mind stating it plainly?
omw_68
14d ago
This story reminds me of the old joke about the the two old Jewish guys sitting on a park bench -- one of is shocked to notice that the other is reading White Supremacist literature and asks why. The response: "Where else can I read that Jews control the world and the Holocaust never happened?"
But seriously, it would probably be a good idea for Israel to retaliate against these Leftist-run European countries who are constantly trying to stick their noses into Israel's business and drum up hatred. That being said, the evidence that Israel behind this is rather weak.
I just did, and you've ignored it.
I would have to disagree with you on that. You have vaguely argued that Israel is like South Africa, but you haven't laid out a precise definition.
Keep in mind, it's completely possible to discuss and criticize Israel without using the word "apartheid." People use the word "apartheid" because that word has strong emotional and negative connotations. It's like "genocide," "rape," "trafficking," etc.
We could simply argue over (1) what Israel is or isn't doing; and (2) whether what it's doing is right or wrong. But instead, people want to bring a semantic issue into the debate. They want to argue over whether or not what Israel is doing could be called "apartheid."
If you want to have a semantic debate, it's completely reasonable to ask you to define your terms. That's what semantics is about.
I am not going to lay out three paragraphs of legal text for you to nitpick to death.
I don't think "nitpick" is the right word here. Because I don't think it's possible to define "apartheid" in such a way that (1) it's broad enough to apply to Israel; (2) it's narrow enough so that it doesn't apply to numerous other countries (which are not regularly and publicly accused of "apartheid"); and (3) it's not an obvious gerrymander definition set up to apply only to Israel.
Or to put it another way, leaving the word "apartheid" vague gives critics of Israel the opportunity to engage in a motte and bailey strategy.
You can call it "nitpicking" to point it out, but I think it's a very valid objection. Especially since it's completely possible to discuss, debate, and criticize Israel without using the word "apartheid." The door has been opened.
I don't consider 'har har! technically this also applies to East Berlin!' to be good-faith engagement or a good argument
If you need to caricature what I have said in order to make your point, then I would suggest to you that your point probably isn't all that strong.
Anyway, since you are apparently bowing out of the discussion, I will leave with this question: Why use the word "apartheid" at all to criticize Israel? Why not simply argue that it's wrong for Israel to exercise control over J & S without giving many of the Arab occupants a voice in Israeli government? And if it's so important to apply a specific word to Israel, why is it so unreasonable to ask for a precise definition of that word?
omw_68
23d ago
I feel like I must exist in a very different bubble to you cause I rarely hear about water vapor feedback
Well global warming is a culture war issue. So yeah, it sounds like you might be in the bubble created by mainstream sources which tend to follow the progressive/leftist/woke party line.
Greenhouse gases exist. It's easy to verify that certain gases absorb wavelengths of light that would normally reflect off the earth and go back into space. Absorbing this light causes the gas to heat up. We've been pumping greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, into the atmosphere. Therefore the planet will heat up.
This is what I would call "motte" global warming. It's very defensible, but the problem (for climate activists) is that if you do the math, it results only in modest global warming, not the catastrophic scenarios described by climate activists. For that, you need "bailey" global warming: The idea that warming due to CO2 will be strongly amplified by means of water vapor feedback. Which gets you the scary scenarios, but isn't supported by the evidence.
Unsurprisingly, climate activists would like to blur the distinction between motte global warming and bailey global warming -- so that they can pivot back and forth depending on what's most convenient.
omw_68
23d ago
I'm not sure is it's talked about in current climate circles, but it's significant in modeling. Models (at least in the 2000s when I learned about this) had a multiplicative factor on climate forcing that was based on a positive reinforcement mechanism from water vapor - in other words, the calculated increase in temperature from CO2 was doubled or tripled because of the assumption of positive reinforcement. Notably, the models did not really model cloud albedo effects, which make water vapor arguably a negative feedback mechanism that stabilizes temperature instead.
Of course, the actual problem was that the models kept all this secret
I basically agree with all of this, except that I don't think the role of water vapor feedback in climate models was secret in the sense that it was completely unavailable and not discussed. Rather, I think it was a secret in the sense that it was not publicized or emphasized. And why would it be? It's embarrassing to admit that your catastrophic predictions are based on what is essentially a fudge factor.
But either way, there are a lot of people out there who think they know a lot about the global warming debate -- even on a scientific level -- who have literally never heard of water vapor feedback or the role it plays in climate models.
PS I agree that it's actually more likely that water vapor is a negative feedback mechanism than a positive feedback mechanism. Not because I am some kind of expert on climate science, but rather due to common sense about complicated systems. If a complicated system has been relatively stable for a while, the default assumption should be that it's dominated by negative feedback. By analogy, you are far more likely to find a large (loose) boulder on the floor of a valley than on the peak of a mountain.
No it isn't? This is legit the first time I've ever heard about water vapor feedback being a major issue.
Well, are you saying that you have studied the global warming debate carefully for a good deal of time? (It seems like you are saying something like "If water vapor feedback were an important issue, I surely would have heard about it by now given that I've been following the global warming debate carefully for some time now.")
Did you just not see the two I mentioned in the post you're replying to?
Maybe I missed it? Here's what I saw:
Anyways I don't really have any specific examples of popular skeptics explicitly denying greenhouse gases exist but pretty much all of them commonly make arguments that don't make any sense unless greenhouse gases don't exist.
I'm just asking for a couple names of prominent skeptics and links to their arguments which "don't make any sense unless greenhouse gases don't exist."
Because I am genuinely skeptical of your claim that "Most people who dispute global warming typically deny the existence of greenhouse gases."
If you already provided the names and links elsewhere in the thread, would you mind just quoting yourself? TIA.
Sure they could but "global warming is happening and caused by humans, just a lot slower than believed" is not a track I ever see anyone take.
Again, are you saying that you have studied the global warming debate carefully for a good deal of time? It seems like that's what you are saying.
omw_68
23d ago
I'm discussing it here only because, if asked straight, apartheid seems like a totally valid description to me and I considered you to be making a poor argument otherwise.
Ok, then I would ask that you lay out your precise definition of the word "apartheid."
omw_68
23d ago
Well no, because none of those countries are exercising sovereignty over conquered territory whose people are kept in a state of permanent statelessness for purely demographic reasons. Try again
It seems to me you are shifting the goalposts here. For example, your previous post said nothing about "conquered territory."
At this point, I would ask you to lay your specific definition of "apartheid state" so that the goalposts are firmly in place. I think that it's going to be hard for you to define "apartheid state" in such a way that (1) it's broad enough to apply to Israel; (2) it's not broad enough to apply to states such as Lebanon (which has long denied citizenship to Palestinian Arabs who have lived their for generations); and (3) it's not an obvious gerrymander definition created in order to apply only to Israel.
omw_68
23d ago
I'll just say that I have never once had a woman not show up for a date after agreeing to a time and a place.
If you are saying you've never been out and out stood up, my experience tracks with yours. But are you including late cancellations?
omw_68
23d ago
@omw_68 is wrong in that the water vapor feedback mechanism is very well modeled and understood
I am very skeptical of this, and here's my challenge: Please identify a few instances where prominent climate models of water vapor feedback have made predictions which are (1) actual predictions (i.e. not backcasts or predictions after the fact); (2) interesting; and (3) accurate. TIA.
I've never heard either this objection or anything about water vapor feedback being anything more than a minor contributor.
Respectfully, water vapor feedback is the (or at least A) central issue in the global warming controversy.
Anyways I don't really have any specific examples of popular skeptics explicitly denying greenhouse gases exist but pretty much all of them commonly make arguments that don't make any sense unless greenhouse gases don't exist
Ok, then please give me examples of a few arguments made by a few prominent global warming skeptics which don't make any sense unless greenhouse gases don't exist.
Since they readily admit to two then the only other way they can argue anything else is causing global warming is by denying CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
I strongly disagree. They could admit that CO2 is a greenhouse gas but take the position that the effects of CO2 have been exaggerated.
omw_68
24d ago
Most people who dispute global warming typically deny the existence of greenhouse gases.
I believe that global warming is essentially a hoax. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but the main thing I dispute is that warming due to mankind's emissions will be amplified by a positive feedback mechanism.
So in a sense, I don't dispute global warming. What I mean is that (1) there is little or no dispute that atmospheric CO2 levels are rising due to mankind's activities; (2) since CO2 is a greenhouse gas, one can reasonably expect measurable warming due to mankind's activities. The issue is that according to climate activists, alarmists, warmistas -- whatever you want to call them -- this baseline warming will be amplified to dangerous levels by water vapor feedback. However this claim of amplification, in my opinion, does not stand up to scrutiny. Which means we are left with modest warming as opposed to dangerous warming.
Anyway, as I said, I can't speak for anyone but myself but I suspect that you are attacking a bit of a strawman here. Are you able to identify a few prominent global warming skeptics who "deny the existence of greenhouse gases"?
omw_68
25d ago
in fact the opposite (we have a provision to invade The Hague)
It's actually worse than that, since
(1) The so-called Hague invasion act prohibits all governments in the US from cooperating with the ICC;
(2) the UN Treaty (which has force of federal law) gives immunity to foreign diplomats traveling to the US on UN business;
(3) Absent the UN treaty, Netanyahu would presumably be entering the US with general diplomatic immunity; and
(4) AFAIK The Rome Statute itself recognizes (2) and (3).
So yeah, there's no legal basis whatsoever. That being said, smoke-blowing is a long tradition among politicians. And Mamdani is just playing to his base who don't know (or don't care about) the law and are driven by what could be politely referred to as "strong anti-Israel sentiment."
And if there isn’t one, then what credible argument could Mamdani make re the arrest?
None whatsoever. As far as I know, Netanyahu could come to NYC and personally spit in Mamdani's face with full diplomatic immunity. In fact, I hope Netanyahu decides to rub it in a bit; sign up for a tour of Gracie Mansion; and plant an Israeli flag in the entry way.
omw_68
25d ago
OMW was making a (pretty interesting) objection to a definition.
Thanks, although my central objection on this issue is to people throwing around loaded buzzwords such as "apartheid," "genocide," and so on.
If someone wants to argue that it's wrong for Israel to occupy J & S without allowing the Palestinian Arabs there to have citizenship and voting rights, it's possible to do so without using the word "apartheid." Probably it would be a much more productive discussion.
But once a person has used a word like "apartheid," they've opened a door. It's on them to define the word "apartheid." And if it seems they have stretched the definition (or if they have a special, broader definition to use for Israel), then it undermines their position, perhaps even fatally.
No, you don't understand. It's good and OK when trump does it, but it's bad and norms violating when mamdani does it, because that's why.
for real though, the level of motivated reasoning on this one is interesting to see; how some plainly stated threats from the executive need to be carefully considered because of the context, and a virtue signaling hedge from a mayor is a violation that needs to be punished with the full force of the state.
I'm not sure I see your point here, but I certainly concede that there are partisan hacks on both sides. By "partisan hack," I mean someone who is outraged by X when it's done by the enemy tribe and/or outgroup but defends a very similar (or far worse) X' when it's done by someone from his own tribe/ingroup/allied groups.
omw_68
25d ago
TIL. Now I am wondering if any hostile foreign head of state (e.g. an Ayatollah or North Korean) was ever willing to bet his freedom on the US sticking to the letter of the law.
I'm not sure if you would call him a head of state, but Mahmoud Ahmedinijad (former president of Iran) famously visited New York multiple times in the late 2000s. I think doing so is a pretty safe bet given that the US still, more or less, has rule of law. And the law is pretty clear that such persons are immune.
So as long as Bibi only came to NY to visit the UN headquarters and not spend his holidays there, he would likely be fine.
I would imagine that regardless of any UN activity, Bibi (or any other foreign head of state) would not travel to the US (or any other foreign country) without being allowed to enter with diplomatic status.
I basically agree. In my youth, the one-piece swimsuit was the default and the bikini was for those who wanted to project some sex appeal.
Nowadays, it seems the bikini is the default and the one-piece is for swim competitions and such. Women who want to dress modestly typically wear a "tankini," i.e. a two piece swimsuit which is more modest than a regular bikini.
I think that nowadays, the thong bikini is the analogue to the bikini of yesteryear. (Back then, a thong bikini was considered obscene.)
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