pigeonburger
18d ago
On a sidenode which highlights the fuzziness of such groupings, I regularly joke, my wife's annoyance, that quebecers are latinos. If latinos "speak spanish in the americas", then you're omitting brazilians. If they "speak a latin language in central and south america" you're excluding mexicans. If it's "speaks a latin language in the americas" you include them both, but also quebecers.
Ultimately to get "latino" to mean exactly who everyone understands it to mean, you end up with a very artificial grouping.
pigeonburger
1mo ago
On April 10-11, 2024 they were arrested and sent to jail for 30 days for "contempt of court". The problem is that the Ag Department seems to have issued the arrest warrant on their own. The case has never been in court. They have not been before a judge.
So they are both in jail serving a 30 day sentence that didn't involve a judge and they haven't been allowed to see a judge.
This is what pisses me off so much in the relationship between government and citizens, is that government officials has free reign to do abuse their power pretty much however they want (short of personal enrichment, and even then) because the worse that happens to them is punishment to their office, not to them personally. You can be absolutely certain if those two guys had unlawfully sequestered an employee or official of the agricultural department for 30 days, they themselves would be sentenced to a lot more than 30 days in prison. But we all know that the worst that's gonna happen there is the office gets told they can't do this, maybe someone or two lose their jobs (and don't worry, they won't have any trouble finding another) and maybe Pennsylvania's taxpayers have to foot the bill on some damages (and don't worry here either, approximatively 0 democrat voters in Pennsylvania will change their vote just because their party's officials unlawfully throws people in jail).
pigeonburger
3mo ago
A very good suggestion, but I'm afraid the case laid out by the movie would have eluded me when I was a teen, because it's not as clear it's making a general point about leadership and the nature of society rather than a narrow one purely in the service of a (truly excellent) action movie. Fight Club meanwhile beats you over the head with the fact it's making an argument about society.
pigeonburger
5mo ago
Normally I see those as a solution to specific ergonomic problem, is there a reason you're thinking of getting one?
Personally, my strategy to avoid RSI is to use a trackball when working at home, mouse at the office.
Which strikes me as akin to a colonel saying "I did absolutely everything right when I ordered my men to rush that hill; those damn enemy combatants with their machine guns in bunkers are the ones at fault here."
You're not seeing it from a consequentalist standpoint, which is probably the one the people complaining that their movement was failed are taking. I think there's an important distinction because technically the people they accuse of holding them back aren't seen as enemy combatants in the context of making the world better. They might be adversaries in the context of getting a policy implemented internally, like that colonel might be a big fan of human wave style tactics while another colonel is arguing in favor of softening the enemy up with artillery, both arguing and trying to convince the brass of approving their preferred tactic, bickering and going as far as doing some political manuvering to try and edge out the other, but still fighting on the same side of the war. So their accusation is not that their tactic would have worked but for the enemy, but that they are being machine-gunned in the back by the other colonel who would be putting winning his small argument about tactics (disapproval of sexual liberty) over the overarching goal of winning the war (of making life better for everyone).
Whether the argument is accurate or not is different, but the accusation is of sabotage, not of facing resistance from the enemy.
pigeonburger
8mo ago
I don't think he would himself change so much as I believe him to be more cynical than idealist, and a strategy pandering to a reddish-purple Florida would become obsolete once president. And I believe the PMC reaction to him ("Worse Than Trump!") is strategy from the PMC understanding that appearing to play ball with the establishment right now is poison to any Republican's primary campaign.
pigeonburger
8mo ago
I agree. I think the 80s, 90s and early 2000s had struck a good balance of representation though colorblindness. But that's what I'm not seeing in OP's post: commitment to the colorblind (or gay/trans-blindness? we need a better term) principle.
To show that this over-representation is unnecessary you need to commit to judging cultural products on the merit of their content and not the color of the skin or the sexuality of people in it. It doesn't mean you HAVE to watch race-swapping remakes: most of them ARE bad on their merit because the point was the race-swapping/race-baiting, not creating a lasting cultural artefact. But if you pre-commit to reject them out of hand you are telling them that representation is a battleground, a zero-sum game and that you intent to fight them for it; that's not likely to produce a truce in the culture war.
pigeonburger
8mo ago
The administrative state when it was thought up, had these people be mindless cogs that would pass and process information to the next level until clear orders were drafted and sent for whoever actually ultimately executes them. But consolidation of roles, education and computers now has many of these people aware of the picture they are painting and opinionated with regards to the orders and the people who gave them. Even in cases where they nominally don't have any discretionary power, they can selectively apply rigor, sabotage their own work, know who to inform or not inform of a situation, etc... to give themselves some margin of discretionary power.
And recently they seem to relish how much power leaking to the press gives them.
Is what I'm describing part of some ancient philosophy or religion?
Indeed, as others have pointed out, this mindset is at the heart of Stoïcism. It's also fairly close to Taoism.
What Stoïcism instructs is what to direct your will at: yourself. If you think that you have some influence over the DA, even just as a private citizen voting and writing letters to other people, then consider doing that. Or shape yourself into someone who would become a DA that would achieve the outcomes that you consider optimal. Make yourself into a better person and a better world will flow from that. The world is what it is; it can be improved if the people in it are improved, but the only one you can ultimately control is yourself. "But this DA is bad and is encouraging more bad people to do bad things!" Good is virtue, bad is vice. And virtue and vice can only be truly known from the inside. If the DA's actions are driven by greed and the desire to be popular, that would be vice. But most people would consider forgiveness to be virtuous, maybe that's what's driving this DA? And your view that these charges should be brought up against these criminals, it's important that you observe your own thinking to understand if that's truly driven by wisdom, a virtue, or by a vice (in that case I think most would see wrath as a vice). Broadly: worry about yourself. Your soul, your actions, your reasoning.
And couching things in emotional terms, is a sure way to lessen your power of reasoning, to lessen the quality of your very soul. You see it everywhere; the originally well-meaning extremists that believe that because they see what they consider an injustice, it gives them licence to cause similar injury to others. Or single issue political/social crusaders who become blind to unintended consequences because they see one thing as "bad".
pigeonburger
1yr ago
While I could be mistaken and it could just be a trick played on me by my filter bubble, I believe this:
The author also believes that younger generations have been trained to expect diversity in entertainment and recoil when it is not present.
is an illusion cast on us to make it seem as if it is fait accompli, so we do not resist it. My impession is that young generations, save a loud activist minority, do not care about this and would rather consume entertainment that prioritise quality over "activism" when both are on offer, which is why it seems like an imperative for people pushing this illusion that all remnants of past quality entertainment must be "remade" and tainted with activism, as its mere presence next to its modern counterparts shade it entirely. This is where I believe we differ, they must destroy the past not because they've won, but because they fear its presence will break the spell they've put on us.
pigeonburger
14d ago
In the negligent users defense, users checking for features like "password protection and encryption" is more the source of the issue than the solution. Network security is a process, not a feature. I feel safer putting up a camera with no encryption and password protection that serve a standard video feed on the network than one that requires a cloud service with SSL, password, 2FA, etc... to function. The former would be forbidden to talk to anything outside of my internal network, and there would also be restriction to what it can talk inside the network. Security features are a very distant concern after proper access control. But cloud services I just have to trust. If you take the most secure device and give the whole planet a surface to attack it, it's a matter of when, not of if, it can be cracked. To its credit, the document does address some of this, but what happens when the company decides to discontinue the product line and deprioritize security updates on the cloud services for their baby monitor? The document does say they have to precommit to a support period, but there's support and Support.
pigeonburger
28d ago
It's often negative in the short term, but there are a lot of small causes that the news just doesn't care about and wouldn't mention if it weren't that some people made themselves a nuisance. It's a long term play, to not let your cause be forgotten or ignored. It's better to make people angry about you than let them ignore you.
For those specific examples, climate protestors have full elite backing now, the strategy is different. It's intimidation, they're used by the elites to show what they are willing to destroy if people don't bow down.
What strategies do Mottizens follow for a good social life?
Creating and following a tradition. For over 12 years my friends and I made a weekly habit of meeting at a specific neighborhood bar every tuesday evening. Not everyone is there every week, sometimes life gets in the way, but being there is the expected default, and we can assume we're busy those evenings and try not to schedule anything else then.
Sure, once a week is nothing compared to the socializing people used to do, but most people I mention this tradition to seem to envy it.
pigeonburger
1mo ago
Current fast food prices would be a great opportunity for the prepared food industry and convenience stores to swoop in and replicate the east asian model of selling relatively high quality food for cheap. I don't know if that has changed in the US but in Canada convenience food/gas station food is still dire, but when I check out videos of the stuff you get in convenience stores in Japan and Korea, I get jealous. Cold, hot or microwavable meals that seem to compare favorably with most prepared meals from supermarkets here, and cost little because there's little need for staff except the one cashier. It would easily replace the "I don't care, I just want something convenient and decent tasting" instances of fast food eating.
Ah, but 4chan predates reddit, and its community uses the n-word as a way to try (futilely) to keep its community within the bounds of people who don't take words too seriously. If you want, say, a community about biking that isn't a subreddit, you're likelier to end up with a community of people who love saying the n-word and sometimes, rarely, discusses biking. Compare to the subreddit which is going to be mostly about biking, except when progressive politics talking points seep through and you're not allowed to say anything else you'll be either piled on or modded. Normies either agree with the progressive politics, or they don't even notice them as we don't notice the air we breathe, but at least they're probably there to talk on-topic. The alternatives are selecting for people who do notice the air, and they'll be more interested in discussing that than the main topic.
pigeonburger
2mo ago
Is there a way to tell which of these is true?
I don't think so, but let's dive into each one.
-
It's true that most users probably don't notice the sculpting, but then again, they do notice that for some reason, somehow, Google has gotten worse. I don't know if the sculpting is the issue with search, I don't think anyone outside Google (and maybe inside Google too) knows the exact reason why Google Search sucks now, but since for Gemini's image generation it seems exceedingly likely sculpting was the reason for images not matching the expectations of the prompter, then I think we should assign a fairly high probability to it being at least part of the cause for the degradation of service for search too. And as dominant as Google is now, changing search engines is very easy, low friction, so once a competitor gets enough traction it might turn out to have been very counterproductive.
-
I think people at the very top could dial back if they wanted to, as long as it's not framed to be dialing back on the commitment to ideology, but as a technical matter; they don't have to give any rationale except degradation of the service. Companies have been laying off DEI employees/departments with little pushback, because companies still officially run on the rules that put finances above ideology (for now). As long as it's because the company needs to trim some of the less "core" employees, and not framed as "our customers and employees hate everything the DEI department has been doing". So while businesses are not allowed to explicitely retreat from the ideological battleground, they still have the latitude to excuse themselves for technical reasons.
-
This one seems pretty unfalsifiable and conspiracy minded. I don't think most people outside of extremist political operatives think along those terms. And demoralization is easily countered by reminding oneself that if it was truly hopeless, they wouldn't need the propaganda, whether it's opinion shaping or demoralizing.
pigeonburger
2mo ago
The main argument is that Section 230 as-is allows big tech to have their cake and eat it too. They can claim to be not liable for user content on the basis that they cannot control what is posted on them, then turn around and heavily "curate" content on political grounds. The idea would be to repeal Section 230 and replace it with an alternative that forces a consistent position; either you curate content and are liable for the content you allow, or you aren't liable but have to tolerate wrongthink on your platform.
pigeonburger
3mo ago
You can do similar things with crypto through smart contracts.
Will it cause a significant loss of political capital for Trudeau and his government?
No, political capital in favor of Trudeau is at very very low point right now, it's quite likely the people who still support Trudeau right now are not moderates and the lawfulness of the invocation is unlikely to be a concern to them.
It might be a bit more uncomfortable for the NDP, which supported the invocation, although the swing NDP voter is more likely someone who hesitated between NDP and Liberals than NDP and anything else, so unlikely to have much sympathy for the Conservative/"alt-right"-coded truckers either.
pigeonburger
5mo ago
They'll Let the CBC and every Canadian broadcaster die, such that it will just be Rebel News and American Media.
This is not going to happen. Guaranteed.
The media, even when entirely ideologically captured, has enough of a self-preservation instinct to half-heartedly lick the boot after a regime change. And any Conservatives, even and especially those who aren't knowingly playing the role of controlled opposition, are so starved for flattering media coverage that they'll let them flatter them and will forget any plan or promise to deal with the media, until it's too late, it's election season and the knife is buried so far in their back they can't pull it out anymore.
pigeonburger
5mo ago
there's some thumb(s) on the scale in a more direct way, even if it is behind the scenes
ESG investing is that thumb. Trillions of dollars in funds are earmarked for ESG (environmental, social and governance), the better a company's score on ESG metrics, the more investment they get from these funds. These metrics mostly measure how much a company aligns with the mainstream green, globalist, liberal thought-complex (to avoid mentioning The Cathedral). The thought-complex wants to see less white men in ads, so companies will obey, to the extent they can avoid damaging their sales too much, to qualify for this investment money.
pigeonburger
6mo ago
Well, 2013 here. https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2013-05-14 https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2013-05-22
The bad webcomics wiki has the best examples https://badwebcomicswiki.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Sinfest
Ultimately my heuristic for being quite certain the situation will improve is an extremely simplified model, I guess you could call it entitlement, but I think it's justified:
Right now I cannot afford to buy a decent home anywhere that people would want to live. There are millions of home where I live. My household income is upper middle class. If you distribute these homes starting at the top and working your way down there should be more than enough to reach me and others like me on the totem pole.
Whatever exact mechanisms will apply to get there, people in my salary situation are supposed to be able to own homes. The market will have to correct and make it possible for me to buy a home because a second home is not worth as much to people higher than me than my first home will be to me, and people below me will not have the means to beat me on the market.
tl;dr : There are homes all over the place, maybe not for everyone but at least for everyone from the upper to the middle-middle class. If I, in the upper-middle class, cannot afford to buy one now, who can? They're not gonna remain empty.
pigeonburger
6mo ago
Sorry if this is off-topic, but could I ask for a little courtesy with regards to Google Docs/Drive (and other sites that will automatically use an existing account)? Clicking on a shortened/obscured link and immediately seeing it going to Google and being opened on a personal, non-pseudonymous Google account was a bad surprise. I don't think right now Drive owners can see who has their drive opened on publically shared documents but that's the kind of thing that could change anytime from Google
Just asking to either not shorten/obscure Google Drive/Docs link, or to add a warning so people who don't want to risk associating real-names with pseudonyms know to open in Private Mode.
That's for a spouse, the situation I'm familiar with. I checked again, and for parents and grandparents, the sponsor vouches for 20 years (except in Quebec where it's 10 years).
The number would be 3 years then. The requirement to qualify is being a permanent resident and having lived in Canada for 3 years in the last 5 years.
More options
Context Copy link