vorpa-glavo
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User ID: 674
vorpa-glavo
11d ago
Not because Trump wouldn’t have sex with an escort in a Russian hotel room, but because wanting to be peed on is a weird fetish thing, and for the kind of person who whose idea of good sex is fucking his friends’ wives to get off on being ‘the man’, that is the fetish, the woman and what you do with or to her or what she does to you aren’t, except in the most perfunctory way to say that you did. Okay, I’m explaining this badly, but I mean that this is someone for whom sex is about what it means, about power, about who and whom. What simply isn’t important to that kind of thing.
While I agree with you that the pee tape stuff is almost certainly fake, I don't think your argument here actually does a good job dismissing it.
Five minutes on the right part of Deviant Art will show that many seemingly unrelated fetishes can all be enjoyed by the same person. Sure, most people gravitate to just one or two, but some "lucky" people seem to be interested in a wide variety of fetishes. Cucking other guys, and watersports can all be enjoyed by the same person.
The better argument is just that the "pee tape" was salacious nonsense from the Steele Dossier, and people have always loved salacious rumors about the rich and powerful, from Justinian and his wife, to Elagabalus, Nero or Caligula. Some of those rumors might have actually been true, but the fact that humanity seems to love such rumors so much they made it into the historical record should make us highly suspicious of whether they are true or false whenever we hear a new claim in that style.
vorpa-glavo
11d ago
If we are talking about duties, we now have collectivist category sometimes encompassing the whole humanity. For libertarian right to life to fully exist, everybody on Earth has to acknowledge and follow up on 6th commandment and duty not to murder.
I am not sure that that follows.
Wouldn't the Lockean Liberal view be something more like: mankind is created in the image and likeness of God. Yes, man is sinful, and fallen, but as a result of being made in the image of God, mankind is endowed with dignity which it is sinful to violate.
The set of principles surrounding this inviolable dignity, we call "rights" and it is the duty of us as individuals and as a society to set up governments which do not violate these rights.
The liberal or libertarian view seems to be that the individual is always correct and entitled to rights, but society is oppressive and sinful not to provide for such enlightened individual to exist.
I don't think this is quite correct. I actually think the liberal/libertarian view is closer to Jesus' teaching in the Parable of the Talents: we are all given different endowments, and we are expected to make the best use of those endowments that we can as individuals.
The liberal/libertarian simply believes that the best way to set up society is to let everyone pursue the proper management and development of their God-given talents by protecting a handful of core principles: life, liberty and property (or the pursuit of happiness.)
I'm personally glad that we had individuals like Stephen Hawking, Alan Turing, Temple Grandin and many others who contributed greatly to society through their unique endowments as individuals, even if a Christian might not otherwise approve of an atheist or a homosexual.
Additionally, modern rights do not have much with duties and obligations. Or to be more precise rights are entitlements absent duty or obligation. You are entitled to your right, you do not have any obligation toward that right.
Don't most rights imply a corresponding duty? Admittedly, most of the duties fall on the state, for example the right to free speech implies that neither the state nor its agents should suppress your speech, unless it is in a handful of exceptional categories like fraud, copyright, libel/slander, fighting words, and specific threats of violence.
However, I think that you can make the case that the West historically viewed rights as a bit broader than that. For example, free speech connects with the Greek virtue of parhessia (frankness of speech), and thus in its widest conception free speech implies an obligation to speak truth to power even if you're in a regime where that will get you killed. (And in fact, many Stoic philosophers, like Helvidius Priscus, did just that, criticizing the emperor and accepting their death sentences with poise and equanimity.)
He said that human rights exist as a fiction created by state as opposed to their existence as that of the sun or the moon.
Rights might be legal fictions in some sense, but so is money, or the concept of the United States, or the position of President of the United States. You could grind the atoms of the universe down and you would find no money, no debt, no contracts, because this is a category error. Those things exist as collective beliefs inside people's minds, as data patterns in their brains.
vorpa-glavo
13d ago
Trump 2.0 is a sui generis in American history, whether in his ineptitude, corruption, or malice (or, yes, aesthetics).
I mean, there are definitely comparisons you can make to past historical eras. Andrew Jackson's presidency has a lot of Trump parallels: non-politician elected to the presidency, political scandals that became loyalty tests for supporters, non-normative uses of presidential powers, firing large amounts of federal employees and putting in their own guys instead, disagreement with the central bank of the US, etc., etc.
And surely some of the presidents we had at the height of the machine politics era of US history were at least as corrupt as Trump is? Perhaps they had more decorum about it, but corruption is corruption.
vorpa-glavo
13d ago
Kind of reminds of the anecdote about Sphaerus the stoic philosopher:
Amongst those who after the death of Zeno became pupils of Cleanthes was Sphaerus of Bosporus, as already mentioned. After making considerable progress in his studies, he went to Alexandria to the court of King Ptolemy Philopator. One day when a discussion had arisen on the question whether the wise man could stoop to hold opinion, and Sphaerus had maintained that this was impossible, the king, wishing to refute him, ordered some waxen pomegranates to be put on the table. Sphaerus was taken in and the king cried out, “You have given your assent to a presentation which is false.” But Sphaerus was ready with a neat answer. “I assented not to the proposition that they are pomegranates, but to another, that there are good grounds for thinking them to be pomegranates. Certainty of presentation and reasonable probability are two totally different things.” Mnesistratus having accused him of denying that Ptolemy was a king, his reply was, “Being of such quality as he is, Ptolemy is indeed a king.”
It’s obvious girls are just different.
I broadly agree that men and women have different psychology around kids and nurturing, but has there been much research into ways gay men are psychologically more similar to women?
Like, aside from the obvious thing of being attracted to men, it seems like gay culture in several different times and places tends to adopt a lot of the trappings of the female gender role. Is this just because it is a slightly better way to seduce "straight guys", or does it reflect actual biological differences in gay men? Do gay men tend to have more thing-orientation, or person-orientation?
Is it possibly the case that gay men are better nurturers, on average, than straight men? (Though, if this turned out to be true, it would just shift to the idea that two lesbians raising kids would probably be a bad idea. Unless it is an averaging effect of some sort with other biological factors balancing out, then maybe the best nurturing parents might be: straight woman > lesbian woman ~= gay man > straight man.)
vorpa-glavo
18d ago
Yeah, this reminds me of a woman I met early one morning when I was waiting for the train for work. She had her whole life packed up in a big suitcase, and was sobbing. I felt bad for her, and asked her if everything was alright, and she started telling me her life story of going from one abusive boyfriend to another. Unfortunately, my train arrived and I had to leave her there, but I do sometimes wonder if some women don't have instincts that laser focus towards guys who will abuse them.
Makes me think of Scott's old Radicalizing the Romanceless post from 2014, and the character of Henry who shows up in Scott's hospital after beating his fifth wife, an enduring pattern for him. Which causes Scott to muse:
When I was younger – and I mean from teenager hood all the way until about three years ago – I was a ‘nice guy’. And I said the same thing as every other nice guy, which is “I am a nice guy, how come girls don’t like me?”
There seems to be some confusion about this, so let me explain what it means, to everyone, for all time.
It does not mean “I am nice in some important cosmic sense, therefore I am entitled to sex with whomever I want.”
It means: “I am a nicer guy than Henry.”
I think it is highly plausible that some subset of women have been "messed up" in some evopsych way that isn't super compatible with modern society, but I'm not sure what the best thing to do about it is. Letting people keep making mistakes that their biology tricks them into seems cruel, but being too paternalistic also seems to have serious downsides.
Why is it so beyond the pale to put conditions on a university that does get federal money, then?
I'm happy for federal money to come with strings attached. But within our system, I would prefer if the strings came from Congress and not from a unilateral action from the president.
It was wrong when Obama tried to do it with the Dear Colleague letter, and it is wrong when Trump tries to do it with the Harvard letter.
In many ways, I would prefer the federal government to stop funding universities altogether, so they couldn't use the withdrawal of funds as a threat against them. But in the context where the funding exists, I do think it should be handled in a way consistent with the principles of our constitutional republic as far as possible.
vorpa-glavo
20d ago
I would be okay with us passing a law that prevented discrimination on the basis of political ideology (some jurisdictions in the US already have such laws.) I might even be convinced that individual states passing laws to ensure more viewpoint diversity in state colleges could be a good thing.
But a single individual unilaterally twisting an existing law in order to interfere with hiring and firing decisions of a university in a way that interferes with the basic educational mission of that university is a bridge too far for me. I think universities need to change, but it should be done through gradual reforms or a new march through the institutions, not imposed all at once in a top down way for a variety of reasons.
vorpa-glavo
20d ago
This is honestly the problem I have with a lot of Trump 2.0. In broad strokes, a lot of the things the administration are doing could be sensible policies if done well, but instead Trump 2.0 seems intent on doing things in the most foolish and ill-considered way possible.
One of the examples that just gets me is the Harvard situation. Telling Harvard to not be racist was totally reasonable (especially since there was already Supreme Court precedence that what Harvard was doing was not legal), but following that up with, "Oh, and you've got to hire who we tell you to, and give us control of your admissions process so you admit more conservative students" was cuckoo bananas. The Trump administration somehow managed to make Harvard look sympathetic in all of that, and that was no easy feat.
vorpa-glavo
20d ago
There's no lending library in your region? Why not create one?
Because homeless alcoholics will use it as a shelter (and possibly light it on fire)?
In the case of Ben Franklin's lending library, it was all handled via mail so this is less of a consideration.
The streets in the neighborhood are dirty? Why not knock on your neighbors' doors and get everyone to pitch in for a street sweeper?
Because there's almost certainly some regulation that makes this illegal.
I do agree vetocracy is a big problem. But I am still inspired by modern examples like the Guerilla Public Service guy, who made helpful improvements to some freeway signs in California, and his improvements followed the jot and tittle of the legal specs for freeway signs.
I think if more people imitated his example, or the example of Ben Franklin, the world would be a better place. Honestly, if we're talking about civic disobedience, citizens being willing to be arrested for improving public infrastructure is exactly the world I want to live in.
vorpa-glavo
20d ago
There are a couple of strange personal attacks toward me, accusing me of being racist, or that I live in a bubble. "Rationalists are weirdos who talk about IQ all the time" is a very standard attack. Of course, in this society, discussion of intelligence (not that IQ measures that exactly, although it is certainly the closest proxy we have) is like discussing who is human and who is sub-human. Attacks of these nature are once again examples of upholding the moral valuation rule. Do people get attacked for "talking about beauty" or "talking about athleticism?"
I wasn't attacking you. I was disagreeing with you.
Whether I'm properly a rationalist or not, I am at least rat adjacent. I've read the Sequences, kept up with Scott Alexander, and I believe that IQ is largely genetic and not everyone is born with the same endowment of it. I wasn't saying "boo IQ" or "boo smartness" or anything of the sort.
I was saying what I thought to be the case: that you might have lived most of your life in a bubble. I was saying this because I believe on some level I have lived in such a bubble. I was a gifted and talented kid, took honors and AP classes, and my parents both worked in a STEM field. I know that I internalized the idea that intelligence was very important, if not the most important thing. But I try not to be an elitist or a misanthrope. At a very basic level, I like people, and there are plenty of virtues I value besides intelligence such as kindness, civic virtue, or industriousness.
I'm not offended or surprised at the idea that some people might have lower natural endowments of intelligence. I don't view discussing it as the same thing as discussing whether some people are sub-human or not. I just thought you might be living in a bubble of sorts, without any judgement. If I'm wrong, I apologize for my incorrect assessment of your situation.
I'm not sure I buy that we need noble lies of this kind to hold society together.
Surely, we can acknowledge that different people have different natural endowments without setting up society for the masses to tear down the great and powerful? Why isn't the message, "You're almost certainly not going to be The Guy, but if you play by the rules, and work hard, you can enjoy a standard of living that is better than a medieval king, thanks to The Guy", not a winning message?
I just feel like we could cultivate the virtues of comparing down not up, of comparing to the past instead of the present, and cultivate civic virtue and trust within society.
Honestly, civic virtue is the thing I want in my fellow citizens far more than intelligence (though I like living in the country that brain drains all the other countries.) When I read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, the thing that struck me was just his agency and civic virtue. There's no lending library in your region? Why not create one? The streets in the neighborhood are dirty? Why not knock on your neighbors' doors and get everyone to pitch in for a street sweeper? That level of agency is almost unthinkable in today's society, partially because the low hanging fruit of civic virtue has all been picked, but partially because of a learned helplessness in much of the population.
vorpa-glavo
20d ago
I am going to echo what some others have said here, and say that for the vast majority of people today, intelligence isn't particularly well-regarded.
Think about famous musicians and actors/actresses. While very few of them are dumb, it is always a notable exception when one of them is actually smart like Hedy Lamarr or Mayim Bialik.
Are athletes generally known for their intellectual rigor? Even politicians are supposed to be only slightly above average intellectually, nowhere near the heights of g-loaded academic fields in most cases.
No, I think you've existed in a bubble that highly regards intelligence. It is an easy human bias: when you know you're better than everyone else along dimension X, of course you're going to want to feel superior to everyone else because of it, even if good looks, or charisma or athletic ability or a dozen other non-g-loaded traits can substitute in a pinch among the most successful people in our society.
vorpa-glavo
28d ago
I don't privilege the blank slate hypothesis personally. My prior is somewhere in the spectrum between the suggested heredity from twin studies, and the suggested heredity from GWAS and GCTA for IQ and criminality.
I just think the HBD people here have a weirdly rigid view of biology. Like, sure, we would expect that as white and black environments become more similar, genetics becomes more important not less. I think there's a fair argument that black and white environment have become more similar in a lot ways, and so we should expect that we are starting to see more of the underlying genetic differences between the two groups, just as if we fed everyone the same 2000 calorie nutricube every day, we would expect the differences in height that result to be primarily due to genetics.
But I think a lot of "weird" stuff can hide in the remaining environmental differences between black and white people. Just as it would be slightly premature to say we have a handle on the genetic differences between rose cultivar A and rose cultivar B when we give them soil, sun and water conditions that are 80% similar, if the 20% of difference is a haphazard combination of pollutants, or uniformly more extreme weather conditions for one of the two cultivars.
Personally, I'm hoping it is genetic, because that would make the problem much more tractable. But I want to see the genes, and a proposed mechanism for how the genes work before I fully accept it. Of course, I will make Bayesian updates as we gather more data, but I think a lot of people update in inappropriately intense ways compared to the rigor of the evidence they are packing.
I am talking about Lockean liberalism, which was not "secular", even if its teachings differ from the Catholic church's.
Surely, "free speech" or "right to property" implies that at least some actors in society have positive duties to act a particular way? Otherwise, how does a Lockean Liberal defend these rights in practice?
There is more than one construction of libertarianism. I tend to fall more in the consequentialist/utilitarian foundation for libertarianism, though I do have a lot of sympathy for the side that starts with freedom as their starting point.
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