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sparticus-was-wrong


				

				

				

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joined 2022 September 05 11:18:10 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
User ID: 533


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
sparticus-was-wrong


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 11:18:10 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 533


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				In dating, do you ever follow up after not hearing back (i.e. ghosted)?
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Never.  Especially these days.  It will very likely be perceived as creepy behaviour by all the women who've rejected you.  If you don't hear back just assume it wasn't meant to be and move on.




but wedding announcements in the New York Times from like two weeks ago




I would treat this like the lottery: with enough people playing it's bound to happen to someone, but it's not going to happen to you so you shouldn't waste your time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


otherwise you'd expect 1 in 4 of them to be lighter.




But why would you expect this?  Why are we assuming earthen genetics?  What genetics do the fire breathing dragons have?  What are the genetics of the children of the forest?  For the "others"?  It's just as likely as black hair being a Baratheon "curse" that all Baratheon offspring will always have forever.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the issue is that IQ is measuring how intelligent one has managed to become.  But racists like to use it to determine what one is capable of becoming.  There was a very interesting case of the Dan Everett and the Piraha amazonian tribe (I can't find the article now, I believe it was in the Times or similar but it was more than a decade ago).  He claimed that the tribe had no numbers in their language (only "many", "few") etc. and were completely incapable of learning to count.... if they learned after about 16 years of age.  If they learned before then they could count just fine.


Of course there is much more evidence than this about forming connections before a certain age, etc.  My point is that even if Africa truly has "naturally" low IQs, this is almost certainly do to with education and if that were fixed the IQs would rise.  So again, the issue is that certain people try to look at IQ and point at something genetic but that's not remotely implied by IQ unless you could ensure the study group had the exact same education as the higher groups.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm personally strongly against "woke"-ism, but did Tolkien exclude black elves?  Did he mention their colour at all?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But that argument equally undermines the original complaint that it doesn't make sense for Valyrians to all have platinum blonde hair but different skin colors. Maybe the definitely blood-magic evil sacrifice thing that makes valyrians what they are doesn't impact skin color, who knows?




We shouldn't use the show to make assumptions about the book.  The show could be using an entirely different rule set (or, more likely, not caring about the story or any underlying consistency at all).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So GRRM just ragequit and said the whole thing works differently, that in Westeros your paternal family "type" will always predominate over another or something like that, because magic or whatever.




I wouldn't call that rage quitting.  I'd say this is the correct response.  Why would a world that has dragons, walking dead people, tree people and so on follow earthen genetics?  Do people in that world even have DNA?  The way the story is presented it very much "feels" like Ned's discovery (actually Jon Arryn's) is correct and for the reasons he stated.


It would also be plausible that families have some kind of "magic".  How else is one line able to manage to hold a position of power for thousands of years?  Do we have an analog to that in our world?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I believe you but do you have any sources that demonstrate this?  I have contacts who make this asinine claim and I know they won't take any of the sources I would be able to quickly find (e.g. Fox) so do you have better ones?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
MS CEO is not white, does that count?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The UFO boom might just be a distributed US intelligence gathering effort
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, you can't convince someone against something they really want to believe.  The fact is we have no conclusive evidence of anything breaking physics at all.  The physics says it's impossible, or if it could somehow happen we should also have time travel.  Why has no one ever come back if time travel will one day exist?


As Charles Stross said on his blog: people who believe we're being visited by aliens don't understand just how vast space is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For the same reason something like 90% of things on this world seem to work the way they did in medieval Europe?




Actually this is counter to your point.  The reason 90% of the things in ASoIaF work like the medieval Europe we know is because for the things he doesn't care about, he left them as they are (e.g. he didn't make a new gravity).  But the things he did care about, he changed.  For example, the people ride horses but some people ride dragons.  This is generally how any fantasy story would be written because no one wants to read some text explaining every possible aspect of a universe because the author changed everything.  Fantasy is like basically doing a "fork" of reality to save time and help prevent confusion (e.g. "how does gravity work in this universe again?")


This concept of a magical "biological seed" is pretty inherent to the plot.  Incest doesn't work the same either.  In our world you would expect centuries of inter-breeding to result in terrible deformities.  What they get is beautiful people who are sometimes insane.


In the book Ned used the "biological seed" evidence first and from there uncovered the rest because it wasn't even particularly well hidden (everyone at court but the King seemed to know already).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				In This House, We Believe in Gender Stereotypes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Does cancer have a cure?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Stop that! It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Could things like "black pill", "gender dysphoria", "trad-life", "degrowth" be examples of sociogenic illness?




I think this and other online things could be and it took something like this to awaken people to the possibility.  Also the flat earth movement, alien abductions (this one predates the internet a bit), "incels", etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You've entirely missed the point.  It doesn't matter if GMOs are good or not.  Based on the obscurity of the subs I saw this occur in and near identical posts (I remember going and checking similar posts because I initially thought it was the same person) demonstrates pretty well that it was bots/astroturfing.  Which was what my post was about.


Second of all, the issue with GMOs are not really about if it's healthy or not.  The problem is companies owning DNA and we've already seen ugly fall out from this.  It will only get worse.  I'm not prepared to advocate a total ban on all patents, as some do, but I think we should at least be able to say that DNA must be public information and cannot be patented.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Putting untested technology in your body completely unnecessarily (SK already had COVID) most certainly is a terrible imposition.  And that was the state back then, now we know it wouldn't have changed anything anyway.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				In This House, We Believe in Gender Stereotypes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was reacting to the statement that a medical condition implies a cure.  It may imply that there could be one but it doesn't imply that there is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That probably works, thanks.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Stop that! It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, so much of the world feels like living in "The emperor's new clothes" right now.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
People will find a way to game it.  Ads are just one of the many cat/mouse games.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Exactly, especially with things like Nate Silver taking tremendous heat for suggesting a Trump win was barely within the margin of error (edit: instead of completely mathematically impossible).  That makes it at least appear as though most media outlets saw the polls as propaganda and not reporting tools.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But things like the Comey letter seem to just be part of the cycle.  The "September surprise" or whatever it's called.  It happened again with Biden, just this time the FBI choice to help influence on behalf of the democrats instead of against them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You were open to being convinced here?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The UFO boom might just be a distributed US intelligence gathering effort
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Gimbal lock doesn't explain anything but making slow things appearing fast.  Radar is most likely a bug or some kind of tests designed to trick radar (which the US has conducted in the past).  Could you expand on what you mean by infra red signature?  If you're talking about my example, nothing was fooled there.  The pilots knew they were watching a bird but they saw the infra red video it looked like a UFO so they uploaded it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You may not need it, but it seems highly unlikely to me that various actors wouldn't be out there trying to insure their voice wins out.  Look at Twitter: the bot count seems to be higher than previously thought.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
These days, we prefer the name "linguistic relativity hypothesis".  Sapir-Whorf has some ugly ties to the Nazi's: they incorrectly used the theory as evidence for Aryan superiority (which is silly if you know German and some other language).  Their usage was ridiculous but, like pedophiles, just the mention of their name taints the subject, hence the name change (and, of course, it more accurately states what the theory is about).


I should do a better job of keeping various articles that discuss the theory as it's kind of a pet favourite of mine.  In my own life I've noticed Swiss-german native speakers tend to have a problem distinguishing smell and taste.  They use the same word for both.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you waited until everyone was already conditioned not to speak their mind then it wouldn't matter if they did ban theMotte, it would effectively be dead anyway.