popocatepetl
I'm the guy who edits every comment I write at least four times. Sorry.
User ID: 215
Nah he's not a troll. I think he's adopting a "woke is more correct than the mainstream" view that we do actually care about keeping whites on top of the totem pole, and should stop deluding ourselves and pretending like our objections are colorblind. I don't agree, but I'm not sure I want to counter his deductions because it seems like a convo where I'll be psychoanalyzed at every step.
EDIT Or maybe I spoke too soon...
popocatepetl
1yr ago
There's no functional difference between the two. People use "I feel" and "I think" as a preemptive defense against hostile readers attacking propositions stated without that label. Unfortunately, this makes writing less forceful and less enjoyable for everyone.
Let me include an earlier version of this comment:
I don't see any functional difference between the two. I think both are a form of preemptive defense against a hostile reader refusing to address your points by instead attacking your certainty in something you're only proposing for discussion.
While I didn't use "I feel" there, it's still weak writing.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
What is the appropriate, Christian, response to this situation? @Corvos
Jesus didn't say anything about giving money to con artists. @Lizzardspawn
Except for that bit in the Sermon On the Mount. @big-city-gay
Jesus said you should give away your surplus wealth to the poor pretty explicitly several times. However, correctly interpreting this would preclude Christianity becoming a world religion, so it's not the version of the church that came down to us.
Or that's my read anyway. The church does have slight cover because later in the Book of Mark, Jesus says:
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
By this passage, the Catholic Church came up with the interpretation that poverty, chastity, and obediance are only required of the priestly class, and regular Joes can still be saved if they ignore those rules. However, he is definitely still saying that giving all your stuff away to beggars is a thing you should be doing, even if God will cut you some slack.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
Need more evidence/citations that they are same.
Positivism is useless for defining words. I like my definition and think most people share it. As for why I contested you on a semantic point, it's common for people to try to redefine "smart" as "having the collection of mental attributes that lead to success", which is circular (good brain = good brain). This is IMO not a valid definition. From this comment, you are not falling into that trap, so my bad.
Anecdotally, using proxies for intelligence like vast breadth of knowledge, grasping new material extremely quickly, getting good grades in very challenging programs, and creative problem solving, I can think of a number of very smart people I know who don't do much in the way of in depth discussion, introspection, or navel-gazing. It doesn't interest or excite them the way, say, a cool engineering problem does. Their approach to their inner selves is -shrug-, to interpersonal politics is "well, it all works out in the end", etc. These things simply don't bother or preoccupy them, they find them tedious and a waste of time better spent on cool problems.
Highlight meaningful. You rephrased my definition. Their smartness is the mental quality that leads to them becoming engrossed in untangling systems: that is to say, analysis. We on the Motte are engrossed in analyzing and introspecting on one particular type of problem. They have another. Non-smart people get engrossed in analyzing neither. They just live life and vibe, which is probably the better way to go about this thing.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
Would probably need to be limited to married couples to do that
This seems to suggest the political correlation with fertility rate holds even if you include unmarried fertility. But putting that aside, by the pure math of the thing, the more children you have the older you must be, and older folks skew conservative.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
The late medieval French peasant had a decent gig if you don't mind bone crushing material poverty. As in, "the-roof-can-be-lifted-to-eavesdrop-outside" poverty. "Manure-on-the-floor-because-livestock-sleeps-with-you-in-winter" poverty. "Your-second-son-will-be-homeless-vagrant-shepherd" poverty.
It would be nice if Keynes had been right, and we could have collectively said "okay, let's stop the hedonic treadmill there and just chill more going forward", but that's not the way status competition works. The peasants weren't industrious because medieval society wasn't wired to reward productivity with status; ours is.
Who are you referring to?
?
Scott Alexander, as I'm sure you'll know unless you're someone else wearing /u/DrManhattan16's nick as a skinsuit. The NYT doxxed him, forcing him to resign from his job, and eventually published an article highlighting his connections to HBD and gender gap in math ability writing, and suggesting obliquely that things like his blog are too dangerous to be tolerated on tech platforms. There were also people ready to publish damaging private emails from Scott after he predictably wrote a self-defense which I'm sure is purely a coincidence and was not coordinated in advance at all.
you'll have to pony up $8/month for sync
It's cheaper with the .edu discount.
Obsidian changed the price to $4/month yesterday. Pretty negligible unless you're poverty mode, but I already have a good setup, and private github repos are free.
Also, I use more than one vault. Only getting one for $48/year is a bit lame, especially since there's already a 1gb size constraint anyway.
popocatepetl
2mo ago
Are you a member?
I wouldn't provide value to the group, nor do I think the group would provide value to me (I'm not much of a cancel target). If one of these two variables changed I'd consider giving it a shot.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
Let's say we ban gene editing entirely, and practice an older, simpler form of eugenics - freeze the sperm of the best, smartest, most honorable and strongest people in society, and have a significant portion of children come from them. And somehow everyone magically agrees this is good and not state-sponsored cuckoldry or anything. That's hardly 'transhumanism' or extinction-level. Would you oppose that?
This is an extension of the normal process of sexual selection that's been around with us as long as humans have been around. In practice, the society that does something like this will begin to resemble the many polygamous societies, which carries its own can of worms. (The padishah khan gets thousands of wives, his beys get dozens, his ghazi get two or three, and slave gets perhaps one if he's very lucky.) But I would not consider this transhumanism or autogenocide -- if perhaps unfair to the back half of the bell curve. Sexual selection is, on its own, a horror we have accustomed ourselves to to the point of not noticing -- but it is one that is intrinsic to our nature, much like eating brains is intrinsic to the botfly.
Gene editing for mental traits is an extremely obvious Schelling fence. It is hypothetically possible to do gene editing for certain mental traits that would not change the nature of humanity. However, I am confident if we take that step as a species, we will get Transhumanist-Gandhi, not 95%-Human-Gandhi.
what do you mean by driving extinction..
Are you against the Flynn effect?
People nowadays have significantly higher IQs than past generious simply out of better acess to food and education.
I define a human species, subspecies, "race", ethnicity, family group, etc by genotype of mental attributes. Higher IQ, more conscientiousness, different levels of neuroticism and openness to experience due to the environment (Flynn effect or drugs) falls under phenotype. A group of monkey living in Delhi does not go extinct if tourists train them to bow and solve puzzles for treats, making them smarter and leaving more time to groom themselves.
On the other hand, if you were to use artificial selection to eliminate people with a genotype that may articulate as having lower cortical volume or a more active limbic system, you have exterminated that group of humans.
Instead of virtue signaling about non-existent problems
I said at the very beginning this is a question of values. A value does not need to be justified by pragmatism. (Indeed, you have smuggled into your complaint the totally unjustified normative value that economic growth and a higher functioning society are worth developing, or that a smarter human is "better" than a dumber human.)
When the AGI congress of 2068 proposes a bill for neutering the economically useless welfare recipient humans and uploading their consciousnesses into a more efficient digital form that allows them to hold down a job — including getting rid of those pesky family instincts, high aggression, and ability to lie — I suspect you will object, too. Your objections will not be pragmatically justified.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
Thanks! You've found it.
Thanks for the specific quotes. I'll save this one to reference it.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
How are LessWrong comments better than they were two months ago? Is there a good library you can point to of comment threads where the top karma-sorted post is fiercely downvoted? Or where highly upvoted, low effort comments are near the bottom because they have 0 karma? That's a good minimum standard for saying the change "worked".
When your chief executive fears nothing, period, there’s no telling what can happen.
Not really. When powers are separated, the executive can rattle around in its little box, hemmed in on all sides, and then leave power, frustrated but not existentially threatened.
Whereas here, we have a pretty good idea of what can happen. He’s not going to get executed or even go to prison for a campaign finance crime.
As I said, it's an escalation. The Biden adminsistration has apparently made prosecuting Trump on something, anything, a major goal. And now for the first time in history a president has been indicted. Don't you think this will be returned with interest if the faction Trump represents gets back in power?
popocatepetl
1yr ago
I realize this is the response this post was likely designed to elicit but:
Our system, including institutions both public and private, formal and informal, hard and soft, is configured such that the misbehavior of favored groups is tolerated, while the misbehavior of disfavored groups is punished to maximum extent the decision-makers feel they can get away with.
What more is there to say? At this point the people on the winning side should continue doing what they're doing even if they disagree with it; if they ever stop or fail to keep the boot on their own foot, the future is not pretty for them.
This seems to me a quite bad refutation of white nationalism. The meat of your objection is that wignats would have to use violence to achieve their policy goals, but apparently you've never had a frustrating conversation with a libertarian. That's true for every political movement ever. Whether we are talking about ethnic cleansing of hispanics or civil rights laws for blacks or motor vehicle registration for your SUV, the enforcement of policy ultimately rests on an escalating sequence of consequences that end in non-compliants being gunned down by police in the street.
Yes, making an ethnostate would require reprisals on people who don't want to obey. This is equally true of patrolling borders. China, Korea, and Japan are not "naturally" homogenous today. They are homogenous because they have continued to enforce a threat of violence against border crossers who do not meet their preferences.
This post could be rewritten to condemn any political movement that is not in power, save ancaps.
I have to admit, I don't get what everyone is talking about in this thread. Katja looks plenty attractive to marry and 36 is not disqualifyingly old, unlike the 42yo on HackerNews a few months ago. She probably did miss the boat. Katja's prospects, on the other hand, are quite good given her industry.
That said, I also don't see this as a case of a lost soul improving herself? I imagine the equivalent low SMV male posting a classified seeking applications for girlfriend would also get eyerolls. The "I'm willing to consider monogamy" part in particular stands out as comparable to "I'm willing to consider getting a steady job" for a guy.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
I've never read a more pathetic diatribe of self centered nonsense. [...] Absolutely pathetic.
Meta-debate. I disagree that The Motte is anything like what OP is portraying, but that's just a difference of opinion. No need to morally shame them for disagreeing and thinking we're Voat... the sphinx is the least interesting part of a debate even when what he says is true.
The Motte is just a parlour game we all play. Barring the astronomical chance that someone here is a future revolutionary a la Lenin who reshapes the world according to theories they read here, The Motte provides zero external benefit and therefore people have zero duty to engage. There's no point if they're not having fun debates.
I think my problem with the hobbit mindset is that Hobbiton will not be left alone. Hanania seems to have a deep-seated disdain for mundane domesticity and, as the Zoomers say, "vibing". I just don't believe the hobbits will be allowed to vibe. If the ring doesn't get to Mordor, the Shire will be perfected by Sauron; if it does, the Shire will still be scoured. The hobbits' complacency only allows Saruman to sweep in and turn it into a police state virtually unopposed — and I don't believe for a second Tolkien didn't have an allegory in mind when he was writing that.
popocatepetl
2mo ago
Okay, but then why do the classes hate each other. It's not like Marxism- their class interests aren't necessarily opposed.
On the contrary, social status is zero sum. In recent decades social status has been docked from some and redistributed to others — the blues say this is a good thing and that, in fact, reds still have a cache of unearned social status that should be stripped. This goes beyond racial justice ideology, to be clear; you will often hear school teachers or even PhD's complaining bitterly that plumbers make more than them, as if the plumber's salary is somehow decreasing theirs. Or decrying that liberal arts degrees don't secure a "good job". By this they mean "social inferiors have prominence that should be reallocated to me".
Blue and red class interests are fundamentally opposed.
popocatepetl
1yr ago
I don't see your inference that a republican victory will de-escalate things. The last time republicans won on populism, partially on the back of "basket of deplorables" , left extremism (if that's even the right word) kicked into overdrive. The lesson learned in 2016 — based on IRL conversations, not just Twitter — was that the country is shockingly still full of dangerous racists who need to be suppressed. I predict a similar reaction if Trump-backed candidates outperform expectations.
If anything, a republican drubbing might lead to de-escalation, if that's actually what you care about. McConnell's concern about "poor candidate quality" risking a slam dunk GOP victory will come true, the populists will be discredited. The RINO wing of the party will resume control. Things will go back to "normal".
popocatepetl
8mo ago
I disagree with your premise that childhood bullying is less than before. Bullying is a universal feature of children's culture (and arguably, human culture) where low status outsiders are ritually demeaned and excluded by the mainstream. If violence is allowed, violence will be used; if not, the bullying will express in other ways. It's just that the people you think should be bullied are no longer outsiders; they are the mainstream, doing the bullying.
Noone needs to face anything, just increasingly automate weapon systems and let the peasants die. If they're not needed and can't use violence to effectively overthrow the system then why would anyone need to pay any attention to them whatsoever?
The forum is replete with obvious violations of the rules. The mods obviously won't mod comment like this, because then they'd be modding like 30% of all the comments here.
"Elites", "AI companies", and "governments" are not the outgroup. They're stand-ins for Moloch. "Progressives", "woke PCMs", or "democrats" are the outgroup. If @Azth's were writing about them in this way — or implying anyone reading this forum or talking to him thinks it's fine if peasants die — he'd be modded within a few hours.
For an alternate example from the left side of things, it's possible to write extremely mean things about "capitalism" or "corporations" without getting modded.
It's still the weekend. If nothing pops up by the end of the workweek, I'll have been wrong and will be suitably embarrassed and nonplussed.
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