philosoraptor
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User ID: 285
philosoraptor
7d ago
A quick aside about Kant, since so many people blame Kant for things that he really had little or nothing to do with (I recall a program on a Catholic TV channel where they accused Kant of being a "moral relativist", which is... distressing and concerning, that they think that...).
Related pet peeve of mine - ask a roomful of medical ethicists (who should bloody well know better, and to be fair some of them do) about Kant and "autonomy". It's darkly hilarious. Just because Kant made extensive use of a word that is often translated as "autonomy", a lot of people seem to think he held something like a modern medical ethicist's typical views about the importance of self-determination, informed consent, and so on. This is almost the exact opposite of the truth. Kantian "autonomy" means you have to arrive at the moral law by your own reasoning, and not out of (say) social pressure, for it to really "count" - but there's only one moral law, and it's the same for everyone, with zero space for individualized variation.
(And you aren't really acting morally unless you follow it out of duty, not because it feels good or gets good results. Just arriving at the same object-level conclusions about how to act isn't enough.)
philosoraptor
7d ago
What if you conceal it in a mirror or somewhere non-obvious? Neither Epstein nor the average prisoner is a secret agent with bugfinding tools.
As you practically said yourself, this is spy-novel stuff. You are almost certainly greatly overestimating the budget and technological sophistication involved.
Besides, much of the purpose of such things is to serve as a deterrent. Hiding them works against that. (As well as being able to maintain or replace them easily, not that this was a high priority in this case on anyone's version of events.)
philosoraptor
9d ago
Poor situational awareness, a liberal worldview, a love of cheap drinks?
[D] All of the above.
philosoraptor
9d ago
I once saw a complaint that all the women in pornos acted like men, which seemed to me to be onto something but not quite right. Years later I finally managed to articulate it - the women in pornos act like men think they would act if they were hot women. So...
Do you know how straight men would act if women were as DTF as men are? Hooooo boy.
Basically like they do in porn.
philosoraptor
10d ago
Flip 1 and 2, and reverse the order of 4-6 (for one thing the whole structure surely pushes against individualism), and you might have the beginnings of something. But your #2 is clearly #1 and it's not close.
philosoraptor
12d ago
I think the complaint is more one of prioritizing the letter of those principles in a short-sighted way, that undermines the reasons they were thought to be desirable principles. Like, if your speech rights can be trampled almost as much as if you lived in the old USSR as long as it's not government directly doing the dirty work, even if government played a large role in creating the conditions that made that possible, and libertarians are mostly standing by and letting it happen, that doesn't sound like a very libertarian world to me.
philosoraptor
13d ago
the only state that is plausibly a nation is Texas
Hawaii?
philosoraptor
13d ago
I occasionally see "meat" and "poultry" treated as separate categories, but mostly in older sources and even they seem to tacitly concede the two are closely related. I've never knowingly met anyone in person who thought it was an important distinction. This is the first I've ever heard of pork products not counting as "meat", though. Where do you see this usage?
philosoraptor
17d ago
Vast oversimplification, but yeah, after 5 solid years of unbridled acceleration into identity politic madness, can you point to ANY particular piece of media, or successful ad campaign, or memorable (in a positive way!) pop culture event that got published/released that had any lasting impact?
The woke aspect does seem to have helped Baldur's Gate 3 a little, and it managed to both have those aspects and be a really good traditional-ish RPG. Though other than budget constraints, I don't see why it couldn't have had the elements it had and a PC option who was a conventionally attractive, more or less straight woman. (Shadowheart is at best an honorable mention in that regard.)
philosoraptor
27d ago
Your initial question was:
Why on earth would a two-state solution, once established 'backslide' into something else?
This is hopelessly naive if you have the slightest familiarity with either side's ideological commitments. No amount of logic-chopping and theorycrafting will make that question not be... well, dumb. The Palestinian side's goal is for Israel to cease to exist.
no one has yet to say why, conditioned on you having at least semi-successfully reached a two-state solution based on borders drawn by Israel, you'd be highly likely to see the borders change yet again in a way unfavorable to Israel.
They probably wouldn't, but that doesn't mean Palestinians would stop trying to accomplish that, or refrain from doing something even worse than 7/10 toward that end. It's clear to anyone paying attention that there's no stable two-state solution in the cards.
If you were to reach that point, obviously the major border questions would have been settled already.
Oh my God, no no no no no no no. The only way reaching that point is imaginable is as a temporary and unstable compromise. It is only by pretending it's a theoretical, academic question where historical context doesn't matter that you've managed to talk yourself into thinking otherwise.
philosoraptor
27d ago
If this were happening in a vacuum with no historical context, that might be a good argument. But this situation is all about historical context, and to ignore it to this degree is somewhere between hopelessly naive and wilfully blind.
philosoraptor
29d ago
A 50-year old is an X-er, not a boomer, and not even an especially old X-er. The boomers were their parents' generation.
philosoraptor
30d ago
Please do bear in mind that most people who wanted Ukraine to win thought they were going to lose in weeks/months, and were pleasantly surprised that the Russians proved so incompetent at modern maneuver warfare, and the Ukrainians so resilient. This includes the bulk of Western military/geopolitical analysts.
I do distinctly remember saying at the time - not here, but to friends and coworkers - that Ukraine's best scenario (that was realistic without the US or EU doing most of the heavy lifting) was creating a Vietnam-style quagmire. In broad strokes, it seems to me that's what's happened.
philosoraptor
1mo ago
Is it possible this is what Hylynka (sp?) had in mind when he implied that (oversimplifying) basically everyone here was really a progressive? He never made much sense to me when he was in that particular mode, but it seems to me you're arguing for something that could be stated that way.
philosoraptor
1mo ago
I quite vividly remember someone posting a comment about there being a siren and someone else saying "can't find any news confirming it" and not piping in with "it's me, I'm the news, posting from the spotty internet in the bomb shelter". And then it became just increasingly not the right moment for it (also I was quite sleep deprived and dealing with lots of other more immediate concerns).
Those posts from the shelter would probably have been awesome, actually, though I completely understand you having other concerns that were far higher priorities at a moment like that.
philosoraptor
1mo ago
It doesn't sound a thing like him.
philosoraptor
1mo ago
Your math seems to assume they would only have lived one more year each. (If I understood it right, and if I didn't, it might be because most of the symbols seem to be missing...) Many were kids with their whole life ahead of them. It's 11 minutes per year they would have lived on average, plus other considerations of the sort self_made_human pointed out.
Like seemingly a lot of people, my initial guess was 80 mil.
The thought process was something like this, though less articulate. (Coming up with that number took me less time than it will take you to read this, and much less than it's going to take me to write it.)
"I know it's big. Like I'm positive it's over 50 mil. On the other hand, if it was US tier, much less China/India tier, I'm pretty sure I would know that. I wouldn't be completely shocked to learn it was over 100, if it wasn't by too much, but if you made me choose I'd bet against it. But probably closer to 100 than 50... 80 seems in the right ballpark? Maybe 85? More likely 85 than 75, but probably around there somewhere."
I don't quite count that as a win, but I guess I could have done a lot worse.
philosoraptor
2mo ago
Rarely do these things turn out to neatly fit anyone's narrative. I think this or something like it is very likely indeed.
philosoraptor
2mo ago
"Road train" is an Australian term for a semi that's pulling more than one trailer. I only know this from my attempts to decipher Midnight Oil lyrics and didn't 100% follow that part of the discussion myself, but that's the basic thing it's about.
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Without the last five words, yes. With them... probably still yes actually, but only because it's a good habit to get into.
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We're notorious here for what's known locally as the "Winnipeg Rolling Stop", so... almost yes? Like, a somewhat close approach to this is generally enough as long as you're paying attention. Personally I'm much more rigorous about red lights than stop signs.
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No. They're meant for really bad driving conditions, and barring that (or traffic congestion that makes it impossible to reach much less exceed them), it's perfectly safe and reasonable to treat them as polite suggestions. That said, if you're doing 130 klicks in an 80 zone, that's over the top.
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Again, yes if you'd only leave out the last few words. But riding someone's bumper is never acceptable behaviour. That's both unsafe and assholish and has absolutely no upside. If you ever do this on purpose, you are a dick.
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Yes, as a last resort. That said, needing to do so usually reflects poor planning on your part. Also, sometimes you yourself are the one who should be slowing down to let them by, then falling in behind them, depending on traffic conditions.
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Of course not. I'm a very strong believer that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I'll pretty much never object to someone breaking any of these in the specific ways I've outlined (except mildly to #5) as long as they're paying enough attention to not pose a danger to me or others.
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When the light turns green, move your fucking ass!!! Sitting there for 4-5 seconds is a dick move especially for a protected turn signal that may only last 15 seconds or so.
philosoraptor
2mo ago
philosoraptor
2mo ago
You will not make yourself more romantically successful with women by putting on dog ears, getting on all fours and barking because there are a couple women out there that like dogs.
With men, on the other hand, that'd probably work.
philosoraptor
2mo ago
Rarely do people waste space voicing empty agreement.
Especially here, where low-effort posts like that are explicitly against the rules. This may make some views seem less popular or more controversial than they really are, even among posters here, if that's all you're going by.
Is this true in NYC? Because if so, seemingly every second Manhattan driver needs a talking-to.
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