My theory is that the modern culture war in the US stems from gay marriage. Basically, gay marriage did not win democratically in the US, it was imposed from above. Therefore blue tribe is deeply insecure in their victory. And they have responded by trying to crush any and all dissent.
It would have been healthier if blue tribe had to win gay marriage the old-fashioned way, through the formal constitutional amendment process. Win referendums state-by-state. It would have taken longer, but having your fellow citizens vote with you gives confidence in the result, that it's unlikely to be taken from you.
Perhaps the loss in the California referendum spooked blue tribe, and made them think the amendment path was impossible. Personally I do think Americans would have eventually voted for gay marriage. "The pursuit of happiness" is deeply entrenched in the American soul.
A couple analogous situations. Women's suffrage was rejected by the Supreme Court. So it had to be done via amendment. But doing so made it utterly accepted.
Canada passed gay marriage with two free votes in Parliament. One under a Liberal government and one under the subsequent Conservative government. Both votes passed, and thus gay marriage has iron-clad legitimacy in Canada. This is how the process is supposed to work, what Parliament is for.
rverghes
4mo ago
A side note: I sometimes worry that modern spay/neuter campaigns are, on net, reversing the domestication process for cats. Practically the only individuals that are allowed to reproduce these days are 1) expensive purebreds and 2) feral cats so averse to humans that they escape TNR programs. If you have a snuggly, trainable one, let her make more!
Same thing for dogs, only with added bonus that it's the aggressive breeds which get to breed as their owners don't care enough to spay/neuter.
rverghes
10mo ago
Am I the only one who feels sympathetic to the lawyers?
The media and the tech companies have been hyping GPT like crazy: "It's going to replace all our jobs." "You're foolish if you don't learn how to use GPT." "Google/Microsoft is replacing their search engine with GPT."
So these lawyers give it a try and it appears to work and live up to the hype, but it's really gaslighting them.
rverghes
1yr ago
As the OP suggests, it's a question of numbers. Let's say 1 in 10,000 lawsuits are valid. But you don't know which one, so it takes some time to figure out. That's a massive amount of resources. Absolute immunity allows the court system to simply toss all those lawsuits out.
It's the frivolous lawsuit problem on steroids. Every person a judge ruled against or a prosecutor prosecutes has reason to file against that judge or prosecutor.
rverghes
1yr ago
Personally, I prefer a system where you mark your PR comment with tag that explicitly calls out how important you think the issue is. It allows you to be complete, but also convey how much you care. I use:
MUST - I think this is an error of logic, not meeting requirements, or otherwise a major concern. I will fail the PR over this unless you convince me otherwise.
SHOULD - Probably should change this to make it more clear or adhere to standards. But if you feel strongly that your way is correct, I'm not really going to fuss.
MAYBE - random ideas, nitpicks, etc. Stuff that you can adopt or not at your leisure, and I don't really care at all.
rverghes
1yr ago
Best theory I've seen is that normally radar filters out slow-moving objects to avoid false positives. After the large balloon last week, NORAD recalibrated and went looking for slow-moving objects and found several that were real.
rverghes
1yr ago
The most interesting explanation along those lines is that it dates from the PMC increasing investment in the stock market. Mutual funds, 401ks, etc. All of that really started getting emphasized in the 90s. This investment aligned the PMC with capital, rather than labour. So the political beliefs shifted to something which capital could support, could pretend to be the good guys. Also labour could be weakened and outsourced, and this would be morally okay because of the their newly questionable beliefs.
What are your feelings about weather? In particular, snow?
Personally I enjoy snow, but there is a big difference living somewhere which gets a fair amount and somewhere which doesn't have any.
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