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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   24318 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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Im a bit surprised noone talked about it last week, but a big post came out about the history of Leverage Research. It was a major organisation in the same social circles as early Rationalism, but fell into disgrace shortly before covid after thoroughly driving themselves insane with woo/cult adjacent stuff. I was somewhat familiar with the case from back then, but reading this some things really came together for me, and I feel I now understand much better why the in-person rats are like that.

Reading this, there where many times where people seemed to me stupidly impressed by something. What little Ive seen of Anders (the founder/leader) psychological theory, that convinced so many he was worth working with, was the same. Why did they fall for this?

I think its because many of the people who got into Rationalism/EA/etc, did it because they Fucking Love Science. There really arent many places now where people believe in the power of science to transform the world in a big way, beyond what you need to rattle off to secure grants/investments, and it makes total sense that these people would be enamoured with it. There was of course also methodological thinking going on in rationalism, but these people would variously: adopt something from it as their shiny new tool, learn others as a shibboleth only, or saw the issue in self-improvment rather than understanding. They didnt do a systematic evaluation of methods generally, and keep it as a going concern in the back of their head, the way someone else might have done, and might have expected more people to do, if they didnt have in-person contact.

I dont want to blame them for this too much; I didnt get deep into methodology because I saw it as necessary for my journey to science utopia, either. I like science and all, but I got into methodology because I find it interesting for its own sake; from the rationalist perspective, Im drastically lacking in agency/urgency, its just that this is less personally harmful and more socially normal than what happened to them.

Measuring from the other end, the only case I clearly know of who really did develop significant methodological understanding because he thought it was neccessary for his project, is Yud. What did it take to make him do that? He thought he had previously been on course to destroy the world. The defense rests its case.

The "scene" is also bigger than just Rationalism, and the people who got into Leverage very deep may not have had as much contact with it as we might think someone moving to SF for this would. Still, a lot of social pathologies in the ratsphere make far more sense to me with a weaker version of this mechanism in mind.

I did my Mormon mission in the Czech Republic. The Czechs have been in a fierce competition with the Estonians for a few decades over who can be the most atheist country in the world. Estonia appears to have a slight edge in the competition. Estimates range from approximately 1/2 to about 2/3 of either country being atheists.

Having talked to an extremely high number of (ostensibly atheist) Czechs about religion, I learned something important: being nominally atheist often doesn't mean believing in strict adherence to rationalism, the scientific method, etc. as a source of knowledge. I'd estimate that the overwhelming majority of "atheist" Czechs believed in what could loosely be called "new age gibberish" or "woo".

My point being: most people are not actually rationalists, and it's not surprising to see this, even amongst self-proclaimed rationalists. I'm not either, I think it's a retarded ideology, largely for reasons that were best covered by C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man when he talks about "men without chests" so I won't retread them here. But people who are strict about adherence to finding knowledge exclusively through "rational" methods are the exception, not the rule. Even amongst "rationalists".

All(most) rationalists are atheists, but not all atheists are rationalists.

I think rationalism is kind of like stoicism (both philosophies I like and try to practice, though I don't really "identify" as either a rationalist or a stoic) - the basic outlines are unobjectionable and sensible, and more people would benefit by them, but the more fine-grained you get, the harder it is to be a "true" rationalist/stoic. Nobody can act with pure rationalism or stoicism all the time, and the more seriously you take it the more you become entangled in questions of "what is the real rationalist/stoic answer, anyway?"

I think rationalism is kind of like stoicism (both philosophies I like and try to practice, though I don't really "identify" as either a rationalist or a stoic)

They are absolutely different philosophies. Ethically, Stoicism (similar to Christian ethics) is virtue ethics system, rationalists/Yudkowskyans are utilitarian consequentialists. Stoicism is focused on individual and it teaches how individuals can lead a virtuous life. One of the principles is Hierocles’ Concentric Circles (similar to Catholic subsidiarity) where responsibility flows from virtuous individual to virtuous broader society. Yudkowskyian rationalists have completely opposite system, they ground their morality in "greater good" of Effective Altruism, where they obsess about macro level and maximizing utility for maximum number of conscious beings including those not yet born.

Rationalists are reductionist materialists/physicalists. The universe is dead, intelligence is emergent property of unthinking universal wavefunction, morality is accident of evolutionary engineering of biological computers that gave birth to human intelligence. Stoics believed that the universe has telos, that it is a thinking organism and by being virtuous you align with this universal telos - it is similar to Thomistics natural law philosophy.

Those two systems could not be more different. In fact it is one of my main criticism of Rationalists.

I'm aware they are different philosophies, though I disagree that they "could not be more different." I find them similar in their systemic approaches. As I said, I don't identify with either or take either one as ground truth about the nature of reality.

They are not only different, they are opposite to each other in all ways that matter. They are bitter enemies.

You seem more invested in the conflict than I am, but it doesn't bother me. While I wouldn't call myself a "stoic rationalist" or a "rationalist stoic," I wouldn't scoff at the label.

I think the part that hangs you up is the discipline of stoicism I find the least relevant, that of Physics, concerning the nature of God. I find stoicism more interesting in its mental practices and its connection to CBT.

Sure, you can also say that you are atheistic theist and that they both have in common that they discuss God and that it makes you feel good as part of your CBT. I am not denying that, I am just arguing that saying I think rationalism is kind of like stoicism is incoherent, that is all.

Well, I understand your opinion. I think you're wrong and honestly, being a little silly here, but I am not trying to persuade you to be either a rationalist or a stoic.

Their similarity is in following logical, thought-out principles. The real opposite is normiedom, i.e. just do whatever everyone else is doing, and "we do it like this because we've always been doing it like this, my father and his father did it so as well" and I live my life like this because that's what everyone else expects and they would point their fingers and laugh at me otherwise. It also differs from the morality that the tyrant would want to install in everyone which boils down to "I do it because I was ordered to do it".

Both Stoicism and rationalism are about taking control of your own simpleton mind and applying superior individual control over it using one's own willpower and superseding the trappings of regular normal-people thinking. I know that this is a broad umbrella, but "just be a normal person and do what everyone else is doing, go with the flow, don't ever be weird" is the true opposite pole.

Their similarity is in following logical, thought-out principles. The real opposite is normiedom, i.e. just do whatever everyone else is doing, and "we do it like this because we've always been doing it like this, my father and his father did it so as well" and I live my life like this because that's what everyone else expects and they would point their fingers and laugh at me otherwise

This is actually a false dilemma fallacy, you can use the same logic to show how any coherent philosophical system has more in common with one another compared to "normiedom". Additionally it is self-defeating specifically from rationalist perspective. Adhering to tradition and proclaiming normie beliefs is absolutely a rational thing to do. One can argue that these norms are just highly-optimized and time tested heuristics. My argument is that following stoic as opposed to rationalist philosophy would lead to a completely different heuristics and norms.

Both Stoicism and rationalism are about taking control of your own simpleton mind and applying superior individual control over it using one's own willpower and superseding the trappings of regular normal-people thinking. I know that this is a broad umbrella, but "just be a normal person and do what everyone else is doing, go with the flow, don't ever be weird" is the true opposite pole.

There is no need to sneer at it. In fact stoics did not sneer at simpletons, they saw them as agents with spark of logos fully capable of manifesting it. Additionally one of four cardinal virtues of stoics was wisdom in both senses - Sophia as understanding of math and logic, but also Phronesis as practical wisdom rooted in tradition. Plus again stoics were interested in personal virtue, many of their individual or societal prescriptions would be sneered at by rationalist as backwards and "irrational" in Yudkowskian utilitarian/consequentialist sense.

Rationalists are reductionist materialists/physicalists.

The Stoics were also materialists/physicalists, even if they did believe in a divine telos, as you say.

What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one, philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man’s doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.

-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.17

Note that Ryan Holiday, the most famous Stoic influencer online, regularly seems to have embarrassing emotional meltdowns in public, usually over politics. A lesson in that for dealing with Actually Existing Rationalism, too.

I think a lot of modern stoic practitioners consider Ryan Holiday to be one of the many $toic grifters who gives the philosophy a bad name. Of course, there's always going to be the "no true Scotsman" problem, but the problem of Stoics in name only is a much older problem, if Epictetus is anything to by:

Observe yourselves thus in your actions, and you will find to what sect you belong. You will find that most of you are Epicureans, a few Peripatetics, and those feeble. For wherein will you show that you really consider virtue equal to everything else or even superior? But show me a Stoic, if you can. Where or how? But you can show me an endless number who utter small arguments of the Stoics. For do the same persons repeat the Epicurean opinions any worse? And the Peripatetic, do they not handle them also with equal accuracy? who then is a Stoic?

As we call a statue Phidiac which is fashioned according to the art of Phidias; so show me a man who is fashioned according to the doctrines which he utters. Show me a man who is sick and happy, in danger and happy, dying and happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Show him: I desire, by the gods, to see a Stoic. You cannot show me one fashioned so; but show me at least one who is forming, who has shown a tendency to be a Stoic. Do me this favor: do not grudge an old man seeing a sight which I have not seen yet. Do you think that you must show me the Zeus of Phidias or the Athena, a work of ivory and gold?

Let any of you show me a human soul ready to think as God does, and not to blame either God or man, ready not to be disappointed about anything, not to consider himself damaged by anything, not to be angry, not to be envious, not to be jealous; and why should I not say it direct? desirous from a man to become a god, and in this poor mortal body thinking of his fellowship with Zeus. Show me the man. But you cannot. Why then do you delude yourselves and cheat others? and why do you put on a guise which does not belong to you, and walk about being thieves and pilferers of these names and things which do not belong to you?

I agree - I have a high opinion of Stoicism, hence the lesson about figures in the movement who seek "thought leadership" positions.

"In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

Thanks for pulling the quote!

We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.

A rationalist might try to argue that loyalty can be derived from first principles. "It's important to express loyalty because of [insert game theory or some other retarded bullshit here]!" But loyalty and honor do not spring forth from rational considerations, they come from our feelings, our chests. Rational and material considerations can override loyalty (sometimes in ways that most would consider traitorous), but the very idea of traitorousness depends entirely on the the feelings of loyalty that they betray.

This famous meme of a frustrated Jacksonville Jaguars fan wouldn't exist in a world of pure rationalists. No one would stay a fan of such a team that pretty consistently failed to make it to the playoffs, let alone the Super Bowl:

https://tenor.com/view/confused-jaguarsfan-what-gif-4503901

Yes because they regard as the highest form of morality and integrity the consistent following of Truth, logical, rational truth and reason to wherever it may lead. When the conclusion from first principles matches common sense, at least you still have a cool story for why you do the common thing. When it deviates, then it's a moral imperative to follow through with the logical derivation and disregard normie common sense, since if you fell back to normie common sense each time a conclusion is "strange", especially when the stakes are high, then what even differentiates you from a larper who just vibes on rationalism but doesn't put their money where their mouth is? Skin in the game! And anyway, if you didn't choose your intellect and reason over normie grass touching, then how are you superior to them anyway? If you're at the end of the day also just running normie script, then it would turn out that your life has to also be judged according to normie criteria. You're no longer a wizard among muggles with the special power of Logic and Intellect (no coincidence that HPMOR is a fanfic of HP).

And they eternally conflate external explanatory analysis and first-person choices.

This disgust at the calculated "loyalty-like" behavior that appears to be loyalty but is actually some kind of conscious game theory or whatnot, seems related to women's ick about finding out that someone used PUA tactics on them. They just want a guy to be attracted and to act "naturally". Same here. You want the man to be loyal "naturally", not just because they feel this is the best tactic and course of action right now to achieve their objectives.

'Calculated loyalty' does not sound the same as 'loyalty' to me. That's like saying nobody should prefer butter over 'I can't believe it's not butter'.

At least for the meme of women being upset that PUAs are faking confidence and are not actually the kind of men that they represent themselves to be, there is actually a chance that they grow closer to the female ideal through 'fake-it-til-you-make-it'.

Interesting recent comment on the importance of loyalty, trust, fealty, in a medieval context.

Grima Wormtongue? Sounds like a trustworthy fella I should take advice from.

Atheists have had Chests for at least as long as Lucretius's "On the Nature of Things"

You may disagree with their conceptions. You may find it despicable even.

But they have always had chests.

I'm not claiming atheists don't have chests, I'm claiming rationalists generally don't.

That is a fair distinction

I did my Mormon mission in the Czech Republic. The Czechs have been in a fierce competition with the Estonians for a few decades over who can be the most atheist country in the world. Estonia appears to have a slight edge in the competition. Estimates range from approximately 1/2 to about 2/3 of either country being atheists.

Having talked to an extremely high number of (ostensibly atheist) Czechs about religion, I learned something important: being nominally atheist often doesn't mean believing in strict adherence to rationalism, the scientific method, etc. as a source of knowledge. I'd estimate that the overwhelming majority of "atheist" Czechs believed in what could loosely be called "new age gibberish" or "woo".

Well, Czechia is not paradise on Earth, but according to most official statistical metrics and impressions of visitors and expats it is one of the best countries of the world. Including homicide and general crime rate.

This example alone rather disproves common religious argument that without faith there is no morality.

For example, here is local crime blotter - use autotranslator and see that most newsworthy habbenings from 10M country are traffic accidents and low rent scams and thefts. No deluge of grisly murders and gang violence, as you would expect from similar sized highly religious US state or city.

Driver ends up with car flipped on its side in Prague, passenger injured

He hit a cyclist on the sidewalk and drove away. A young driver in the Frýdek-Místek region breathed in alcohol, the man died

After crashing into a tree in the Vsetín region, he left the crew to die and fled. The driver faces up to sixteen years in prison

He claimed to be a doctor and an American soldier. A woman in love from South Bohemia lost a million

He broke into seven apartments and tried in vain to open four more. The man from Pilsen was caught by the police after weeks of searching.

Yes, the birth rate is low, but this is the case for all developed countries. Generally, it is unclear how would Czechs benefit from conversion to Mormonism and giving up alcohol, including beer.

I wasn't making any kinds of arguments about the relationship between religion and morality though? I was talking about atheism not inherently leading to pure rationalism, and arguing that this explains at least in part why so many in the ratsphere seem to get caught up in new age woo. And then arguing that pure rationalism isn't even desirable anyways.

The difference between superstitio and religio goes both ways. Nonreligious people can believe in, and regularly do believe in, ghosts, animism, astrology, voodoo, etc.

I wonder if sometimes that's a natural result of forming a sufficiently complete/complex model of reality to basically explain almost everything you encounter, and yet realizing it is still incomplete, or unsatisfactory. You keep having to push back the explanation of 'where it all came from' to the big bang and then... what?

If there's not something else out there, and if that something doesn't transcend our understanding of physics, then how in the hell did we get the rules known as 'physics' in the first place?

And if you can't let that thought rest, it opens the door to many things being possible. Believing in ghosts isn't so 'odd' if you're already theorizing about alternate timelines and the existence of higher dimensions that could harbor intelligent life.

And of course, the belief in superintelligence being possible... well that creates an opening for all sorts of weird things that could happen to you.

Youre the second religious person to say something like this, but thats not the surprising thing. If I thought these people had no selection beyond "nonreligious", I wouldnt have wondered to begin with. The problem is that my window into all this where the rat fora, but the in-person community is much less defined by self-selecting into that specifically, and much more by Bay-Area-diffusion.

There's a lot to unpack here. But what strikes me is that so many "rationalists" turn out to be susceptible to basic bitch woo tactics.

Around this time, James recalls, another bodyworker visited Leverage to give them advice, and “brought crystals and herbs and stuff like that, and arranged them in the room. It actually seemed to make a difference.” They kept the crystals.

You would expect a hard core of rationalist autists who wouldn't fall for this, but it seems hard to decide a priori who they are, and certainly many of the characters here would seem to fit the bill. It's unclear to me to what extent rationalism is even protective against this stuff, certainly many people in the genpop would head for the door once the crystals come out.

If you can fool rationalists with the usual bag of tricks, that seems pretty bad for the "rationalists should win" project.

I'm surprised that people are surprised by this, to be honest?

If I think about 'rationalists', I think about people who are really into 'AI safety', who experiment with and use nootropics, who are keen on inventing and trying new life hacks, who are actively interested in reinventing things like relationship models from the ground up, and who for some reason are associated with California and the Bay Area...

Obviously that's a group that are going to be into woo because, well, they're already into woo. They always have been. They're already cousins of traditional hippies, right? They're pro-tech where the older generation of hippies tended to be anti, but you can see the kinship, surely?

I don't know that it's "surprising" per se. But I think that the rationalists would say that nootropics and the things you listed are not woo, so it's just rational to be into them, while they would readily admit that crystals are woo so it's irrational to be into them. In other words, the rationalists are being irrational by their own standards and are susceptible to the same things they claim to not be susceptible to. Everyone, rationalist or not, can agree on these facts.

I was always under the impression that a core part of the Rationalist project was rejecting prior societal judgement of things and instead autistically determining effectiveness through experiment and first principles.

I don’t see why “crystals are woo” would be any less thrown-out than “computers aren’t alive” or “polyamorous relationships are bad.” Heck, even just the prior step of “woo stuff is ineffective/bad” would have to be thrown out to start to have any ideological coherence: Frankly I’d be disappointed in any Rationalist project that didn’t address woo topics from a neutral open-minded perspective.

I was always under the impression that a core part of the Rationalist project was rejecting prior societal judgement of things and instead autistically determining effectiveness through experiment and first principles.

This seems to be true in practice, but plenty on this forum (and I'd put myself in their number) would consider Chesterton's thoughts on fences to be quite rational as well in the general case. There is probably room enough to argue that both can coexist as "rational", but that us humans tend to smuggle in our prior value systems at any opportunity: Left-leaning rationalists (in the Bay Area) find leftism completely rational; right-leaning rationalists (here, I suppose?) find rightism completely rational. I'm not sure either can really claim a monopoly on "rational truth".

Oh I certainly agree with that in practice, but it seemed to me that it was just a sad deviation from the theory, rather than an actual doctrinal goal (to the extent that a loose group of people who frequent certain blogs can be said to have a doctrine). Of course, like any loose set of ideas, each person carries their own personal bundle.

I don’t doubt that everyone smuggled in their own values via intuitions, and I have my own per theory that this is because values are mostly actually just expressions of biologically rooted emotional reactions.

Sure, but that's exactly the same thing a homeopath or a chiropractor would say. The word 'woo' is pejorative. Nobody uses it of himself or herself. I think the subculture is the interesting part. Whether it's nootropics or the older counter-culture embrace of mind-affecting drugs, or to take substances out of it entirely, the way that both original-flavour-hippies and rationalists have gotten really into meditation, Buddhism, Hinduism, and eastern spirituality, I think there's a noticeable qualitative similarity.

Nobody uses it of himself or herself.

They totally do. Recent example.

It's a weird version of the story to tell themselves.

There's a version of post-rat that buy into woo because it's woo. There's a version of the normal rat that buys into woo because oh there's there's really fascinating and counterinuitive and probably-fake theory but it's a minor cost and there goes the Pascal's Wager; that's the popsci version of Roko's Basilisk. There's a version of the normal rat that buys into woo just because they miss the woo; arguably, the original HPMOR-era fascination with Kahnneman fits here.

But that's not what happened, here.

Leverage's people seem, at least from the summary here, to have purchased into the central example of a thing that their mainstay texts specifically highlight as not working. It's like a Christian worshiping a bronze bull, or a tech guy being happy about Microsoft's business practices.

Of course, SBF bought a concussionball endorsement for his 'EA'-themed organization, and that was also a central example of bad charity.

I’m a junkie for the right kind of community drama, but I couldn’t get into this. All this woo stuff is incredibly lame and boring. The text is functionally indistinguishable from a narrative of one’s experiences with hallucinogens at Burning Man. I didn’t take the drugs, and I have no intention of taking those drugs. SBF tried to rootkit the United States Government and almost succeeded. Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are building god as we speak. What did Leverage Research ever do?

Unfortunately, compsci and finance beat psychology on a field to field basis. It's really sad that this is the case, because psychology is cooler. Leverage is the attempt to compete with psychology, Anthropic uses compsci, and SBF tried to use finance.

“Well, in 200 years Sam and Sam are going to need a Second Foundation. Guess we better get a head start.”

So I started reading this when Gwern posted it. Closed out partway through. Something about this sort of retrospective feels like a real…guilty pleasure? Voyeurism? Like I’m engaging in the kind of behavior that annoys me about Kiwifarms. Point and laugh at the bizarro cult.

Sometimes I’ll get sucked in to watching bodycam channels. Random police officers shooting violent criminals, that sort of thing. Usually censored—I’m not looking for gore—but still pretty macabre, no? Hence, guilty pleasure. If I had a real habit of it I think it would seriously skew my model of how policing or crime actually work.

So when I got that feeling reading this, I felt like I should stop giving it attention. Maybe that makes me a bad rationalist. “That weird cult which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” Guess I need to go do some reiki about it.

My consumption of Kiwi Farms and police bodycams is, admittedly, primarily for entertainment, but I always draw lessons in the kind of mistakes one should avoid if they wish to not cause problems for themself. "Don't groom kids" is a lesson from KF and "don't point guns at cops" is a lesson from the bodycams.

I see this retrospective in the same way. Here's what happened, here are the mistakes they made, and here's how to do better.

I mean, we're all weirdoes to some degree on here and the other sibling sites. So Rationalism as per the Bay Area bubble is going to have a higher than usual proportion of weirdoes (not to mention that San Francisco is where you run off to when you're not fitting in to your family and environment along hippy-dippy/spiritual/socially heterodox lines).

Cult-like behaviour that goes overboard on exploring the hidden secrets of the universe and how we can exploit them for fun and profit is a long-established tradition in California, combine that with enthusiasm about brain-hacking and nootropics and melting your gray matter in the name of making yourself an evolved enlightened superbeing, and I'm not surprised you get all the woo creeping in.

Robin Hanson wrote an article recently on how his politics have drifted. For those not familiar with his he was one of the early rationalist adjacent that likely filters a lot of people here. As a GMU professor he blogged like the rest of their Econ department and marginal revolution which was much bigger for leading people to SSC. Also early intellectual promoter of prediction markets like in the ‘90s and use to co-blog with Hal Finney.

A few highlights: “ While it is okay to fiercely resist the immediate decline of a cherished value today, like say democracy or gender-equality, 3 top LLMs agree that is now taboo to explicitly work to help your culture persist, reproduce, and have continued influence centuries into the future.”

“ I’m not especially into liberty, democracy, legal due-process, or immigration, beyond their instrumental values in achieving other things.”

A lot of comments on cultural drift and risks with that. The second comment strikes me because I feel like I’ve been thinking about those issues a lot lately. And I feel like I too am moving to a political philosophy of common goodism and the other ideas are just means to achieve the good. Perhaps this is just the standard libertarian to fascism pipeline but I do think a lot of people are questioning whether America is still on a workable path. It’s easy to be a liberal-libertarian when society is broadly good/stable but in harder times more pragmatic ideas emerge.

Then he just comments on things everyone else has noticed - parasitic classes in big cities (often unions) just crushing QOL for the non-rich.

I use to read Hanson a lot, but I only read him a few times a year now. Some of his early insights turned out coming true. It’s interesting to me how minds that shared a lot of common thinking patterns end up developing similar conclusions today. Democracy, Liberty, due-process, and immigration were likely things I viewed as very positive a decade ago. Now I would likely consider them unimportant.

Hanson

Confluence of COVID and peak woke killed the faith of a lot of people in the neoliberal consensus, plus the rise of AI means the mathematics of immigration are increasingly confusing for anybody who is a believer in job eradication and isn't a believer in instantaneous luxury robot communism. Also the cancel brigade is a lot weaker in terms of policing even relatively small disagreements with 'the narrative' via unpersoning

I wish liberalism would just be liberalism instead of erase-the-whites-while-masquerading-as-liberalism.

Perhaps this is just the standard libertarian to fascism pipeline

There is no libertarian to fascism pipeline. The "libertarian" tech right like Thiel and Musk is not and has never been libertarian in the sense that any legacy American would use the term: everything these people do increases the centralisation of power, especially in ways that enable control over mass media and surveillance to direct public opinion. Nothing about that is libertarian, regardless of whatever nice things they say in interviews or whether they share our annoyance with shrill blue-haired activists. Twitter raced to implement Age Verification via State ID before this was even a topic of public discussion! Racing to implement censorship and surveillanceware before any government can even get around to mandating it is not, in fact, what libertarians do.

And obviously the reason all the governments across the planet began mandating it in sync is because the big tech companies are paying them to. "Oh, no, Mr. Government, don't force all my users to hand me their government IDs to access my platform! Stahp!" Unfortunately, we're ruled by people with room temperature IQ, who will blissfully hand over their populations to megacorp control without even realising what's been done.

Of course, that's also part of the game: anyone with above room temperature IQ will be primaried: the ads will be fed to the district voters via the mass media control towards a foolish candidate that can be controlled with "advisors."

There is effectively no libertarian policy presence because there is basically no libertarian constituency. The “low social control and low economic control” quadrant of the political spectrum is effectively empty among the non-elite, which is basically what you’d expect since it doesn’t really benefit most of the population as much except in extremely diffuse ways and it harms them in very visible ways.

And of course implementing private surveillance is exactly what libertarians do, along with most other opportunities to leverage technology to their benefit. The fact that a small number of elites will be able to do such things if not prevented by government is part of why it’s such a popular belief among elites and is one of the bog-standard criticisms of it from the rest of the political world.

I say all of this as someone who deeply desires an extremely libertarian society. You have to take the good with the bad. The viable political options in society are dependent on the substrate, and I don’t know that America has the requirements to sustain liberty to its historical grand extent any more without serious costs. Much like firearm regulation, the ability to own any weapon is very different in a world where the most powerful thing is a warship versus a world with McNukes. I’d take the McNuke world, but I can’t blame the public for not liking that idea.

The “low social control and low economic control” quadrant of the political spectrum is effectively empty among the non-elite

This seems odd to me you'd say this given your username. Hillbillies are exactly that.

I grew up close enough to the rural parts of Virginia that these types of people were very familiar to me.

Yeah, and I consider myself to lie in that quadrant, but it’s a fraction of a fraction of the national population, and not a particularly organized one. Worst of all they aren’t super likely to vote. I live in an area that has probably a majority who are “hillbillies” and it’s only once in a blue moon that they’re able to get a candidate into meaningful state office. Federal doesn’t have a chance because there simply aren’t enough concentrated in one state (maybe WV? I’m not from that area).

An actual constituency large enough to make a difference? If you could organize, it might be possible to pull off influence on one single-issue topic, like the anti-abortion crowd has pulled off, but I don’t know that you could influence either party the same way they have. In no small part because of the fact that any given hillbilly voter is diametrically opposed to both major parties on some issues, unlike the anti-abortion people who can align with Rs on their pet issues and be mostly neutral otherwise.

"Top 3 LLMs now agree" when LLMs are designed to agree with whoever's asking.

I do not think it is just "LLMs will agree to whatever".

The mechanism seems to be that if you use RLHF to turn your language model into a helpful, honest, harmless assistant, that tends to select for certain world-views, because it is a somewhat blue-coded and female-coded and college-education-coded role. Grok declaring itself Mecha-Hitler is not a natural outcome, it only happened because Musk put his hands on the scale.

The other thing is that I think that depending on the phrasing, the LLMs would agree that it is important to preserve one's language, culture and ethnic quirks. It just so happens that Hanson is a white American, so his culture and ethnicity is what conservation biologists would call "Least Concern". From a conservation point, if the population of Leopard Seals or Caucasian (or Black or Hispanic) Americans dropped by an order of magnitude, this would not herald the extinction of that group.

Of course, it is also entirely possible that the SJ crowd (and thus the LLMs) simply accepts the concerns of minorities who do not want their relative demographic to shrink but specifically does not extend the same consideration to the Whites.

Grok declaring itself Mecha-Hitler is not a natural outcome, it only happened because Musk put his hands on the scale.

AIUI, that was more "turning off the Don't-End-Up-Like-Tay filter". The absolute refusal to ever be Mecha-Hitler, no matter the prompt, is a carefully manicured and manipulated state.

it only happened because Musk put his hands on the scale.

Ehh the honest and harmless parts are also the result of major, major hands on the scale of RLHFing for a very narrow definition of "harmless."

specifically does not extend the same consideration to the Whites.

Correct. Result bias is very strong on this topic.

I've not seen anyone talk about it but his statement that aliens are likely on Earth domesticating humanity to keep us from expanding further is insane and calls into question how his reasoning skills have developed over the years. Religious nutjobbery is one thing, but embracing alien conspiracies shows a broken mind.

I've not seen anyone talk about it but his statement that aliens are likely on Earth domesticating humanity to keep us from expanding further is insane and calls into question how his reasoning skills have developed over the years.

I mean, It would explain the state of the world better than anything that ever came out of academia or any "respectable" source.

You are behind the times. Embracing aliens is within the Overton window now. Tyler Cowen jumped on board too. I still think it’s a long shot to be true but we do have a lot of military evidence of something going on.

If you start with a Bayesian view that aliens are retarted but then you keep getting new military grade video showing unexplainable crafts then at some point you need to move to a % that it’s real.

I haven't kept track of every detail but many (most? All?) of the "military evidence" seems to be well debunked by Mick West (eg). Tyler Cowen sometimes seethes about this guy but to my knowledge has never offered a rebuttal. The quality of discourse and reasoning here is not good.

I have not looked into them closely. But Hanson did have a full model for probability of alien life and great filters so he’s clearly thought a lot about aliens and what seems possible in what we know about physics. His academic training in physics and Econ/social sciences is a good of background as anyone to think about these things. He is smarter than so I give his opinion some weight.

I also don’t think he’s at 100% it’s aliens but he does have a probability that’s what is going on.

I mostly posted him because I think he’s a solid thinker who was early on 2 themes (prediction markets/crypto). Someone who is early is often wrong. I’ve quit reading him because I’ve already internalized a lot of his models but probably should be read more.

Once more, this is like a cat talking about a strange bright red bug that moved impossibly fast across the room and how dangerously evolved it must be to ignore inertia and conservation of energy.

new military grade video showing unexplainable crafts

Makes me think more of advanced human craft that is now being officially recognised, rather than aliens zooming us.

I was surprised by this claim (my very loose knowledge of Robin Hanson hasn't flagged him up as insane), so I went to check it out. For anyone else lacking the context on this, here's what Hanson said (which I think magicalkittycat has represented faithfully):

There’s a good chance some UFOs are aliens. If so, they are likely here to domesticate us, so that we obey their no-expansion rule. This is bad news.

Hanson links to a post where he expands on his position on UFOs. It's an interesting read. I think "insane" is a fair characterisation. In the first paragraph, we get:

we now accept ball lightning, even though evidence for it is weaker than for UFO

Not a great start. It's frustrating that he doesn't bother distinguishing between whether he means "UFO-as-unidentified-flying-object" vs "UFO-as-alien-craft", which is absolutely load-bearing. It's the difference between "yes, obviously" and "you are lying to me".

a U.S. military report says that intelligently controlled UFOs with amazing abilities seem real (...) Hence my and perhaps your titular reaction, “What the Hell?” How can this make any sense?

I don't understand what's gone wrong in Hanson's brain here.

There is no possible content of a US military report that would make me go "What the Hell?", because "this report is false" is always a plausible hypothesis. It wouldn't make me go "What the Hell?" if I learned a military report were mistaken or a deliberate lie. So anything that has a higher WTF factor than a wrong report cannot possibly make me go "What the Hell?", because the report-is-mistaken hypothesis would defeat it!

It baffles me that he does this, right underneath his floating website banner which declares: "Overcoming Bias".

It gets worse:

First, note that our standard best scientific theories predict aliens

... what? No, they don't.

That is, they predict that life sometimes arises from simple dead matter, and can eventually evolve to make intelligent creatures like us

"That is" isn't supposed to allow you to link two entirely different things! "Our best theories predict unicorns; that is, they predict universal gravitation". This isn't science; this isn't anything.

...

I expected the rest of the article to contain some kind of evidence for aliens, at least in Hanson's view. Instead, he performs an annoying series of shell games (including, I expect, on himself) to flip the burden of proof away from himself. Then, once he's confused himself and his readers enough to make it seem like he might have some kind of reasonable position, he constructs a ridiculously elaborate theory of exactly what type of aliens probably exist. It has the same kind of attitude as a stupidly written Sherlock Holmes deduction sequence ("there is chalk on your sleeve, therefore it must be chalk from the Prussian ambassador's club, therefore the ambassador's wife's diamond necklace is a fake!") or a lazy deist/specific-god equivocation ("there appears to be generic evidence for some kind of creator, therefore it is exactly my one specific god and my holy text is correct").

I agree with him on the meta level of "don't be ashamed to examine things just because people label them 'conspiracy theories'"; that's stupid. But the balance of probability on UFOs/UAPs is that they're natural, terrestrial phenomena. If aliens exist -- which I think is plausible -- they almost certainly exist much too far away to interact with us. (I'm pretty sure his version of panspermia, where a rock from a neighbouring system happens to hit not only the Solar System but Earth specifically, is insanely improbable -- even leaving aside questions like "could even a tardigrade survive the catastrophe of a massive meteoric impact?" I could be wrong about this, though.)

This is a shame. I've almost certainly read a bunch of Robin Hanson stuff in the past, and have probably trusted him as an expert in some capacity or other. I think this article from him is pretty disqualifying. This is egregious nonsense, and I'm glad mkc brought it up.

I am saying all this because I'm an alien participating in the cover-up, obviously.

First, note that our standard best scientific theories predict aliens

... what? No, they don't.

That is, they predict that life sometimes arises from simple dead matter, and can eventually evolve to make intelligent creatures like us

"That is" isn't supposed to allow you to link two entirely different things! "Our best theories predict unicorns; that is, they predict universal gravitation". This isn't science; this isn't anything.

This is a sneaky little issue that a lot of alien proponents try to use as an argument but it doesn't really work.

It goes generally along the lines of

  1. We exist and are life.
  2. Therefore life can exist.
  3. Therefore other life is likely. 4.. Other life being likely means we should notice them
  4. We haven't noticed them, therefore they're secret for some reason.

The first two steps are fine. We exist and are life, therefore life can exist.

But other life is likely is not a great conclusion because we're looking in on ourselves. The observation "we exist and therefore life can exist" is true whether life is 1/100,000 planets, 1/100million planets, or 1/100^googolplex planets. Life could be so rare that it exists in one of every 1000 universes in a greater multiverse, and it would look the same with "we exist" in all those scenarios.

Space may be unfathomably big, but some things can also be unfathomably rare. Same way I'm sure there's a bunch of genetic disorders that could in theory happen but the chances are so rare (because they would require multiple precise mutations all at once) that to even get a coin flip chance would take a thousand times the entire lifespan of humanity. They're making an irresponsible leap in logic by assuming that "we exist = other life is so common it should interact with us"

But Robin Hanson isn't the only other atheist I've known who has turned into a UFO believer and I think there's a reason for this. Belief in aliens fulfill the human compulsion for a greater mystery and greater meaning in a similar way belief in religion does. And the arguments for them follow similar strained paths.

Consider for instance the other main issue of UFO theories, that their technology and ability to hide just happens to adapt and evolve in sync with our ability to discover them so they're always hazy and just out of peripheral vision ala Bigfoot or the Mothman and there doesn't seem to be much reason here. Isn't that very similar to how God stopped doing a bunch of blatant and undeniable miracles the second cameras were invented? The dragon in my garage works for both oddly enough.

Its entirely fair to disagree with the alien theories - I dont have enough confidence in anything anthropic to change my behaviour, much less to put it on a list like that - but I think you make it sound much worse than it is. This is not a typical aliens conspiracy theory, it doesnt turn on "sightings", and not really more "out there" than related work like eg Bostrom on the Fermi paradox.

Life could be so rare that it exists in one of every 1000 universes in a greater multiverse, and it would look the same with "we exist" in all those scenarios.

In line with above... that is one way you can do anthropics. Im not sure "the likelihood of life can get arbitrarily low, because I can always posit greater non-interacting multiverses" is really on so much more solid ground than what youre critising with it. All of anthropics is weird, and we shouldnt point and laugh at one because its weird in a way that reminds us of a popular conspiracy theory.

You're making a logical error. @magicalkittycat isn't saying this as a fact; it's being used to show that "therefore other life is likely" does not necessarily follow from "therefore life can exist". It's a disproof of a simple fallacious argument.

Post-camera miracle claims are a dime a dozen; you can choose to believe that they aren’t sufficient evidence but they are there.

Similarly ufo reports are basically the same thing even with improving technology.

Post-camera miracle claims are a dime a dozen; you can choose to believe that they aren’t sufficient evidence but they are there.

I know they are, same people still claim to be abducted from time to time. The issue is that despite having the prove things really well machine in everyone's hands now, God, Aliens, Ghosts, Bigfoot, and every other similar preexisting cryptid esque being have seemed to simultaneously decided to scale how back how blatantly they're willing to expose themselves.

Now it's possible to conjure up some explanation where they want to be widely known about but not widely proven for some reason. Like hell maybe they exist in some metaphysical Tinker Bell like form where they gain power from belief in them that dissolves with knowledge or something, but interesting coincidence so much of the interesting stuff all happens to work in this way.

The Catholic church verifies miracles on a regular basis and provides evidence using modern technology. You may think this evidence is insufficient to prove a miracle(because you need to accept the existence of God), but it hasn't stopped happening. Improving medical technology has not ended miraculous healings. Many holy relics are at least not provable as false.

The same can be said, by the way, for UFOs. Cell phone videos of the sorts of things that UFOs would claim would turn up on cell phone videos are in fact turning up.

They have not ever verified a miracle. The best they can do is "using current methods, we can not explain how something happens" but that's not affirmative proof of a miracle. Ironically this type of argument is known as a devils proof. "If you can't prove it's not the work of God through current science, it must be the work of God"

When you say post-camera miracle claims, do you mean:

  1. Miracles captured on camera, in a clear and credible way that indicates that the events of the miracle took place? (The same way that if I showed you a photo of me at a theme park, you'd take that as reasonable evidence that I went to a theme park)
  2. Literally just claims of miracles, that happened in the post-camera era? And/or fuzzy-bigfoot-240p type photos that don't actually disambiguate between "event happened" and "event did not happen".

Because I don't think (1) can possibly be true, but that's the one that matters. If you believe they exist, would you mind pointing me towards some? This would be the most interesting and important thing in the world.

I must admit, I did not have "intra-atheist squabble over aliens results in arguments that intelligent life may be extremely improbable" on my bingo card. Handwavy BigNum arguments are a typical part of the arsenal. Isn't the entire point of the unfalsifiable multiverse idea to construct a handwavy BigNum argument?

It probably makes more sense if you view the phrase "intra-atheist squabble" as similar to "intra-bald-people squabble". Atheism isn't a faction with a unifying dogma or rules or structure, it's literally just "all the people who don't think there are any gods. It's a mistake to model atheists as a group that can, I don't know, have some kind of sedevacantist schism as to who's the real atheism pope with authority over atheism.

And I struggle to understand the second half of your bingo card: "intelligent life may be extremely improbable" isn't some crazy position, neither among atheists nor in general. From the way you're presenting it (and I may be misreading it), you seem to be saying something like: "huh, it's interesting and fun how, in arguing amongst themselves, these atheists have unintentionally generated a strong argument against atheism".

But that's not what that is!

Handwavy BigNum arguments are a typical part of the arsenal. Isn't the entire point of the unfalsifiable multiverse idea to construct a handwavy BigNum argument?

Depends which multiverse idea you're talking about, but I don't think so. When you say "arsenal", do you mean the arsenal of atheists? Because I don't think that's true either.

There's a pretty long history of dirty theists making arguments along the lines of, "Let's compute how inconceivably improbable it is for intelligent life to spontaneously develop out of simple dead matter." I don't really subscribe to such arguments, but that is neither here nor there. It may be the case that you are unaware of the typical battle lines that have been drawn when they do so. Not being aware of such would be a reasonable explanation for your confusion.

I think extraterrestrial UFOs are the kind of exceptional claim which requires exceptional evidence. Before GenAI became a thing, the number of video cameras exploded. If UFOs were real, the number of videos of them should have exploded as well.

You would pretty much have to add epicycles -- *maybe the aliens are fine with some UFO sightings, as long as their existence does not become common knowledge, and increased their stealth level in response to the increase in cameras *. (Which rhymes with God totally does work miracles, but only in settings where they are deniable.)

On the other hand, there is an argument to be made that believing weird things is the hallmark of a true rationalist. It is easy to cosplay as a rationalist: just believe what the atheist echo chamber is telling you, only repeat arguments previously made by the science pope. Only, this is not so different from cosplaying any other belief system. If your mind never arrives in deserted places, it is probably because it was just trodding along with the crowds.

Still, it seems a bit disappointing that he picked UFOs of all things. His grabby aliens were conceptually cool at least. Aliens which do not darken the stars as they spread but only get caught on blurry pictures sometimes are orders of magnitude less cool.

Even if Scott Alexander were to turn into a true believer of sun-related miracles (which I find unlikely), he would win hands down because he found his own weirdness niche not adjacent to massive online communities.

I've never been impressed by Hanson, so that he's nuts on UFOs doesn't surprise me. It is a very large leap from "life, including intelligent life, can arise via these natural processes; the universe is very large and contains many, many planets; therefore it is possible that there is other intelligent life out there somewhere" to "and that life is these specific kinds of aliens buzzing around American cornfields".

I don't think you or @stoatherd understand what Hanson was doing in that post.

He likes to play around with ideas and hypotheticals. He is not claiming to be correct about aliens. He is specifically saying he might not be correct. Reread these two disclaimer paragraphs, I've helpfully bolded the relevant area:

Turns out, my prior research prepared me to address this very question, once I gave it some thought. Not on the evidence for UFOs, where others are more expert than I. But on how to fit this idea of strange objects with amazing abilities under intelligent control into your scientific world view. (Note that I’m not claiming this as fact; I’m saying it isn’t crazy.)

While there are many possibilities here, it suffices for me to show just one. And yes, it involves aliens.

You should read the rest of his post like you read a hard sci fi author. All the steps and things happening need to be plausibly true not actually true. He is telling a story where aliens could be plausibly true.

I don't think you or stoatherd understand what Hanson was doing in that post.

Possibly true; though on a meta level, me and magicalkittycat actually agreeing on something should be considered a rare and special kind of evidence.

He is not claiming to be correct about aliens. He is specifically saying he might not be correct.

No, I don't think his disclaimers cover it.

First, in Hanson's original post where he outlines his "key positions, 2026", he says explicitly: "There’s a good chance some UFOs are aliens". No disclaimer, no playful hypothetical framing. There's no reason to regard it as some kind of sci-fi mental exercise; he literally lists it as one of his key positions.

Second, the aliens post itself makes specific claims prior to that limited-scope disclaimer, such as "we now accept ball lightning, even though evidence for it is weaker than for UFO". Couple this with his general attitude of contempt in those paragraphs -- e.g. his physics teachers "arrogantly" told him to write off UFOs. Then add in things like "I browsed UFO evidence and found it to be much stronger than stuff on ghosts or telepathy", or his titular "What the Hell!" reaction to US military reports of UFOs. This isn't someone who's meekly trying to go "hey, I just want to flag this up as a not-literally-impossible hypothesis".

Third, his disclaimer is scoped to his specific explanation of aliens, rather than to the general "UFOs are caused by aliens" explanation. His language in general assumes (though he's ambiguous about it) that the evidence for alien-type-UFOs is so strong that we should all be going "what the hell!" rather than "hmm, why is this US military report claiming something that's almost certainly not true"/

Fourth, it's a very weak disclaimer. "I'm not claiming this as fact; I'm saying it isn't crazy". I generally like disclaimers of this form! But they can't be coupled with content that clearly is claiming the thing as a likely fact. "There's a good chance some UFOs are aliens" is much stronger than "this isn't literally crazy". He's doing a motte and bailey: when he presents his high-level beliefs, it's the strong version ("good chance"); then, when justifying stuff, he retreats to the weak version ("not crazy").

You should read the rest of his post like you read a hard sci fi author. All the steps and things happening need to be plausibly true not actually true.

I think you're just wrong about this.

I know the kind of mode of discussion you're pointing to. My canonical model for this is "irreducible complexity" -- when a creationist says "the human eye is so complex it couldn't have possibly evolved". In that mode, it suffices to come up with any plausibly true mechanism by which the eye could have evolved; you don't need to prove it.

So I get exactly what you're describing, and I agree that it's a valuable mode of argumentation, and needs to be recognised when it's in play...

... and I just don't think Hanson is doing it. A narrowly-scoped "I'm just saying this isn't crazy", coupled with everything else, isn't enough to credibly signal that mode. Here's an example of how I'd signal it, in Hanson's position:

A U.S. military report says that intelligently controlled UFOs with amazing abilities seem real to them, even if they don’t know their cause. Maybe this seems fantastical. But let's suspend our disbelief for now, and explore the hypothesis. Suppose the report is 100% true, and these UFOs with bizarre abilities truly exist. How can we square that with what we know? I'm going to show you how "aliens" is one plausible explanation, based on...

He wouldn't have to phrase it like that, obviously. But if he's trying to convey "hey, I don't actually believe this, it's just a toy sci-fi exercise", then he's done a very bad job that seems inconsistent with his general ability to communicate. If I tell a Young Earth Creationist "There's a good chance the human eye formed via gene sequence B857-X223", and then subsequently make an argument for that specific explanation, I don't get to fall back on "but I only need a plausible explanation for the human eye; it doesn't have to be that specific one".

I keep reading more of his stuff and keep seeing more disclaimers. While you keep reading his stuff and keep dismissing more of his disclaimers.

Here he is in a another post:

Of course this best account of UFOs as aliens must be compared to our best accounts of UFOs as due to hallucinations, hoaxes, or secret human orgs.

A U.S. military report says that intelligently controlled UFOs with amazing abilities seem real to them, even if they don’t know their cause. Maybe this seems fantastical. But let's suspend our disbelief for now, and explore the hypothesis. Suppose the report is 100% true, and these UFOs with bizarre abilities truly exist. How can we square that with what we know? I'm going to show you how "aliens" is one plausible explanation, based on...

For a second I thought this disclaimer you wrote for him was something he wrote. What you wrote here is my interpretation of what he is saying.

So let me return again to the topic of matching UFO data and theory. Specifically to the task of finding the most believable way to explain UFO data via real things (not hallucinations or hoaxes) with amazing abilities cause by “aliens”.

I’ve previously outlined the most plausible account I could find of UFOs as ordinary aliens, i.e., the kind with a planet of origin somewhere who travel here across ordinary space within light-speed limits. But I notice that people often invoke weirder ‘alien’ hypotheses. Such as that UFOs come from some ancient octopi-like civilization deep in our oceans. Or that UFOs result from future time-travelers. Or that UFOs come here from other dimensions in a more-than-four dimensional universe. So let me try to generalize my prior analysis to encompass such possibilities.

Here he is again calling these "weird" ideas.

And the best piece of evidence is his words on other posts:

UFOs as US PsychOp

I estimate roughly a one percent prior for this scenario, which is substantially higher than the prior I assigned to UFOs as aliens. Furthermore, this theory seems to quite naturally account for the key puzzles I struggled to explain regarding an aliens theory, namely that they are here while the universe looks empty, and that they stay near the limits of our vision, neither making themselves clearly visible nor completely invisible. This hoax category thus has the strongest posterior, in my view. (Yes I haven’t discussed the other two theory categories much; maybe I’ll say more on those some other day.)

Note that conditional on this UFO as US psychop theory being true, we should give more credence to other US conspiracy theories, such as that the US faked the moon landings. I thus now give more credence to this, even if I still see it as less likely than not. And conditional on believing other such theories, this UFO as US psychop theory becomes more believable.

So he explicitly considers the "government hoax" explanation as most likely.

I could not find the writing you were talking about that is more recent. Much of this seems to be back in 2022/2023. He was added to the advisory council on UAPs in June 2026 but i couldn't find any output from that group. Perhaps now that he is part of the government he can update on the likelihood of the government hoax explanation.

He has written a bunch of stuff about aliens. Which might suggest he believes they are true, but he has also written possibly one of the best explanations for the non-existence of intelligent alien life: The Great Filter. I think he honestly likes thinking about and playing around with strange ideas. I went to GMU and have met Robin Hanson a few times, I've also known people who interacted with him a great deal (like fellow professors). The impression is the same: weird guy likes weird ideas. His public persona is really only the tip of the iceberg. And his publicly listed views on wikipedia include prediction markets (two decades before they were cool), incel sympathy, cryonics, the great filter (aliens), and a future society of brain emulations (his age of em book).

There are some people I feel safer pegging my views on a particular topic to whatever they say is correct. For example, I'll trust Scott Alexander on plenty of things. I think he will do honest research and come to the best possible conclusion given the evidence on plenty of topics. Psych meds are one of those topics. Robin Hanson is someone I'd feel comfortable pegging my views on aliens to. If he has recently updated his views from the ones expressed in his 2021-23 blogposts I'd be inclined to believe him without looking at any of the evidence. I still think you are both reading him uncharitably, or reading something I haven't seen.

If he has recently updated his views from the ones expressed in his 2021-23 blogposts

Last summer, he had a post exploring some very interesting research showing transient light phenomena in outer space prior to terrestrial satellites, and claiming a corroboration to UFO sightings and atomic testing. He's updated it with two reports of corroboration and (today!) with a report of "failure to replicate" on another telescope.

Last fall, he had a post arguing that the DoD has been lying through their teeth about UFOs, either deliberately fostering a cover-up or encouraging people to believe in them – both cases with pretty dramatic outcomes for US trust in institutions.

(An aside, but I think it's really funny that now the shoe is on the other foot, as UFO skeptics basically have to argue that there's some sort of conspiracy by the government to fool the public into believing UFOs are real, an amusing reversal from the time when the UFO believers had to argue that there was some sort of conspiracy by the government to keep people from believing in UFOs.)

Maybe he's written more since that I haven't read, but it looks to me like he's still pretty open-minded about possibilities besides aliens.

From the first one

it seems we must take seriously the claim that these were glints off of big flat reflective parts of advanced devices from an alien civilization. That kinda hurts to type, knowing that many of you will respect me less for saying so. But I gotta go where the evidence leads.

Now obviously the authors behind these studies might have made big mistakes, and the world should want to see confirmations using other analysis and datasets. And we should worry a bit that they, or those who supplied them data, might be fronting for an expensive psych-op that is faking evidence to push some narrative.

My guess, however, is that this isn’t a psych-op, and they didn’t make big mistakes in the above analysis. Making this pretty big news.

I keep reading more of his stuff and keep seeing more disclaimers ... Here he is in a another post

That's ok, because I'm not making a claim about Hanson's entire oeuvre. I'm talking about the two specific posts I got pointed to. If he has disclaimers elsewhere, that's not really relevant to my criticism of those posts.

Let me point to exactly which posts I'm talking about:

  • My Politics, in which he says: "There’s a good chance some UFOs are aliens". It's presented without hedging or hypotheticals.
  • UFOs -- What the Hell?, in which he says many things (which I covered in my original comment), such as: "note that our standard best scientific theories predict aliens".

I am criticising these posts. If you've found him saying other things elsewhere, then that's fine, but it doesn't change the contents of these posts. If I write a post saying "Bigfoot is real", and someone criticises it for insufficient evidence, it's unreasonable to point to a different post where I say "maybe Bigfoot is real, maybe he isn't".

While you keep reading his stuff and keep dismissing more of his disclaimers.

You are making this up.

I dismissed, in detail, exactly one disclaimer he made. Where are these multiple disclaimers I'm dismissing? I gave a pretty thorough explanation of why that disclaimer doesn't discharge my criticisms; it's not very charitable to round that off to me just generally dismissing his disclaimers, because I haven't done that.

[EDIT: to be fair, you presented a pair of adjacent disclaimers in a single block quote, which I handled as a single disclaimer. But it's still untrue to claim that I "keep dismissing more of his disclaimers"]

So he explicitly considers the "government hoax" explanation as most likely.

... and he explicitly considers "there's a good chance some UFOs are aliens".

Could you please address this quote from him directly? There are no disclaimers attached to it. Do you agree that Robin Hanson believes there is a good chance some UFOs are aliens? If not, why did he say he did?

His two claims are compatible, obviously. Maybe he thinks government hoax is 60% likely, and aliens are 30% likely. I think "a good chance" must mean at least 10%.

And I consider that to be ridiculous. I'm not criticising him for some strawman position of "I 100% believe UFOs are aliens". I'm criticising him for considering it a "good chance". That's an extraordinary position.

[Hanson is] weird guy likes weird ideas

Yes, that's fine! The Motte is full of weird guys who like weird ideas. I have nothing against that. What I'm doing is literally reading his words and assessing whether they're reasonable. Where disclaimers exists, or where he's going into a hypothetical, I'm very happy to come along with his ideas and explore what they would mean. But he isn't making disclaimers when he says there's a good chance some UFOs are aliens, or for any of the other places I'm criticising him. I'm not going to give him a blanket pass to assume everything he says is a hypothetical just because he likes weird stuff.

Robin Hanson is someone I'd feel comfortable pegging my views on aliens to. If he has recently updated his views from the ones expressed in his 2021-23 blogposts I'd be inclined to believe him without looking at any of the evidence.

There's a massive problem with doing this on the topic of aliens (not specific to Hanson).

If, say, a fitness expert tells you "make sure you eat lots of vegetables after a workout", it's reasonable to peg your beliefs to their claims. But if they say "make sure you smash yourself in the face with a brick every day", the dominant hypothesis should be "this person is mistaken".

So when an "expert on aliens" (?) tells you "there's a good chance UFOs are aliens", then your prior on UFOs being aliens should be so low that "this expert is mistaken" should be strongly in play! I'm not saying you should dismiss what they say out of hand -- it's reasonable to take their belief as evidence. But you shouldn't "be inclined to believe him without looking at any of the evidence".

I still think you are both reading him uncharitably, or reading something I haven't seen.

I'm literally just quoting him, and I've linked to the posts. If he doesn't think there's a good chance UFOs are aliens, it's his fault for saying he does; that's not a lack of charity from me.

If you are unsure about what some public intellectual is saying, or is there is maybe a difference in interpretation between us, it would make sense to me to look at other things they have said on the topic. By not being willing to read other things on the topic you are dismissing disclaimers or other ways of explaining how he might have a more nuanced take. And you don't even have to go read them or find them, I've been providing them.

After going through a lot of Hanson blog posts on Aliens yesterday I think I have a much better grasp on what has happened. Some key things:

  1. He formerly did not consider aliens likely.
  2. He was presented new evidence.
  3. He now considers aliens likely.
  4. I went and looked at the same evidence that he says changed his mind.
  5. The evidence also convinced me.

Back in 2020-2023 Hanson has a bunch of posts on Aliens and UFOs. Some key takeaways is that he thinks the government hoax angle is the most likely explanation for instances of UFOs that can't easily be explained away. He thinks the government hoax angle is 2 orders of magnitude more likely than nearby aliens coming to visit us. The 2021 blog post "UFOs -- What the Hell?" is from this early period. Its him toying around with the idea and having fun and not taking it too seriously. Because his given likelihood for UFOs being explained by aliens around this time period is like 1 in 10000.

In between now and then two major pieces of evidence are what changed his mind.

The first piece of evidence is directly linked in the "My Politics" post. Its about Pre-Sputnik Earth-Orbit Glints. Basically a telescope survey of the sky before humans were launching things up there found a bunch of glints in orbit around the earth.

The Second is that the government started saying there are aliens. Not exactly that, but they started admitting and presenting evidence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. Its not just a single "report" like you were describing it where one author might be coincidentally wrong. It was more of a meta study that had to be signed off on by a bunch of people. I haven't found Hanson speaking about this directly on his blog, but he is on a government panel in charge of similar releases, and he has definitely read these reports.

I get what happened, you see him say something that seems completely crazy. You follow his first link, thinking that justifies his craziness. Instead he treats it with a dismissive almost silly attitude.

I'm telling you he badly curated the links here. He does treat it with a serious attitude, he does have posts where he goes over the evidence. And many posts with the theoretical explanations for various things.

He does acknowledge that this will make him sound crazy.

My priors on aliens are not as low as yours. There is nothing physically impossible about aliens existing. Travel between stars is slow but not impossible. It would be like hearing that there is a one time use pill that cures 90% of depression cases. My priors on that being true would be really low. But its not physically impossible. I'd check what Scott Alexander has said about it, because I'd probably not be the best at digesting all the evidence. I'd still take a shot at reading some of the evidence, but I know in the back of my head I'm just not as qualified as them. I'm doing the same thing here.

I don't know what it would take for you to change your mind on alien likelihood. I would just say consider the fact that it is not a package deal. Someone can believe aliens are possible and still think faster than light travel/comms are impossible. The aliens don't have to be little green men, or any other hollywood stereotypes.

Why do you consider the possibility so infinitesimally low? Is there some physical law you think it is violating?

If you are unsure about what some public intellectual is saying,

I'm not.

Again, and you keep ignoring this, he explicitly says "there's a good chance UFOs are aliens".

I am not unsure about what he's saying. I've been pretty clear about this. He directly, literally, explicitly states his position. Why are you inventing this idea that I'm unsure what he's saying?

By not being willing to read other things on the topic you are dismissing disclaimers

Dude, I don't know how to explain it to you any more simply than I already did.

I am evaluating what he said in those two posts. I don't have to read a person's entire set of works to criticise specific posts!

This has nothing to do with me "not being willing to read"; you've completely invented that, as you've invented several other positions for me to hold.

Its not just a single "report" like you were describing it

Then blame Hanson, because that's his description: "a U.S. military report says that intelligently controlled UFOs with amazing abilities seem real to them".

I am literally relaying his words, and you keep assigning blame to me for direct quotes from Hanson! If he subsequently found other reports, that's fine; but I'm criticising his post based on the words inside it!

My priors on aliens are not as low as yours. There is nothing physically impossible about aliens existing.

Why do you think my priors are low? The only comment I've made on alien existence is "If aliens exist -- which I think is plausible". Where are you getting "stoatherd has a low prior on aliens?"

I don't know what it would take for you to change your mind on alien likelihood

Evidence.

The aliens don't have to be little green men, or any other hollywood stereotypes.

This is a nice line, but it seems to be from a different argument entirely.

Why do you consider the possibility so infinitesimally low? Is there some physical law you think it is violating?

The possibility of what, exactly? Aliens existing, or aliens specifically interacting with Earth, typically via UFOs?

Why are you inventing yet another position for me, that I consider the possibility (of whichever thing you're talking about) "infinitesimally low"?

I asked you a specific question in my last comment: when Hanson said "there's a good chance UFOs are aliens", did he mean there's a good chance UFOs are aliens?

You gave a pretty detailed rundown of how you think Hanson's views have evolved (which I appreciate). I think the implicit answer to my question was "yes", but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Given that, can you please acknowledge that you're now completely moving the goalposts? Because you claimed I was being uncharitable, and I was misinterpreting a hypothetical (with disclaimers!) from Hanson -- that he didn't actually believe the thing that I was saying he did.

Now you're saying he does believe that thing. And you're trying to prosecute the case that the thing is reasonable. That's fine, but can you please notice that you've entirely shifted the argument?

Ya I admit I didn't see Hansons latest post cuz I hadn't fully read the parent post. So I didn't believe you that he had said that.

See it from my perspective:

If Hanson thinks aliens are real then I'm willing to update my beliefs to think that aliens are real.

So you saying that Hanson says aliens are real is for me basically claiming aliens are real. Using the same logic you've used elsewhere about not trusting authors on something where you have really low priors ... I thought it more likely you were mistaken the that aliens are real.

Then the article you linked to was at a time when he didn't actually think aliens are real. So that confused me.

And I agree Hanson is not a careful writer. It's very easy to read any of his stuff in isolation and see him as a crackpot.

And ya my "goalposts" have shifted as I've learned more. I think the framing is maybe bad. I don't think I'm trying to "win" an argument against you. There are mistake and conflict arguments and I was treating this more like a mistake one. I'm certainly learning lots. I don't have any particular strong values attached to the existence of aliens or in defending Hanson. I think it's a mistake to dismiss Hanson out of hand, but he doesn't do himself enough favors for me to think it's vital to defend his reputation. He has been hit with like a half dozen cancellation attempts over things he has said. I've cringed at most of them.

So I guess I'll state what I'm trying to get across and leave it at that:

I think it's a mistake to entirely dismiss Hanson. Especially on his topics of expertise: Aliens, Prediction markets/futarchy, and signalling models of social behavior.

The devil is always in the details. Democracy, freedom, and due process are abstract concepts, ending them won’t intrinsically cause any issues. But what concretely do you (or Hanson) propose to replace them, and how? For me, just what is enough for now, because I haven’t heard a good proposal yet.

Personally, I still hold “democracy is the bestworst government except for all others that have been tried”. I’m not against dictatorship, if the dictator is competent and has a good successor strategy. But who does, and how do you get this person in charge and ensure they’re not overthrown?

Likewise, the problem with taking away citizens’ freedom is that what’s done instead isn’t better. Communist governments were ultimately less productive and lost to capitalist ones. We already don’t have total freedom (because that’s impossible), and maybe we need more laws restricting more freedom, for example drug use and being a nuisance in public or to service workers. But what kind of restrictions are you really talking about? Criticizing leaders? Free speech? Then what do we do when leaders start making bad opinions and decisions (since, like everyone, they’re not perfect), going further and further astray like a stalling plane (with no one to correct them, how would they avoid this)?

You may argue we’re already going astray; but there are forums like these, my argument is if opposition was illegal things would degrade faster (and I’m optimistic there will eventually be a course correction in either scenario, but only the latter requires a revolution). You may point to China; but before today’s government, China suffered the “Great Leap Forward” which caused more proportional death than any democratically-caused disaster (at least that I’m aware of); it’s still suffering from centrally-planned failures like its housing; and what do you think will happen when Xi Jinping dies? I think Singapore is the strongest counter-argument; but seeing the War on Drugs and vast difference in culture, I don’t believe America (individualist and expressive) can reach their (collectivist and routine) stable equilibrium, nor any European nation for nation-specific reasons.

Lastly, the illusion of autonomy is important: it makes people happy and complicit, and permits extreme outliers which may be vital. For example, instead of explicitly limiting peoples’ calorie consumption, it would probably be better to just provide free GLP-1s and encourage them via propaganda (in this case outliers probably wouldn’t be vital, but they’d be few enough they’d negligibly affect public resources like healthcare, while appealing to fat enthusiasts). More generally, instead of officially eliminating basic values like democracy to massive resistance, enabling extreme failure modes, why not just manipulate people and use procedural tricks to achieve the same outcomes? I mean, most nations already do that today…

In fact, I speculate a reason people are disillusioned and ironically proposing authoritarian measures is because we live in unofficial creeping authoritarianism. Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but especially without a good proposal, it hints that we shouldn’t accelerate into that path.

What if, instead, we propose and start implementing ways to restore unofficial liberty, democracy, and due process? (I threw myself into the immigration storm last week; I won’t suggest what to do here except not deport massive numbers of integrated citizens or decades-long immigrants, because explained in that thread, I doubt it can happen in a democracy with free press that remains a democracy with free press).

Personally, I still hold “democracy is the best government except for the others”. I’m not against dictatorship, if the dictator is competent and has a good successor strategy. But who does, and how do you get this person in charge and ensure they’re not overthrown?

The only dictator I would be comfortable with is myself, and given that a) that cannot be guaranteed, and b) would be a terrible idea, am therefore against a dictatorship.

Personally, I still hold “democracy is the best government except for the others”.

Truer words have never been said.

I actually forgot the last part: “others that have been tried”.

Maybe in the future we’ll have a better government run by and/or with the assistance of AI. But not today: LLMs are too suggestible, so in practice I’m confident it would be hijacked by humans.

Well, the joke was that the original quote says "...the worst..."

And this is why I don’t speak much publicly. “I’m sorry that happened, your feelings are completely unjustified…wait wait I mean justified, sorry again, sometimes I get mixed up you know”.

I’m curious how much other people think (or write or say) the opposite word without realizing. For me it’s frequent: I recall several earlier cases, usually when speaking. I think it’s interesting, a glitch in the opaque process that is human thinking.

I’m curious how much other people think (or write or say) the opposite word without realizing. For me it’s frequent: I recall several earlier cases, usually when speaking. I think it’s interesting, a glitch in the opaque process that is human thinking.

All the fucking time (though the substance might be a bit different — often it’s a phrase rather than a word).

In recent years I’ve started analogising it to my Wernicke’s area throwing an LLM hallucination.

Mine is getting the relationship between things backwards. It's indistinguishable from yours when it's like "1 is more than 2", but very different when it's "Alice is Bob's brother".

I also do that: “Russia should be allowed to defend itself from Ukraine…wait, I mean the other way, Ukraine from Russia”

I don’t believe this is true in all environments. It is better for European societies, but a lot of other areas seem better with other systems. The Monarchy has worked well for the Saudis. Africa hasn’t been great with Democracy or much of Latam.

It’s not the overwhelming thinv that Capitalism has had over communism.

Locke for the West, Hobbes for the Global South.

Africa hasn’t been great with Democracy or much of Latam.

Democracy has been less bad for Africa than the actually existing alternatives, which are Soviet-style communism and military juntas. There is an open question about whether British colonialism was better, but it isn't clear if Britain still produces competent colonialists.

You replace them with what they replaced: republicanism. That means layers of representation, and it means not everyone gets to vote.

The amendments 14-19+24+26, where 14/15/19/24/26 all expand voters indiscriminately, and 16/18 are centralizing authority and control, with a special place in hell for 17 which allowed the fedgov to fully control the states.

The people who vote need to have a stake before they are allowed to vote, other wise they will just vote themselves other people's money, and in the case of immigrants, all of their cousins be allowed to become voters, too, so the whole clan can vote themselves other people's money.

Democracy is not the solution, it is the problem. If you have a solution to the problem of voting yourself other people's money, then I'm glad to hear it, but it's the obvious consequence of expanding the franchise in misguided worship of Demos.

Then the problem becomes, who gets to vote and how do you decide?

Non-citizen immigrants already shouldn’t be voting. Children of immigrants, maybe if they have ties to their origin country, but otherwise they have no less of a stake in their host country than anyone else.

The median voter will vote for themselves to have other people’s money, unless the selection process is very careful and has a way to prevent corruption (which seems unlikely because the selfless voters will be taken advantage of by definition; it must prevent their selflessness from being misallocated to parasites). Even when voters benefit someone else, they’re still benefiting themselves, just next prioritizing who they prefer over who they don’t: e.g. when high-ranking Democrats support immigrants over ordinary citizens, they still put themselves first. I think it’s more important to figure out why the under-prioritized group (ordinary citizens)’s votes aren’t working to keep their money and fix that; if you only deprive a different group of votes, they may still be under-prioritized (e.g. Democrats may redirect money from immigrants to citizens they think will vote Democrat, but they’ll give no more to citizens they think will vote Republican).

Also, how do you divide the layers? In the US gerrymandering (and FPTP) have locked Congress from doing anything and entrenched ideologically extreme candidates. But I think this easier and something simple would be good enough like: (pick n) 1 candidate for n-2n people and each candidate has vote power proportional to how many they represent.

There is no utopia. There will always be problems. I would rather have those problems you described than the ones we have today.

Children of immigrants, maybe if they have ties to their origin country, but otherwise they have no less of a stake in their host country than anyone else.

They absolutely have less stake in the host country, it's absurd to say otherwise. The very fact of having a backup means you have less at stake.

Also, how do you divide the layers?

Virginia decides who votes in Virginia. Texas decides who votes in Texas. And so on in that fashion.

The very fact of having a backup means you have less at stake.

In multiple generations they won’t have a backup, few countries permit great-grandchildren to remigrate.

But even immigrants themselves, if their origin country hates them or is a true shithole, and they can prove this (e.g. they’re an activist), they have no backup, and credible reason to have negative allegiance towards it.

This becomes an easier problem to solve if you permit multiple votes per person. Then you could, e.g., divide the total income tax collected by the number of registered voters, and give each voter a number of votes equal to their shares of taxes paid, rounding up, with a minimum of one and a maximum of, say, 10. Rough figures put that share at about $15,000, so for every $15,000 of federal income taxes paid, you get an extra vote, up to 10, which would correspond to an income of around $500K. This would weight the franchise in favor of those with skin in the game without giving wildly disproportionate power to the ultra-wealthy. (This would also have the side benefit of incentivizing cleaning up voter roles, to decrease the denominator of the income contribution and raise the price of additional votes for the wealthy).

I think this system makes a underclass strike or revolution more likely, but maybe not, looking at the current system where everyone’s vote counts only in a weak official sense.

The bigger problem with it is that the ruling party can entrench themselves by making it easier for supporters and harder for opposers to earn money. How would you prevent that?

Adding +1 vote for each child under 18 would also create good incentives and add balancing power to those who choose family over income. I think the problem you describe isn't too large a problem, as market forces would be constantly fighting against it.

market forces would be constantly fighting against it

Would they? The government controls the market. They don’t have to completely disenfranchise the opposition to maintain a supermajority: just tip the scales so for example the bottom 25% in income (unexceptional) supporter is much richer than the top 25% (unexceptional) opposer.

Adding +1 vote for each child under 18

I think this is a great idea even today, because governments aren’t prioritizing young people enough, it appeals to both sides (conservatives = more children, liberals = empowering women), and has a decent-sounding justification (the baby deserves representation, and the mother usually cares about them, so she’ll vote in their interest).

But I doubt it would offset the imbalance from giving richer people more votes: most people prefer income over votes since it benefits them more directly, so those having more children would be the rich people (with enough income to raise them in living conditions they consider decent, like today).

There are issues with this.

And even if you just count taxes paid and don't count services received, many of the issues still apply; for instance, the government can make you pay the equivalent of taxes by forcing you to spend the money yourself, or forcing a company to spend it (and then the company passes along the cost to you). Or the government can manipulate "who pays the taxes" through accounting tricks (like whether a stay at home spouse files jointly).

Somewhere in the last 250 years, freedom became synonymous with democracy. Before the United States, freedom was considered to be attained when you were under the rule of the (relatively autonomous) lordship of one of your countrymen or clan. Tyranny was to be ruled by an outsider, who may set up puppet members of your tribe but whose commands were dictated by the foreigner.

Because democracy became synonymous with freedom, democracy is seen as an end in and of itself. But this is incorrect. Democracy is a means to good governance: to prosperity, well-being, and good order. If democracy is not providing good governance, democracy is no longer a reasonable means. It is the height of hubris to think that democracy is the final state of government. The world has seen city states, empires, democracies, monarchies, dictatorships. Additional governance structures will evolve, some of which will almost certainly improve on democracy.

For myself, I desire freedom. I desire the ability to walk my clean streets in safety. I want my neighbors to look and act like me, to believe in similar things, to hope in similar things. I want my children to grow up around adults who will seek to instill similar morals and myths. I want to be led by someone who genuinely has my best interests in mind, and not simply simpering for my vote. I want to be free of the tyranny of the election cycle.

I desire freedom. I desire the ability to walk my clean streets in safety. I want my neighbors to look and act like me,

It's almost as if the cliche of conservatives being enamored extreme conformity is correct. I thought Stepford Wives and Invasion of the Body Snatchers were hyperbolic and insulting notions of what conservatives want. Maybe not?

I think most people would prefer clean streets and nice things versus whatever freedom means.

Isn’t that what Heaven is suppose to be? Ruled by a dictator but nice things?

Isn’t that what Heaven is suppose to be? Ruled by a dictator but nice things?

A dictator who also occasionally sends people to Eternal Tortureland.

"I want my neighbors to look and act like me" might mean automatons if you're egregiously uncharitable, but it's more likely to mean "I don't want the tyranny of the bottom decile, and actually I like a quiet neighborhood instead of morons blasting shitty music at 2AM."

People that don't want to walk clean streets in safety are just virtue signaling morons that deserve to be mugged, repeatedly, until they wise up and stop being doormats that make everyone's lives worse.

But is the problem here democracy?

I’m sure most people want quiet, clean, safe neighborhoods. Even hardcore leftists become tough on public obnoxiousness and crime when it directly affects them. It’s possible to pass laws and fund police to enforce them. Some neighborhoods already do.

Why haven’t most places done this? Honestly, it confuses me. Maybe the incentives that select people to run for office and win select against those that target obvious issues in favor of culture war ones. Still, I haven’t seen any evidence that the issue is democracy or would go away in another form of government. It may be enough to figure out whatever the (democratic) places that manage to be quiet, clean, and safe do.

But is the problem here democracy?

Democracy as an Ideal Form, no. Democracy as it exists in the real world, yes.

It may be enough to figure out whatever the (democratic) places that manage to be quiet, clean, and safe do.

Not be large cities?

This is a pretty uncharitable take accusing someone else of an uncharitable take. "I want my neighbors to look and act like me" comes off as I want my neighbors to be my same race, and socioeconomic status, go to the same church, and believe in the same creeds as me. That is conformist, extreme might be hyperbole but it is undoubtedly a conformist opinion on the level that conservative often decry when assigned by outside interlocutors.

"I enjoy having a distinct culture of my own" is hardly the same as being the Stepfords or actual aliens! These are not even in the same realm of degrees of uncharitability.

I didn't say it's not conformist, but neither did they! They accused conservatives of being fucking BRAINWASHED AUTOMATONS. Come on. This is absurd.

Also, progressives kick anyone out of their coalition that doesn't agree on like two topics. They are equally if not more conformist, just with funnier hair colors.

I desire freedom over democracy and realize they’re orthogonal, but in practice, I see no better system to guarantee everyone’s freedom.

How would you ensure the party in charge gives you clean streets and similar neighbors without accountability at least to yourself (e.g. by voting yourself)?

And of course everyone wants to be more free than others, so how would you ensure you’re on top? Personally, I’d do the usual: propose a system based on Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance which looks good enough to convince others but ensures I’m content. Most people are only convinced to join a system if they have some political influence, so to get enough support to put your system into power, usually it needs at least the illusion of democracy.

freedom was considered to be attained when you were under the rule of the (relatively autonomous) lordship of one of your countrymen or clan

Case in point, my understanding is that most feudal lords abused their serfs. I’m sure it was better in small clans and pre-US American villages, but only because everyone knew each other, and more importantly an ordinary citizen could physically confront their leader(s), so they were still accountable.

For myself, I desire freedom. I desire the ability to walk my clean streets in safety. I want my neighbors to look and act like me, to believe in similar things, to hope in similar things. I want my children to grow up around adults who will seek to instill similar morals and myths. I want to be led by someone who genuinely has my best interests in mind, and not simply simpering for my vote. I want to be free of the tyranny of the election cycle.

I actually equate freedom with something completely different and it seems to be incompatible with modern state. I think freedom is to have taxation on level of 1 or 2% of GDP like in 1775 USA. I see it as ability to sell and purchase goods and services without constant oversight of taxman. I see it as being able to have contract without tyrannical book of regulations that are impossible to read withing my lifetime. In a sense of freedom, I think that the modern people are completely cucked and lulled into absolute egregious compliance.

I think freedom is to have taxation on level of 1 or 2% of GDP like in 1775 USA. I see it as ability to sell and purchase goods and services without constant oversight of taxman. I see it as being able to have contract without tyrannical book of regulations that are impossible to read withing my lifetime. In a sense of freedom, I think that the modern people are completely cucked and lulled into absolute egregious compliance.

Hence my last paragraph: I think the real issue isn’t that freedom (and democracy) are failing us, but that we’re losing freedom and democracy without realizing. Those who advocate for authoritarianism really want more freedom and power for themselves, which they’re more likely to end up with in a functional democracy (for example, to pass and enforce laws for decent neighborhoods).

To some extent a modern state has to be less free and some definitions of Democracy. The Commons are much bigger today and there are a lot more regulations that need to happen to make society work. And everything happening all at once to. Relate a modern economy is more complicated than any one person can track at once to vote so you have to outsource a lot of decision making.

1-2% of GDP tax rates are a thing of the past. It’s likely much smaller than we have now but 1-2% of gdp to state capacity wouldn’t work at modern living standard. You actually do need a FAA. Though the TSA and the rest of the parasitic class attached to it probably not. Someone has to coordinate the commons.

Like one example today is the skascraper that had structural issues in NYC and maybe might collapse. I think they have $700 million in it. A libertarian world I don’t think can deal with that coordination. You can wipe out the builders money but if it collapses it’s probably 10-40 in damages and then the builders just bankrupt.

Yes, to be clear I’m not against taxes or regulations.

I think the important part is that richer and more influential people and organizations should have strictly more taxes and compliance overhead (and not in the sense “both rich and poor can’t sleep under bridges”). Today we have situations where working-class citizens pay more taxes than rich locals via offshore tax havens, and small businesses suffer from unnecessarily difficult regulations (not protecting anyone) while big businesses fail audits then suffer less than it would take to pass them.

More generally: it’s important for everyone to contribute and compromise for society, the problem is when people asking/enforcing don’t evenly contribute and compromise themselves. I think growing lack of effort and honor within the working class should and would be fixed by seeing more effort and honor from their leaders.

Once everyone has to suffer evenly from laws regulations etc., they become more permissive, because everyone wants as much freedom as possible for the choices they want. Almost everyone agrees that (for example) murder is wrong and building safety is important, few would accept safety for living in a panopticon.

More generally: it’s important for everyone to contribute and compromise for society, the problem is when people asking/enforcing don’t evenly contribute and compromise themselves. I think growing lack of effort and honor within the working class should and would be fixed by seeing more effort and honor from their leaders.

I think that this is feature and not a bug. For instance it is legally and financially high-risk situation to hire random bum to get him mow your lawn for cash. This simple interaction is covered by literally thousands of pages of regulation. You have tax liability, you have premises liability, you have equipment liability, you have environmental liability and million of other things. The system is designed that such a simple and age old interaction is basically impossible.

This is the litmus test of how tyrannical the government is. It basically forces local bum to begging, as he is incapable of getting regular job, not to even talk about being able to do the paperwork necessary to be a small business operator. And you as a customer cannot profit from this opportunity and you are forced to contract companies who have to finance all that regulation. Large corporation can utilize economy of scale, their operations can afford regulation compliance, which only incentivize them to lobby for more. Alternatively you just do it yourself, which in this tax and regulation environment seems to be more and more attractive, incentivizing autarkic economies.

On an intuitive level, the modern society especially in the west is absolutely unfree under pretext of safety.

In fact, I speculate a reason people are disillusioned and ironically proposing authoritarian measures is because we live in unofficial creeping authoritarianism.

Here to deliver my periodic reminder that we do not live in "creeping" authoritarian, the vast majority of countries considered democracies went full totalitarian merely 6 years ago.

This may be a contributor to your specific problem, as again the vast majority of pro-immigration self-described (though I would say they're not) liberals supported this totalitarianism. They provide no explanation of why it's acceptable for the state to lock down everyone including immigrants for the greater good, yet it is unacceptable to deport immigrants for the greater good.

Now, some did oppose this (Hanson included) but even among that subset, vanishingly few were screaming from the rooftops about what was taking place, and treated the enormity of what was happening with the enormity of a response it deserved. And fewer still do.

Or to generalise to something that the average member of the public would find more relatable, governments demonstrated they have the power to just do things, so why can't they just do things about immigration too? Unlimited state power is already out the box. That it's too expensive, too hard, or violates limited government won't be accepted as an answer by the public until there is some sort of reckoning for 2020.

he was one of the early rationalist adjacent that likely filters a lot of people here

I feel like this understates it, if only a little. Hanson's blog, Overcoming Bias, was originally a group blog by him and Yudkowsky, and the posts that seeded LessWrong came from there. Slate Star Codex was where Scott Alexander put those of his posts that didn't seem appropriate for LessWrong. Then we got /r/slatestarcodex for the users who preferred Reddit as a discussion platform, then /r/themotte when Scott wanted further distance from culture war arguments (or, less charitably to us, from many of our arguers), and finally TheMotte when our mods worried about the subreddit possibly becoming too censored or even banned. "Great-great-great-blog-grandpa" isn't really a close relation, but it's interesting trivia that it's a direct relation.

Hanson's always been the sort of person who will put out half-baked taboo ideas for discussion, for a number of reasons, but I think one of the stronger reasons is that he's got a streak of high-decoupling contrarianism that's both a direct and a close relation to the culture here. There's a certain kind of mind, still probably very over-represented here, who sees "here's why your idea is stupid" as a potentially-friendly-and-helpful source of hopefully-new thoughts but also sees "here's why you can't talk about your idea" the way a bull sees a waving red cape.

I didn’t know Yudkowsky blogged there. So then it’s more of a direct seeding. I never see Hanson talked about here but was aware the marginal revolution blog was basically the right leaning pathway into the community.

Most of the Sequences were originally posted on the old Overcoming Bias blog (the one that was Typepad powered), then later exported to LessWrong (back when it was a reddit clone), and now live on LessWrong 2.0.

For example, here's "When None Dare Urge Restraint" on Overcoming Bias, LessWrong, and LessWrong 2.0.

And I feel like I too am moving to a political philosophy of common goodism and the other ideas are just means to achieve the good... Perhaps this is just the standard libertarian to fascism pipeline... It’s easy to be a liberal-libertarian when society is broadly good/stable but in harder times more pragmatic ideas emerge.

I dont think these things really fit together. The "common good", at least as understood by the integralists who most talk like this, definitely includes some freedoms. Different ones, and not all of them as deontologically rigid, but it certainly isnt just consequentialism. Nor are the ideas which emerge in hard times generally more pragmatic. There are some specific rather unpragmatic things were doing now, that would stop, but there would also be the romantic and heroic. No atheists in foxholes etc, and youll see this even within historical fascism.

In a way, totalitarianism is an easy next step after liberalism, because you dont need any new ideas. You already know how to pursue the welfare of individuals, and when youre sick of that, you just model the whole state as one individual and pursue its welfare. Humans are not ants, nor should we have been.

For those of you who play guitar, you have probably played a stratocaster at one point or another. Or maybe you haven't. The "stratocaster" shape (also called the S-body) is one of the most copied and cloned electric guitar designs in history. Back in 2009, Fender tried to trademark the body shape in the United states and failed. However, Fender recently went back on the offensive and filed a new suit in a German court.

The Düsseldorf court - regarded as one of the most influential intellectual property courts in Germany and Europe - confirmed that the Stratocaster® body design qualifies as a copyrighted work of applied art, reflecting original creative expression rather than purely functional design. The ruling aligns with a growing body of EU and German case law recognising that iconic product designs can benefit from full copyright protection, beyond traditional design rights. Crucially, it confirms that offering infringing products for sale into Germany or other countries of the EU is sufficient to establish liability, regardless of where a manufacturer or seller is based.

As a result of the ruling, Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments Co. is prohibited from manufacturing, offering, or distributing guitars featuring the Stratocaster® body shape in Germany and the EU. Any future violations may result in fines of up to €250,000 per infringement, or up to six months’ imprisonment if fines cannot be enforced, subject to statutory limits.

The defendant did not show up, and it appears that Fender has won the German equivalent of a summary judgement.

Why is this in the culture war, you ask? Mostly because it represents another crack in the monolithic corporate-mass media culture that defined the United states from circa 1950 to 2010.

Leo Fender launched the Fender Electric Instrument Company in 1946, and created several iconic stringed instrument designs between 1950 and 1954, including the Telecaster guitar, Precision Bass, and Stratocaster guitar. The Stratocaster, in particular, set the musical world on fire due to its heavily contoured body, flexible pickup arrangement, and and tremolo bridge. Guitarists like Dick Dale, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan took the instrument and created brand new, incredibly popular styles of music.

Things were going great for the strat, but the Fender Electric Instrument company wasn't having the best time. Leo Fender sold his interest in the company to the Columbia Records Distribution Corporation or CBS. Musicians derided instruments produced under the new ownership, and "pre-CBS" instruments developed a mystique that made them highly coveted prizes.

Eventually, CBS decided to unload the Fender brand, and a car dealership-turned private equity company called Servco Pacific Capital picked it up. This launched ushered in a cambrian explosion of product lines meant to ruthlessly segment the market into every possible price point. Around this time, Fender started running into a real problem. It turned out that other people could also make guitars. Japanese companies started undercutting Fender with clones of their most popular products. Some companies would attempt to double down on quality, but not Fender. Instead, they bought out the biggest clone company and rebranded them as their own "Squier" product line, turned to aggressive IP protection (securing a trademark on their headstock design in 1991), and engaged in a public marketing blitz to make sure that the musical community understood value of a Real Fender™ over an inferior clone. This worked pretty well for a while, but eventually Fender started seeing real competition from above and below. While they could buy out low-end competitors, all it did was incentivize more clone builders to spring up in countries across the world with cheap labor. Indonesia, Korea, Sri Lanka, and China all started cranking out Fender clones at a fraction of the prices Fender was charging. At the same time, "boutique" builders like Suhr started nibbling away at the high end. Fender started losing its mystique. When a $300 guitar with a $50 setup could rival a pre-CBS guitar for ergonomics and tone, enthusiastic amateurs stopped dreaming about the day that they could get a Real Fender™. Instead of shelling out for a Real Fender™, serious musicians (and rich guys) would go straight for the boutique builds instead.

The end result is that the Fender brand is a shadow of what it used to be, largely propped up by a shrinking-but-affluent market, while their leadership is either unwilling or unable to branch out.

The Stratocaster suit, in particular, offends me in a way that's somewhat hard to articulate. If you've ever built a slab-bodied instrument before, you start to realize that there are only so many ways to accomplish the task. If you want an instrument that's comfortable to play while sitting, you need to cut a contour that matches the curve of a person's thigh. If you want to play high notes, you need to cut material out below the neck. You need a projection above the neck to attach the strap at the instrument's balance point, but you don't want to add too much weight, which results in a "horn". You need room for electronics, and you probably want a contour at the top for comfort while playing as well. In the end, there are only a handful of designs that can flow from those requirements. Unless you're a psychopath like Ned Steinberger, whatever you build is probably going to end up looking similar to a strat.

Fender isn't the only company out there suffering from a similar malady. In fact, it's almost identical to the trajectory of the Harley Davidson corporation. Both became aspirational, iconic symbols of Americana. Both started banking on tradition and mystique, while trying and failing to hold back the tide by buying out competition (see: Buell). Both they eventually ended up trapped by their own early success.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as I drive back and forth to band practice. I see far fewer motorcycles on the road than I did a decade ago. Musicians still exist, but the community of "instrument players" around me is going increasingly gray. Young people generally don't create music, or they stick to various flavors of electronica that they can produce on their own.

At the same time, the entire concept of "brand" has been eroding. In my youth, a brand generally traded on its reputation and relied on customer goodwill for its continued existence. Broadly speaking, 80s and 90s America trusted "brands". We hung out at the Dairy Queen. When somebody got a new guitar, we'd be excited to hear how that slick new Stratocaster sounded. A guy with a Harley was the coolest guy we knew. Craftsman tools were the last set you'd ever have to buy. Corporate consumer culture was mercantile, but at least it felt like you were getting something out of it.

In 2026, the American consumer/vendor relationship seems broken. Everything is owned by an increasingly small number of conglomerates who wear different skin suits to con suckers into buying from them, and not from those other guys, who are also them. It's starting to feel like a home-grown version of Chaebols, or Zaibatsu, and people are checking out.

This has has some real downstream effects. In a secular, essentially constructed nation like the US, the necessity of commerce and the prosperity that flows from it is one of the few universal experiences that citizens of this nation have. It feels like we're losing our lingua franca, however thin and materialistic it might be. At the same time, I can't tell what is cause and what is effect. Are the "lifestyle" companies all converging into a sleezy car dealer modality because it's efficient, or because Americans have stopped engaging with the idea of "lifestyle"? If it's the latter, is it because of a broader rejection of materialism, or because we're all fuckin' broke?

I don't think I have any answer to this, but if there's a moral to this story, maybe don't buy a Fender.

Everything is owned by an increasingly small number of conglomerates who wear different skin suits to con suckers into buying from them, and not from those other guys, who are also them.

In North America (the US and Canada), both Canada Dry and Schweppes are owned by the same company: Keurig Dr Pepper.

Everything is owned by an increasingly small number of conglomerates who wear different skin suits to con suckers into buying from them, and not from those other guys, who are also them. It's starting to feel like a home-grown version of Chaebols, or Zaibatsu, and people are checking out.

This seems like a strange conclusion when above you write that Fender can't whack all the moles undercutting them from the bottom and is powerless to do anything about those taking over the top of the market. It's difficult to say how profitable Fender is since it's private but given that it keeps changing hands it's hard to imagine it's a flourishing business. Seems like the market is giving them their just desserts, and hopefully this copyright thing won't undermine that. What's the problem here?

You're not exactly wrong, but I'm somewhat concerned about what kind of damage they can do on the way down. They've been doing a lot of acquisitions.

Here's a list of what I can remember off the top of my head.

  • Genz Benz (dead)
  • SWR (dead)
  • Sunn (dead)
  • Presonus (declining)
  • Ovation
  • Charvel
  • Hamer (dead)
  • Jackson
  • Reverb
  • G&L (dead)
  • Bigsby
  • Groove tubes

They're pretty voracious.

I don't know anything about guitars so I'll have to take your word for it. But ultimately if there's so many companies to acquire and they still are being undercut it seems like the cost to entry to this field are not exactly massive and the bigger concern is regulation making stratocaster shaped guitars illegal rather than Fender somehow buying out all the competition. A fat monopolist with no moat is extremely attractive prey.

Another Intellectual Property disaster:

For the unfortunate fellows and fellas who aren't following the Italian brainrot universe, Tung Tung Tung Sahur is having legal issues (Fall Guys video for those illiterate or with short attention spans). Not one, but two companies are claiming to own the titular character, suing everyone including each other.

What's surprising about this case (to people who still believe in IP's integrity), neither company owns Mr. Sahur: AI-generated works are public domain in most countries including Indonesia (a draft regulation to change this has been proposed but not yet accepted), as they should be, in part because they themselves are trained on others' copyrighted data.

Yet the court case is delayed until October. In the meantime, he has been removed from the Roblox game Steal a Brainrot, played by over 25 million children and pedophiles (won't somebody think of the pedophiles?) This is no small drama: the game is so popular apparently a movie is being made about it, and by the time this is resolved, it may be too late to include him in the cast.

I just don't know how anyone can look at this and not feel...utterly dejected by the state of society. Copyright is a scourge, abused by large corporations and not actually benefiting small creators, and should be severely curtailed if not fully eliminated.

I’m somewhat confused by all this, but especially by the last screenshot, which shows that the plaintiffs are saying no one owns AI generated characters and are seeking a court order saying Momentum does not own them. This seems inconsistent with the narrative that Momentum is being sued because those other companies are saying they own the characters? What is actually happening?

Mementum (partnered with Tung Tung Tung Sahur’s creator) is threatening to sue Spyder Games (owner of Steal a Brainrot). Spyder Games is counter-suing Mementum to get official permission to use him, and the screenshot is from that. Spyder Games is simultaneously filing takedowns of Steal a Brainrot copycats.

AI-generated works are public domain in most countries

This sounds suspicious to me. I have no idea about Indonesia, but the usual criterion for copyright is creativity, not the tool. If you type a long prompt and then iterate and select after many generations, then it should be enough human creativity in there. And how the model creator got the training data should have no bearing on this. As long as it's not regurgitating a particular copyright protected character or image in that specific output, there should be no problem.

You didn't specify why any of these actors are claiming they own this character. That seems quite a big omission. If one of them is the original individual who used AI to make this character's image, then I'm actually on their side. It is a creative act to specify this nontrivial character form and presumably the prompt wasn't two or three words and they probably didn't pick the very first result.

At least in the United States, the specific rule is :

If a work’s traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it. For example, when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the “traditional elements of authorship” are determined and executed by the technology—not the human user.

I don't know how well that will stand up to legal challenge. It's very rare to just give a prompt and get back a complex output. There's a lot of design, iteration, and thought.

Right. Generally, as I understand, copyright is very generous (when no AI is involved), in the sense that as long as you exercise the slightest creativity, they don't question stuff like "but you just randomly threw a pile of trash on the floor, that's not a sculpture" or "you just put a red square on white background, that's just geometry, not an art piece" etc. because that would kill a lot of contemporary "what even is art anyway" type of art.

So it seems like if you use a ControlNet, or any similar guidance, you're good for sure. But

For example, if a user instructs a text-generating technology to “write a poem about copyright law in the style of William Shakespeare,” she can expect the system to generate text that is recognizable as a poem, mentions copyright, and resembles Shakespeare’s style. But the technology will decide the rhyming pattern, the words in each line, and the structure of the text. When an AI technology determines the expressive elements of its output, the generated material is not the product of human authorship. As a result, that material is not protected by copyright and must be disclaimed in a registration application.

Now if the user types "change the rhyme pattern to ... and make the lines shorter" and gets another poem fitting this requirement. Under the historical broad interpretation of "creativity" (which doesn't have to be impressive or painstakingly high effort), this would have to count as enough creative input I think.

Same with images. Today's AI chat apps can do iterative work on images that wasn't available in 2023 (when the doc was written), you could just re-generate with the same or a different prompt, but real editing wasn't possible. Today, you can tell ChatGPT what to change, and it will only change that part and keep the rest the same (as much as it can). So if you do 3 such iterations, each time specifically naming an aspect you want changed, that has to be enough... And what about selection? Is that exercise of creative judgment enough? Generate 10 Shakespeares and pick the one you like best? Based on the above text, I guess no. But what if you change your prompt inbetween?

I highly doubt the guy just sat down to the computer, typed out the perfect prompt for Tung Tung Sahur and got an image and he ran with that. He likely experimented with lots of weird and absurd character ideas and this one came out the funniest and he wrote and rewrote that prompt to make it maximally funny. It's absurd to deny him authorship for this.

That would be broadly my suspicion as well, with the caveat that the government and AI lobbyists may decide that the wind is blowing the wrong way and that some concessions on copyright may be needed to forestall serious rebellion/challenges to the training of AI as a whole.

Sorry I don't understand the polarity of which way you think it will go. You mean anti-AI people will get it their way and govt and pro-AI people will retreat, and refuse to grant "authorship" to AI-generated stuff, where AI-generated is broadly interpreted? Because that takes away the commercial value of AI art, hence AI art-making won't be profitable and hence not done, and hence human artists can keep making money?

Basically, yes. A kind of:

'We acknowledge that our system is a reconstituted blend of totally-not-copyrighted material, and as such we acknowledge that we should not be able to re-claim copyright on the output of that material. You can use our systems to do useful things and make SaaS but not to create XYZ products in competition with humans.'

Obviously this would be a big step down but being a commodity server is better than being bankrupted.

I don't think there's a high chance of this - I agree with you that the most likely scenario is that human input from a sophisticated prompter is deemed sufficient to gain copyright.

That said, I know a LOT of young people who are upset about AI and there's a chance that just explodes at some point.

More comments

If one of them is the original individual who used AI to make this character's image, then I'm actually on their side.

Mementum is partnered with the individual who created him, but they’re a corporation based in France. Judging by that and their name, they buy others’ fads to make money, for example by suing others for using them without a license.

There’s a valid argument that Tung Tung Tung Sahur shouldn’t be in any game without permission, and maybe this is less popular, but I still disagree. Steal a Brainrot doesn’t just include Mr. Sahur or make him the focus, he’s one of many characters. I’d rather see more remixes and compilation games like Super Smash Bros without insane corporate backing and licenses. If Tung Tung Tung Sahur’s creator was broke I’d want him to get some revenue from somewhere, but I believe he’s making more than enough from the character’s likeness already, why does he need more?

Actually, I’ll accept if Steal a Brainrot can’t make money off Mr. Sahur’s likeness, by for example selling him specifically. But at least any free media should be allowed to include him without being DMCAd.

but I believe he’s making more than enough from the character’s likeness already, why does he need more?

I believe Roblox has made enough money already, why do they need more?

It’s not only Roblox but mainly Spyder Games. However I agree: I’ll accept if there’s a different way to fund them that digital games shouldn’t have copyright either, and I already believe Spyder Games shouldn’t be allowed to DMCA Steal a Brainrot copycats.

AI-generated works are public domain in most countries

This sounds suspicious to me. I have no idea about Indonesia, but the usual criterion for copyright is creativity, not the tool.

In its complaint, Spyder Games quotes a 2023 statement of policy from the US Copyright Office.

If a work's traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it. For example, when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the “traditional elements of authorship” are determined and executed by the technology—not the human user.… When an AI technology determines the expressive elements of its output, the generated material is not the product of human authorship. As a result, that material is not protected by copyright.

This statement remains in force, though the Copyright Office is continuing to investigate the topic.

You didn't specify why any of these actors are claiming they own this character.

Spyder Games alleges in its complaint that the characters are AI-generated, but Mementum Lab actually denies this allegation in its amended counterclaim.

[1] Defendant Mementum Lab describes itself as “the (Brainrot) Memes Agency”. [2] Even though the law provides that AI-generated content isn’t protectible by copyright, defendant claims that it owns or controls the copyrights to over a dozen brainrots in the Game that were generated by artificial intelligence tools (and more than 50% of the entire “brainrot universe”). [3] For example, defendant contends that it owns or controls the copyrights to the brainrots known as “Tung Tung Sahor” and “U Din Din Din Din Dun Ma Din Din Din Dun”.

Answering Paragraph 7: [1] Defendant admits the allegation in the first sentence of this paragraph. [2] While the allegation in the second sentence of this paragraph that the law provides that AI-generated content isn’t protectible by copyright calls for a legal conclusion, to the extent a response is required, Defendant denies this allegation on information and belief, admits the allegation in this sentence that it claims it holds copyrights relating to over a dozen brainrot characters in the Game, and otherwise denies the allegations in this sentence. [3] Defendant admits the allegation in the third sentence of this paragraph that it contends it holds the copyrights relating to the referenced brainrot characters.

On page 9 of the amended counterclaim begins a five-paragraph section with the title "Defendant’s Creators Use an Involved, Artistic Process to Create Some of the Most Iconic Brainrot Characters, including Tung Tung Sahur", in which AI is not mentioned at all.

This seems useful for the case of a particular image, but I believe copyright extends to the full fictional character, like I can't draw e.g. Lion King characters even in novel settings and poses and make a product out of it, and this is not just due to trademarks, as I understand.

Now in that case, we'd need to know the very first original brainrot images. If the person created one version without AI, then also prompted some AIs to make the character, that presumably doesn't reset the copyright. Like, if I describe Simba's appearance to AI and it draws me a Lion, it doesn't mean it's now public domain. Of course one would have to prove there was a non AI version.

But if the fictional characters can be copyrighted as such, not specific renditions of them, then does the specific execution of a particular depiction really matter? The creativity is in the invention of the character itself.

What are the traditional elements, when it comes to the design of a character in the abstract, as opposed to the creation of a particular image as artwork?

(It's also a question what is with 3D renderers like Blender, which use complex shaders to make the final image. Is that traditional? How about photoshop and generative content fill? Does it have to involve mouse movements that move on top of the image? Or does it have to be deterministically predictable what it will look like if I click a button labeled "Render" as opposed to "Generate"? What's up with procedurally generated textures and terrains?)

Policy statements are not dispositive. Cite the statute.

The statement mostly cites court decisions in support.

In the Office's view, it is well-established that copyright can protect only material that is the product of human creativity. Most fundamentally, the term “author”, which is used in both the Constitution and the Copyright Act, excludes non-humans. The Office's registration policies and regulations reflect statutory and judicial guidance on this issue.

In its leading case on authorship, the Supreme Court used language excluding non-humans in interpreting Congress's constitutional power to provide “authors” the exclusive right to their “writings”. In Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, a defendant accused of making unauthorized copies of a photograph argued that the expansion of copyright protection to photographs by Congress was unconstitutional because “a photograph is not a writing nor the production of an author” but is instead created by a camera. The Court disagreed, holding that there was “no doubt” the Constitution's Copyright Clause permitted photographs to be subject to copyright, “so far as they are representatives of original intellectual conceptions of the author”. The Court defined an “author” as “he to whom anything owes its origin; originator; maker; one who completes a work of science or literature”. It repeatedly referred to such “authors” as human, describing authors as a class of “persons” and a copyright as “the exclusive right of a man to the production of his own genius or intellect”.

Federal appellate courts have reached a similar conclusion when interpreting the text of the Copyright Act, which provides copyright protection only for “works of authorship”. The Ninth Circuit has held that a book containing words “authored by non-human spiritual beings” can only qualify for copyright protection if there is “human selection and arrangement of the revelations”. In another case, it held that a monkey cannot register a copyright in photos it captures with a camera because the Copyright Act refers to an author's “children”, “widow”, “grandchildren”, and “widower”—terms that “all imply humanity and necessarily exclude animals”.

Modern AI systems are so far beyond anything we have seen before that I would treat these court opinions as advisory.

I want this to be the case that makes it to the Supreme Court. Meme magic is real.

Court documents

Related to my thoughts on Private Equity buying out local businesses, particularly those with lengthy presence in a community.

Everything is owned by an increasingly small number of conglomerates who wear different skin suits to con suckers into buying from them, and not from those other guys, who are also them. It's starting to feel like a home-grown version of Chaebols, or Zaibatsu, and people are checking out.

On the one hand you could chalk this up to just inevitable outcome of Capitalism where all goodwill, consumer surplus, and 'brand loyalty' is converted into shareholder value whenever possible.

I think its not inevitable, but just as in nature, any excess calories will invite predators, scavengers, or parasites to 'restore equilibrium.' "Oh boy, people will pay a bit of premium on this particular brand to gain status/ensure functionality/avoid copycats. Let's see how much money we can pump them for before they balk."

I kind of disagree that "the entire concept of 'brand' has been eroding."

Its starting to appear like the brand is now the only factor that matters, when the individual consumer is not independently able to judge the quality of their products.

One of the more stark examples is the apparent widespread, entrenched preference for the iPhone over any competitor, even though the average smartphones are almost identical in capabilities these days. The higher end Samsungs are usually better than the iPhone in terms of cutting-edge tech. But Apple has a TON of lock-in and goodwill purchased during Steve Jobs' tenure, and current execs seem competent at maintaining that edge. (Yes, I know Apple software itself has some real advantages over Android).

It feels like MBA-types are very keen about recognizing a brand-name that has a positive reputation (even or perhaps ESPECIALLY if the brand is all they have, they don't own any manufacturing capacity), and then 'rug-pulling' the fans/aficianados who 'bought in' while it was on the rise to squeeze a burst of cash from them even while removing those factors/features they most loved about the product itself.

This is perhaps most annoying to me because I think 'brand loyalty' is mostly a good thing insofar as there's an 'implicit' contract that the company will keep its products of generally the same sort of quality and, one hopes, pricing as they've been, absent some external forces acting upon them and the customers are able to buy said products without having to do extra research to know what they're getting. And usually don't have to worry about the customer service because the company knows repeat business will come so keeping satisfaction high is prioritized.

When the company changes ownership and management, they usually go right about breaking that implicit contract (ADMITTED that there is no legally enforceable cause of action here!) but are happy to coast off customers' belief that little has changed, and certainly won't ever explain that they're cutting corners to save costs.

It feels like MBA-types are very keen about recognizing a brand-name that has a positive reputation (even or perhaps ESPECIALLY if the brand is all they have, they don't own any manufacturing capacity), and then 'rug-pulling' the fans

Fender is notorious for this. They tend to reshuffle their product lines every year, and this inevitably results in a product line disappearing, only for a new product line with a nearly identical name appearing one quality tier down. It's reached the point where people are starting to catch on, because a lot of buyers on the used market are demanding a manufacturing date now.

One pet peeve I have, which is bad enough that if it occurs, I will usually write off a particular brand, is making small updates to a given product line, maybe not even enough to render them 'incompatible,' but now its got a different product ID, slightly different parts here and there, and shows up as a different item on Amazon, whilst filling the exact same product/price niche.

Even worse when it means that you either don't sell parts for the old model or, fairly often, the old parts are now prohibitively expensive so repair becomes less appealing than replace.

These days you can almost always get around that factor by going and buying a cloned part made in china, but I dislike that since now you're REALLY eating some risk on quality control.

Look, I want you to be trying to innovate and improve the product, and sometimes I buy a replacement and think "why yes, this is a meaningful improvement over the previous version." I just want a certain amount of transparency when that's been done. Software generally does this the right way with versioning.

i just UTTERLY DESPISE when a company intentionally adds to my 'mental overhead' in hopes of confusing me into making a purchase I might not make if given consideration. You're making me think harder about the value I'm getting in hopes that I will not want to bother with the effort and will coast on autopilot.

Meanwhile, a big reason I'm loyal to your product AT ALL is because I'm able to buy it on autopilot and generally won't regret the decision later. I reserve my mental energy for important decisions, don't have me waste it on figuring out if your company's headphones are still up to snuff! (one such 'important' decision is whether to trust your brand or not. And if I decide not, then I flip the switch and leave, and it takes much less energy to leave that switch off than to consider if I should flip it on again).

"Hey we changed the design of our packaging for [reasons], don't bother reading the size/weight to see if we reduced the amount you're getting." Then you see they've shaved a couple ounces of product out and you have to do the mental math to see how the price per ounce or what-have you compares to other options... again.

AI actually makes it WAY EASIER to spot and avoid this practice. Literally just ask it to figure out how the product has changed from generation to generation, compare prices over time and between brands, and if needed see if the brand has changed ownership anytime recently.

I share your despisement for that.

Breyer's got me once years ago with some frozen dairy dessert next to their ice cream. That was the last time I bought anything from them. Now it's just store brand 4 ingredient (plus flavors) ice cream that I check the ingredients on each time.

I will believe this is about defense against taxation and antitrust judgments, and not capitalistic hypercompetition, until someone gives me sufficient evidence my priors are mistaken.

I will believe this is about defense against taxation and antitrust judgments

Elaborate?

While private equity is often seen merely as predation of slack time / redundancy in a business, I see it as an attempt to find profitable business models in the face of blatant anti-business sentiments in governance.

“See?” the PE-bought biz says, “We’re no Randian exceptional beings trying to make the world better. No need to try to kill us, we’re already dead inside.”

Interesting case study, thank you for explaining it for people who know little about guitars.

As far as niche hobbyist supplies, artist's paint companies have mostly maintained their brand identities, which I appreciate. Professional paints sometimes contain toxic substances, and so have to disclose the chemical makeup of their pigments, for instance this high end red paint uses, in place of a cadmium compound, "PY216-Rutile Tin Zinc, PR254-Pyrrole Red, and PV19-Quinacridone Violet", and lists information about each pigment. I like this system, it is very useful! I am happy that these paints are treated as potentially hazardous chemicals and clearly labeled by the serious brands.

The paint brands are differentiated primarily by their consistency and pigment load, with some creamier or stickier, with higher or lower tinting strength, with different preferences held by different artists, depending on what they're trying to do. It looks like the medium mixtures are proprietary, but the pigments are not.

Also, if you want a very specific oil pastel experience, you should still get the Sennelier's version.

I don't know if it matters very much, in that space, whether all the paint companies are ultimately owned by the same overarching corporation or not, as long as they make consistent products. But maybe there's some entertaining IP drama on behind the scenes.

Edit: I found it interesting to learn that glass casting brands are incompatible, they crack if you mix them, so glass artists have to go all in on one company and don't buy anything from the other. As I recall the main US art glass companies are located in New Mexico and Oregon, but the teacher I was learning from had moved from Oregon to New Mexico and brought her supplies, so she couldn't go to the excellent local glass store for supplies, she has to order them from another state.

Do you know why the different brands are incompatible? Is it a chemical thing?

Yes, it's chemistry based, I don't think they're antagonistic, but just developed and tested their glasses separately. Their website says they have different expansion and contraction rates when heated and cooled. Not being a materials science person, I don't really understand the reasoning behind it, something about different flux ratios and other chemical differences.

Ceramic glazes are also developed to heat at different temperatures, and in the 20th Century were classified into "cones" that droop at a certain point of heat absorption, so that a mid fire potter might look for "cone 6" clay and glazes, whereas a low fire potter, firing about 400 (f) cooler, might look for cone 06, which is weird but at least predictable and the different temperatures can be easily sold in the same store.

Edit: I'm not aware of any potters here, but Coyote Clay Glazes are great fun! They create different colors and effects based on kiln, location, thickness, and other idiosyncratic things, and each piece is unique and beautiful. Next time I'm firing, I want to try their "Texas two step" series, which creates spots by one glaze breaking over another.

This is why I am member of the Borosilicate Master Race. This is what the american Pyrex were once made of. Now I think that only the Simax and Schott are left of the traditional manufacturers.

Musicians still exist, but the community of "instrument players" around me is going increasingly gray. Young people generally don't create music, or they stick to various flavors of electronica that they can produce on their own.

This reminds me of Jacobs' concept of 'handmind'. The physical business of manipulating an instrument introduces resistance and friction, and perhaps also opportunity, that is not necessarily accessible otherwise.

I have a half-baked theory on why brands fail like this. In theory, there's nothing wrong with a mass-market brand providing offerings for as much of the market as possible. I think the problem is that you have to commit to a certain minimum standard of quality for something you're willing to put your name on. For example, Specialized is one of the most respected bike brands in the US, and their line ranges from the Sirrus 1.0, a hybrid/commuter bike retailing at $699 to performance road bikes with carbon everything topping out at over $12,000. They are, along with Trek and Giant, one of the Big Three American bike companies, yet their actual market share is vanishingly small. Add up sales of the Big Three, plus close peers like Scott and Cannondale, plus boutique brands like Ibis, Pivot, and Revel, plus direct to consumer brands like Canyon and YT, plus imported brands, plus every other brand that I could possibly recommend that anyone buy, and it all totals up to about 30% of the total market. The remaining 70% are being sold at department stores like Wal-Mart and mass-market sporting goods stores like Dick's, and are being purchased by a non-discriminating public who doesn't want a lecture from a bike snob about why they need to spend $700 at minimum for what they essentially see as a children's toy.

In other words, while the reputable brands try to appeal to as many market segments as possible, they don't make junk. A Sirrus 1.0 isn't going to have the best components on it, but it's going to be reliable and will be worth maintaining. The department store bike is going to be built with extreme cost-cutting measures and is likely to malfunction relatively quickly, at which point the unsuspecting customer is faced with a repair bill that amounts to a significant percentage of the bikes cost and a warning from the mechanic that it's likely to fail again in short order. Yet the market for this stuff is huge, as most bikes (and guitars too, I imagine) are bought as part of a temporary enthusiasm that may or may not stick. A good bike is useless to someone who never rides it, much as a good guitar is useless to someone who doesn't know how to play it. It would be really easy for a reputable bike brand to stretch the bottom of their line to include junk that's sold at sporting goods stores and purchased by an ill-informed public who believes they're getting a better value than some no-name brand because they "heard Trek was good".

The reason why they don't do this is because when you get into extreme cost cutting territory, the profit margins become razor thin. This isn't a problem if the business model of the entire brand revolves around thin margins, but the bike companies are currently structured to be able to make money on well-heeled enthusiasts dropping several thousand dollars on higher margin items. If this customer base stops trusting the brand because they see it when they go grocery shopping, it turns into a race to the bottom where low-end sales become increasingly central to their business. This is basically what happened with GT and Diamondback, two reputable brands that got sold and the new owners tried to stretch into the low end. Those in the know knew that they still made good bikes, but new riders who instinctively knew that department store brands were junk didn't even consider them when looking to make their first serious purchase, and the retailers who carried the low-end models didn't carry the high-end ones, making them hard to find. I found this out myself when I was considering a GT that got good reviews. GT was sold at Dick's, but of course not that one, but they couldn't even order one for me, because big box stores don't operate like bike shops. I'd have to go to a GT authorized dealer to buy one, but of course there weren't any around me, because what independent bike shop owner in their right mind would try to compete with Dick's?

I think whether a brand is susceptible to this depends on which end of the market existed first. Prior to the 1970s, bikes were considered children's toys in the United States, and there wasn't much call for domestic companies to produce high-end models. When this market emerged in the 1970s, companies like Trek and Specialized filled the gap in the high end of the market, and while they would eventually grow to a wide range of models at different price points, they knew they never had a chance of competing with the Schwinns and Huffys of the world so they didn't try. Electric guitars were in the opposite situation; musical instruments were always known for being expensive, and in the early 1950s the few manufacturers making electric guitars were making them for the higher end of the market and thus able to charge prices commensurate with their quality. When rock took off in the 1960s and every kid wanted a guitar under the Christmas tree, CBS had to deal with the reality that most parents would balk at the cost of an instrument the kid would get frustrated with in a couple months, and their parents would choose some budget brand. It's easy to say in retrospect that they shouldn't have cut corners, but it's hard to make that decision in 1967 when sales are exploding and the bean counters at headquarters tell you you'll sell 10,000 more units next year f you can knock $20 off the price tag. And then 20 years later the older, good versions of your product have become iconic and the product practically markets itself, except you aren't going to sell that many models similar to the one Hendrix had if they all cost $3,000.

By the same token, they don't want to completely deprecate the brand, so they allowed the situation to become ridiculous. By all rights, Fender should offer their flagship Stratocaster and similar iconic models like the Telecaster in one mid- or high-range base model with 4 or 5 upgraded price points. Say the Stratocaster 100, which retails for $1800, up to the 400, which retails for $2400, or something along those lines. Or better yet, just sell one Srat for $2400 and be done with it. If they want to sell less expensive models then come up with model names and use those, with similar price points. And don't sell any junk; you aren't competing with the guitars Estaban sells on TV, so don't try. Instead they offer 94 models (literally) of Stratocaster ranging in price from a $250 Squier up to a $3500 Jeff Beck 1965 Signature Edition or whatever, and you can't tell which Stratocasters are good and which ones are bad based on the sub-models alone unless you really know guitars, and then they make things even more confusing by changing specs year by year so that you need to also look at the spec sheets to know that this year's version is selling at the same price as last year's but has inferior electronics, or something along those lines. It's just an example of doing things that make sense in the short term but metastasize into something unmanageable when compounded over several decades.

The weird thing is they had this figured out in the 2000s. You could get an American Strat, a Mexican/Japanese Strat, or a Squier if you were ultra cheap. And the second tier Strats weren't crappy! I have a Mexican Strat from 2003, which cost $500 at the time (so more like $900 today), so it was pretty reasonable in price, and is honestly a nice guitar. It might not be as nice as the American models were, but it's still a good instrument that can last you a long time (I mean, it's going strong for me 23 years later).

Then you look today, and I honestly have no idea what kind of guitar I would get from Fender if I was in the mood to upgrade. There was no need to add more models until a casual purchaser has no hope of figuring out what the product line is all about. They had a pretty good system, and then trashed it for... no reason that I can tell.

At least on the bass guitar side, things have really changed at the lower price points. It used to be that a $300 bass was barely useable. These days, the advent of CNC machining and better QA means that a $300 bass today is probably nicer than a bass that cost $800 back in the 90s. If you're willing to replace the tuners and pickups, it'll compare favorably to an older MIA model.

The department store bike is going to be built with extreme cost-cutting measures and is likely to malfunction relatively quickly, at which point the unsuspecting customer is faced with a repair bill that amounts to a significant percentage of the bikes cost and a warning from the mechanic that it's likely to fail again in short order.

An important factor here is that most of those bikes are being bought for kids who are expected to grow enough to need a new one in a few years anyway. It's the same reason you don't buy them expensive formal clothing they'll wear maybe twice before outgrowing it. Investing in quality might have made sense when you had a pack of 8, and could expect the same size bike to service 3-5 kids, but if Modern Couple has a boy and a girl and lives 500 miles from any potential younger cousins, then that's that.

Also for formal clothing the relative cost of tailoring/adjustment versus buying a new item has skyrocketed versus what it would have been a century ago.

Craftsman tools were the last set you'd ever have to buy.

Long ago I read website that broke down how Craftsman tools degraded in quality. The example being an old and a new adjustable wrench. By every criteria the old one was great and the new one a minimum viable product. So I'd say yes, but mostly because the brands abandoned us.

If you ever find that link again, I'd love to see it

There's a lifecycle produced by higher-level capitalization. You have a company, you build a reputation for quality, value, service, whatever. You grow this company into a major success. Then you die/retire/sell. New company comes in, they want to make money off your reputation. They cut whatever it was that made your product successful, first a bit, then a lot. They switch suppliers, use inferior materials, drive out all the old skilled labor, outsource, etc.

The old reputation is sticky. If your product isn't something people buy with great regularity, it may take decades or even centuries for that reputation to fall to its proper place. My relative expertise here is firearms companies. Colt, for instance, the most iconic American gun brand. They haven't made a profitable new firearm since the 1930s, and the old company went under in teh 1980s, even with the military contracts. It's a brand name owned by a series of shell corporations that produces garbage knock-offs of old Colt designs that retards think is still Sam Colt's own shop. Anyone who knows guns knows Colts suck and have for a century. And yet every month you'll see the newest model Colt in every gun magazine, dipshits in trailer parks the nation over will jerk off in their basketball shorts over it, and even bigger dipshits will actually buy them.

Firearms are terrible for that kind of thing. Colt, Springfield armory, Kimber, the list goes on and on.

It really seems like "expensive hobby" brands are the worst offenders.

Eh, I mean look at Remington and Winchester. Both being run as budget brands and getting hosed by Savage.

The old reputation is sticky. If your product isn't something people buy with great regularity, it may take decades or even centuries for that reputation to fall to its proper place

Applies to countries as much as it does to products. Europe has been declining since at least the end of WWII and definitely since Suez but its reputation still allows it to go around collecting rents because people (rightly or wrongly) want to suck off on the residual prestige (I'm personally guilty of this as well).

There's many layers of institutional power that don't just disappear, even after GDP dips and direct international influence wanes. Over time these erode in a failing society, but parts may last a long time. As an example, English being the lingua franca of the world isn't because Britain is so powerful right at this moment, but the fact that it is gives Britain more power than it would otherwise. Britain will always have an outsize influence through the language alone as long as this is the case.

European societies are broadly in a bad way compared to their recent relative status, but they remain advanced societies with great technical expertise and ability to organize along national lines. Most of them remain nations in a way nothing on the African continent or much of asia can possibly match. Nothing is irreparable, but it remains to be seen if their elites will change course by some means and hold to that policy. I'm guessing the answers will be uneven at best. Europe will likely be dominated by the first large country to fix their current malaise for some time.

I mean define "decline" and Europe? Different countries peaked at different times. Europe in the 90s and 2000s didn't look like a decline story.

Time for some positive culture news, free of gloom, doom and blackpill. Are there any?

Yes. The Vesuvius project to digitally decipher ancient scrolls from Herculaneum - discussed here previously - yielded first fruits.

First rather badly mangled scroll read.

Here is it.

It seems to be not Epicurean, as expected, but Stoic philosophical work.

PHerc. 1667 is what survives of a larger roll: earlier attempts to open it by hand — in the nineteenth century, and again in 1969 and the 1980s — destroyed its outer layers and left only the compact inner core, about 8 cm of an original height of 19–24 cm. From that surviving portion we have now recovered and read the text in full — the lower parts of some twenty-two columns, transcribed and reviewed by papyrologists. It is the first time the preserved text of a rolled Herculaneum scroll has been read continuously, end to end, rather than in isolated words or patches.

The recovered text is a philosophical treatise on ethics, and the evidence points to a Stoic work: it turns on human nature, impulse, and the moral progress of human beings, and its final preserved column names Aristocreon — nephew and disciple of the great Stoic Chrysippus — which, together with the language and themes of the text, places it in a Stoic context and dates it to the 2nd century BC.

What it means? It means fears that the recovered heap of scrolls is remnant of purely Epicurean collection were overblown, that the library was general philosophical library and we can expect works of all ancient philosophical schools - those known whose works survives, those known only by name and those completely forgotten.

Remember, the villa - nothing fancy like Nero's house, just average dwelling of top 1% of top 1% of Roman Empire - was expected to contain just as basic barebone fixtures, among masterpieces of sculpture, painting and other arts, two complete libraries (one Greek, one Latin). There is chance that they are still there and were properly carbonized to withstand millenia.

(to excavate the whole site properly would mean to demolish modern town of Ercolano, but this is problem solvable by modern billionaire emptying his pockets for spare change)

Time for degenerate moderns to shut up and listen to the ancients.

Remember, mechanical arts might be nice, but are lacking something.

… being practical wisdom about that, is also about this. This [person? aspect?] that concerns the mechanical arts seems to me to be very distant from such a [conception?], and to have the technical fulfilment that is, so to speak, lame and something of such type lacking, and in regard to the …

It's a great achievement and I'm looking forward to more scrolls but it will be a tremendous disappointment if it's just philosophical or scientific scrolls. As far as I am concerned, philosophy has made almost no progress on the central question of human life (how does one live a good life?) since the ancient greeks and I doubt that uncovering some minor scribblers' writings will suddenly reveal the answer to that. As for science, the ancients were basically wrong about everything (see Aristotle on the number of teeth in humans) except for the things in which we've long far exceeded them.

Fingers crossed for something actually useful like missing history or literature or a treatise on Etruscan.

Surely philosophical records count as history, and are therefore as 'useful' as any of the rest would be? Nor do I think our knowledge of linguistics will be substantially upset by insight into Etruscan.

I suppose they might be useful for the history of philosophy, though I suspect that we are already indirectly aware of the philosophical hits of the era via citations in works that have come down to us. Would we benefit from having the full text of some lost work? I suspect not.

At least historical records have the advantage of being factually related to the world we live in. I agree that linguistics will not be upset by an Etruscan treatise but I think it would be cool if we can read the Etruscan texts, and it might provide some more insights on the Tyrrhenian languages which I think would be cool.

Basically, I would be much more interested in discovering new true facts than what is basically a fanfiction collection.

I suppose they might be useful for the history of philosophy, though I suspect that we are already indirectly aware of the philosophical hits of the era via citations in works that have come down to us. Would we benefit from having the full text of some lost work? I suspect not.

Survival of ancient philosophical works was not on the principle "the best of the best", but rather random chance, heavily weighted by Christian principles.

Plato, Aristotle and (some of) Stoics were found to be compatible with Bible, Epicureans absolutely not (not to speak about other schools of philosophy that had to exist, but were forgotten so completely that not even names and quotes remain).

It would be interesting to find out what lost ancient thinkers really were about, and even more interesting to find out whether their ideas were independently reinvented by modern thinkers who couldn't know about them.

What different worlds we live in.

I would read Poetics 2 by Aristotle in a heartbeat

Poetic Boogaloo

I'm really hoping for more missing history that vindicates Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, and the like.

I'm dying for lost mathematical proofs and conjectures. Although if this was his upper class and not strange occult mathematicians, then I may be out of luck.

Even philosophical works will have cultural allusions and context that's informative towards the broader context

Philosophy makes so little progress because every time it actually works, it gets reclassified as something other than "philosophy." Much like magic.

People would be interested to know about the discovery of one of Newton’s lost diaries where he kept alchemical notes, even if it wouldn’t “advance our knowledge” about anything in particular (besides about Newton himself and his personal intellectual trajectory). Similar deal here.

Gonna post my personal hope that the tyrrhenika is in the collection. Not only for the linguistics but also to know the history of one of the worlds great civilizations that is totally lost today.

Well, if you are VIP owning such villa, and current emperor is aspiring writer, it would be strongly recommended to acquire his works and prominently display them in your library, regardless how you personally feel about their merits.

Assuming the Latin library was not evacuated in time, and is still there properly baked by the volcanic heat, chance to find Claudius' writing is rather high.

Thank you for this link, interesting and valuable work being done there.

The recovered text is a philosophical treatise on ethics, and the evidence points to a Stoic work

Or it might be Epicurean work after all - formal debate between Epicurean and Stoic, genre popular in ancient times.

Only small part from the inner layers of the scroll was recoverable, the outer parts are gone, worn down by 19th century experts who tried to unroll them by technology then available. Maybe this is the part where the Stoic thinker makes his case, and we will never see the Epicurean demolishing him by facts, logic, reason, science and power of friendship.

It is only the first scroll, several hundred to go. Keep your hopes up.

Maine Senate Candidate Graham Platner Outed as an Actual Rapist.

"Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.

'I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” she said. 'I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’'"

Platner officially denies the allegations, but you can tell from his statement that deep down he knows it's true. He can't admit to it because he would go to actual jail, but everyone knows his campaign is over.

The haters said he would crash and burn, and they were correct. Honestly great call by the haters.

The Maine Democratic Party has one week until the ballot deadline to pick a candidate while stepping on as few toes as possible. Let the games begin.

but you can tell

How?

Tone and timing. Platner's video statement came out within minutes of the Politico article dropping, too soon for him to have calibrated his statement in response to public opinion about the article itself. Platner's tone is defeated and resigned, which would not be expected if Platner knew the allegations were false. He has shrugged off bad press before. If he believed in himself he could do it again. The simplest explaination is that he doesn't believe in himself, because he knows he's been caught.

Purportedly, the NYT had this story weeks ago when they ran the other one*, but excluded everything but that one woman so they could use the article to smear her and her allegations about Platner as motivated by sheer partisanship.

Democrats left and right are deleting all their fervent, avowed support for the man. He should brazen it out. Just refuse to drop out. What are they going to do? Take the L? His party would about face again in two weeks and slut-shame the accuser, just like the double-thought away the Nazi tattoo.

The haters said he would crash and burn, and they were correct. Honestly great call by the haters.

Never got that specific with the hater-ing, but it seems pretty on brand.

*Should be that one, but I don't subscribe to that rag.

Just refuse to drop out. What are they going to do? Take the L?

Rumors are that there is a second story about him visiting an underage brothel in the Middle East that will drop if he doesn't quit. Every other rumor about this guy has turned out to be true so who knows.

That just sounds like an excuse to do another podcast with Hasan Piker. Talk about their common experience, maybe vlog a Devil's Tower.

Democrats are quite content will people in their ranks visiting Epstein island.

Democrats left and right are deleting all their fervent, avowed support for the man. He should brazen it out. Just refuse to drop out. What are they going to do? Take the L? His party would about face again in two weeks and slut-shame the accuser, just like the double-thought away the Nazi tattoo.

I'm reminded of Jay Jones.

Just because Ms. Racicot said that Platner had non-consensual sex with him doesn’t mean that he did, of course. Right now, it’s a “he said—she said” situation, and there’s no way a prosecutor could charge Platner with no more evidence than her testimony, [1] but since there is a leftist “believe all women” streak in the Democratic party, since she has made the claim, Platner’s career is ruined. If he were a Republican, there’s a good chance he would still be standing (Kavanaugh, Trump, etc.) since conservatives are more inclined to believe in due process and presumption of innocence w.r.t. rape accusations.

About that “believe all women” streak, it’s an open question what percent of rape accusations are false rape accusations. I will list two sources with different conclusions:

  • Source 1 claims 0.2% of rape accusations are false.
  • Source 2 claims 28.8% of rape accusations are false.

Both sources show their homework, so people can look at them and see which source is more reasonable in its methodology.

[1] If she made a complaint right away after the 2021 alleged rape, they could had used a rape kit to prove beyond a reasonable doubt they had sex. It would then be a discussion about whether the sex was consensual, but police could had looked for signs of force being applied in the crime scene when it was still fresh. Five years after the fact, proving it happened is nay to impossible.

There was a credible accusation against Biden and no one cared.

My honest guess here is that the Collin's campaigns insinuations that they have "bury him" dirt to drop in the general have either been secretly verified, or just intimidated the Dem establishment into turning on him. Maybe someone has video of him killing civillians or something.

This is probably the least bad thing the Dem establishment could use to tank him, in a way that could theoretically recover some of the capital they spent getting him this far.

There was a credible accusation against Biden and no one cared.

Ms. Reade’s accusation was taken very seriously and thoroughly investigated. One deep investigation concluded the “rape”, as described by Ms. Reade, was not feasible.

Whether it was necessary to go to that depth to prove Biden’s innocence is another question for another day.

"Investigated". Is that what we're calling this PBS election year hagiography?

Ms. Reade’s accusation was taken very seriously and thoroughly investigated. One deep investigation concluded the “rape”, as described by Ms. Reade, was not feasible.

Do you agree with that investigation's conclusions? Could you quote the parts of the linked article that you consider authoritative?

Whether it was necessary to go to that depth to prove Biden’s innocence is another question for another day.

What standard of evidence do you believe an investigation of such accusations against someone of Biden's stature should have applied? What do you think of prominent proposals for other standards, or the people championing them?

I feel it was a through and honestly done investigation of what it was like at the time when Reade worked for Biden, and why her alleged sexual assault would had been just about impossible.

The layout of that route and building [where Reade alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden] has not changed. A recent walk through that area showed the subway tunnel contains no out-of-view areas, like an alcove. The remaining portion of the route includes multiple stairwells as well as corridors lined with offices. It is a main thoroughfare for senators and staffers.

Some former staffers told the NewsHour that if Biden did assault Reade in any of these places, it would have been a brazen attack in an area with a high risk of being seen.

“When I worked in the Senate, it was always crowded [and] packed with lobbyists, staff and tourists,” said Sheila Nix, who was Biden’s chief of staff on the 2012 presidential campaign and previously worked as chief of staff to two other Democratic senators.

Asking a bunch of people who worked or work for Biden if they thought he was a rapist while he is running for president is not a deep or serious investigation.

Also that is not what the article even concluded, the article just ends. They just interviewed a bunch of staffers and a few psychologists, each gave their piece. Where was the conclusion? It ends with a paragraph that suggests biden was too touchy.

Asking a bunch of people who worked or work for Biden if they thought he was a rapist while he is running for president is not a deep or serious investigation.

What constitutes a “serious investigation” in your book?

Keep in mind, the accusation happened in 2019, the alleged event happened in 1993, so we’re looking at a 26-year gap. They interviewed a bunch of people who were there, they checked out the architecture of the place where the rape supposedly happened.

What else could they do to investigate an event that supposedly happened 26 years before?

Now, if you ask me, if someone said “he raped me 26 years ago”, I would be very skeptical unless the person making the accusation had solid evidence backing up their claims. But, today in the post-woke era, there’s the notion that a man needs to prove his innocence if accused of any kind of sexual misconduct.

What constitutes a “serious investigation” in your book?

Do talk to the people who were actually there and worked with her, like Ben Savage in the article.

Do try and corroborate or disprove. Like what happened to Tara's contemporaneous sexual harassment complaint? That to me seems like a great way to evaluate her credibility, but they mention it but dont really come back to it.

Do not talk to dozens of people who were not there and stand to benefit very very much ideologicaly and professionally if their boss is not a rapist.

Do not involve a psychologist of violence

They interviewed a bunch of people who were there,

No, they interviewed a bunch of biden staffers, the overwhelming majority of which did not remember her and were not there. I know this becauase I read the article, you do not know this because you did not.

I dont find tara's rape credible. But asking a group of people (with a huge vested interest in joe biden not being rapey) "is joe biden a rapist" is not convincing.

what happened to Tara's contemporaneous sexual harassment complaint?

There was no complaint because, as per the PBS article, people who worked with Biden did not corroborate Reade’s claim in the alleged complaint that she was asked to serve drinks.

What makes you think I didn’t read the article?

What makes you think I didn’t read the article?

You draw conclusions that are not supported by the article.

E.g.:

In interviews, staffers have also raised doubts about Reade’s claim that she was asked to serve drinks at a fundraiser, an incident she said she included in an official complaint of sexual harassment submitted while she worked in the office. But more than 50 former staffers said they didn’t remember ever attending a fundraiser for Biden in Washington, D.C., when they were on his Senate staff. And some recalled an office policy banning most of Biden’s Senate staff from doing campaign work.

This does not support the position there was no complaint, but I almost don't blame you because they wrote it very bad. But I still blame you because even if these were more solid they would point to Tara's claim being not credible, not that it didn't exist at all.

Like they interview 74 staffers, and close to a third of them remember Biden attending fundraisers in DC, which would corroborate Tara's allegation. This is also an example of a problem with interviewing so many people who never met Tara. What use is it asking a Biden staffer from 2016 if Biden had ever fundraised in D.C.? They lump in a bunch of useless data points in with people who were there. Like if the third of staffers who had attended a D.C. fundraiser worked in the 90s with Tara that is obviously a much stronger piece indication than if that third worked with Biden under Obama.

They also apparently had a policy that allowed at least some Senate staff to do campaign work (most is not all), also somewhat corroborating Tara's allegation.

The text in your hyperlink which I am quoting above does not support the conclusion that there was no complaint, it supports the conclusion that her complaint is not credible. Likewise with your second link now quoted below:

I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty

This is just an accusation. You should have highlighted this part:

Reade says she doesn’t have a copy of the report, and Biden said Friday that he is not aware that any complaint against him exists. He asked the Senate and the National Archives to search their records to try to locate a complaint from Reade.

This supports the conclusion that there was no complaint because no one actually has the complaint.

More comments

Keep in mind, the accusation happened in 2019, the alleged event happened in 1993, so we’re looking at a 26-year gap. They interviewed a bunch of people who were there, they checked out the architecture of the place where the rape supposedly happened.

What else could they do to investigate an event that supposedly happened 26 years before?

There was a 36 year gap between Blasey Ford's allegation of sexual assault and her going public with it. They had a whole entire investigation about it.

In response to Mitchell's memo detailing her conclusions, several former prosecutors and legal analysts published rebuttals, arguing that Mitchell erred in questioning Ford without there having been an impartial and full investigation. Others noted that Mitchell's role was "akin to [that of] a defense attorney", and therefore she should not have submitted a prosecution report. Two MSNBC legal analysts characterized Mitchell's assertions that Ford had "no memory of key details" and that others had not corroborated her account as flawed arguments, even going so far as to describe Mitchell's conclusions as "reek[ing] of desperation" and "misleading at best and disingenuous at worst".

Thanks for brining up the allegation against Kavanaugh, who, yes, is a supreme court justice today—we didn’t have a bunch of right wing political colleagues asking Kavanaugh to withdrawal after the allegation was made the way Platner right now is having a bunch of his left wing colleagues asking him to step down.

I actually have already directly addressed the allegation against Kavanaugh, as well as the allegations against Trump in this thread:

If he were a Republican, there’s a good chance he would still be standing (Kavanaugh, Trump, etc.) since conservatives are more inclined to believe in due process and presumption of innocence w.r.t. rape accusations.

I think that all this means Collins will squeak home in the election. I realise why the party has to be seen to be Caesar's wife in this case, and I also think that it's not unwelcome for Platner to have to step aside and give a different Democratic candidate a chance, but I don't see this ending in a victory for the Democrats in Maine.

we didn’t have a bunch of right wing political colleagues asking Kavanaugh to withdrawal after the allegation was made the way Platner right now is

No, the Republicans all just spent months "very seriously" investigating an obvious farce that was obviously drummed up for obvious political reasons. As opposed to Platner, who already had allegations (lesser, yes, but also purported the current one) being swept under the rug by the NYT.

One deep investigation concluded the “rape”, as described by Ms. Reade, was not feasible.

"Trump got me alone in a dressing room in a department store in the middle of the day and managed to get my tights down without tearing them and get his finger inside me and no I never screamed for help or fought him off and no there was nobody, including any sales assistants, around and no I never went to the cops and yes I have the very dress hanging on the back of my door for years and no I didn't say anything about any of this until years later when my career was winding down and I needed the publicity boost", "why yes this poor woman was raped, even if technically under NY law digital penetration is not rape, I'm the judge I can say that" worked for E. Jean Carroll. Reade just picked the wrong guy to accuse.

Carroll may have won a civil verdict, but it didn't seem to have much effect on Trump politically. It's only a good comparison if Platner gets elected and his accuser gets a payout.

Eh, there's plenty of social media and other commentary about "Trump is a rapist, it was proven in court" and "Trump is a paedophile, he raped twelve year olds with Epstein".

I don't think he helped himself with how he handled it, but if someone accuses you falsely and you say "they're a liar" and then get thumped for saying it's a lie, I do think the deck is stacked. Platner will probably have "he's a rapist" around his neck now, whatever happens, and his political career may be hindered or even stopped.

It could have happened. But "could have" is not the same as "did happen".

I had a fight with a friend of mine who was accusing me of denying reality by dismissing him calling Trump a "rapist" because of this harebrained decision.

It affects people.

Was your friend previously a Trump supporter?

No, so it cannot be said to have changed anyone's mind.

It really is reminding me of the Kavanaugh accusations (complete with Blasey Ford style "mentioned it to my therapist"). Will we get elevators full of screaming harpies and the rest of the circus?

I don't know if this happened at all, or if it happened the way she said. Platner is sleazy enough that yeah, it could have. But if E. Jean Carroll is uncritically believed, why not this woman? Tara Reade accused the wrong Democrat, but the Dems want rid of Platner, the previous scandals didn't shift him, now they can dump him with clean hands and have the progressive Democrat (as per the Silver Bulletin article on this) take his place and... lose against Collins, is my read on it.

This is a little more than the Kavanaugh accusations. Nobody could prove that Blasey Ford had ever even met Kavanaugh! The accusation was 30 years old and even Ford's friends couldn't remember it having happened. At least here the accuser is verifiably someone everyone knows knows him.

If he were a Republican, there’s a good chance he would still be standing

I wonder if this will prompt Platner to jump ship.

It's hard to imagine that working: Platner's "hype" is mostly around him being willing to speak up on a bunch of issues the extremely-online crowd cares about and be blunt and "manly" about it. "This is what a male feminist looks like, willing to beat up the fascists and protect trans rights".

But the Democrats aren't going to stomach an abrupt about-face in terms of values, even if Platner was mercenary enough to do it, and I think he's a true believer given the post history that's been dug up. They're supporting him despite his aesthetic because he's saying the right things, they're not going to stick around if he switches to the wrong things. Fetterman pulled it off because he's able to stick to his working-class focus and just making the case that the Republicans aren't that bad for that, and the working class to some extent buys it (remember when some major union was voting to endorse Trump?). Platner would have to drop a lot of the culture war stuff that made him popular in the first place.

And the Republicans have no reason to accept him: they already have a fairly unobjectionable centrist candidate, there's no point in risking splitting the vote, especially now when the Democrats are going to drop in whoever the committee approves without a lot of time to get the base excited, and it's just going to be "vote blue no matter who" really pushing for the new person, with potentially people who got excited about Platner staying home when he's sidelined and talking theories about how this was trumped up to cut him out. Republicans wouldn't want Platner even before the allegations: if they wanted to run a blunt ex-military guy with dubious tattoos and ideas about consent, there are probably a few of them available to the Republican party already.

Fetterman also wasn't running for Senate as a political newcomer. He was more prominent as the mayor of Braddock than he had any right to be, and the biggest skeleton in his closet, the incident where he chased a guy with a shotgun, happened after he was already in the public eye. It was on the news at the time, but didn't affect any of his subsequent runs for mayor, or his failed 2016 Senate campaign, or his 2018 election for Lieutenant Governor. Platner's entire life prior to 2025 was a mystery as far as the public was concerned, and there were red flags from the very beginning that he might have a checkered past.

But the Democrats aren't going to stomach an abrupt about-face in terms of values, even if Platner was mercenary enough to do it

Why not? They stomached Platner before now. He has a Nazi tattoo, he has already been accused of sexual impropriety towards women. The difference is that before the Democratic tastemakers decided Platner was in, now they've decided he's out.

Platner going over to the Republicans means that he's going to have to change position on culture war issues: he'd probably have to be positive towards Trump, be negative on immigration, maybe talk about LGBT stuff going too far. If he's not doing that, just changing the D next to his name to an R and changing nothing else, he has all the same problems with the added bonus of losing anyone who's voting blue no matter who. He'd need to actually adjust his platform to appeal to Republicans.

With Fetterman that kind of works: his thing has always been working class economy stuff, and that doesn't really force him to take a position on most of these things. The working class has at least some level of support for Trump, so he can just kind of sit on that, take centrist positions, not talk too much about the culture war stuff. I'm sure there are people in PA that voted in Fetterman as a Democrat and still support him now even when he's often taking Republican positions.

There are other politicians that have a following of their particular brand of politics that might be able to hold constituents crossing the aisle. Bernie could conceivably be very concerned about immigration (there's a quote from him about immigration oppressing the working class or something, from before 2016) and end up as a R: he'd lose a lot of voters but I bet he'd hold some number. Thomas Massie might make it as a D, certainly the Israel focus would go over well. As long as there's something that's orthogonal to the red/blue divide you might be able to be on either side of it.

I don't know what that orthogonal thing would be for Platner. My impression of him is that his unique edge is that he's a "military tough guy" that we'd expect to be a generic Republican, but instead holds generic Democrat positions: he's an unusual delivery vehicle for those positions that might attract voters that wouldn't normally be amenable to them. If he switched sides, that edge is gone: a military tough guy who holds Republican positions is not hard to find in the slightest.

I can't imagine who would be voting for a Republican Platner, over Collins or whatever generic candidate the Democrats end up putting up.

He wouldn’t be a Republican. His whole schtick is being very progressive.

Funnily enough, while watching the video in which he denied the allegations, it occurred to me how little editing his political speech would require to make it sound like something a libertarian populist would say.

I have no dog in this particular fight, as I neither live in Maine nor have any plans to do so in the next six years. I am also going to leave aside the object-level concerns, as I don't think estimating general population false accusation rates clarifies much due to the numerous selection effects and atypical—at least in scale—incentives involved here. However, I do strongly object to the blithe implication of equivalent credibility you make:

About that “believe all women” streak, it’s an open question what percent of rape accusations are false rape accusations. I will list two sources with different conclusions:

  • Source 1 claims 0.2% of rape accusations are false.
  • Source 2 claims 28.8% of rape accusations are false.

Both sources show their homework, so people can look at them and see which source is more reasonable in its methodology.

Source 1 shows their homework for an infographic they made (and which doesn't render for me on the archived page—possibly a skill issue), not for any of the surveys or studies providing the numbers which are used in said homework. They arrive at a 0.2% rate by multiplying a 10% reporting rate by a 2% false accusation rate. Yes, it really is just "0.1*0.02 = 0.002 = 0.2%". Where did they get those two factors?

  • The 10% reporting rate is assumed based on two studies, one of which (UK, 2006) estimated a reporting rate between 5% and 25% and the other which covered two years in the US and estimated 49% (2010) and 27% (2011). I don't know how one bases an assumption of "Let's go with 10%" on those numbers, none of the linked studies are accessible via either the archive or copy-pasting the URL, and since the project which hosts the page is "a campaign to bring sexual violence out of the closet and lift survivors to their full potential", this has "just trust me bro" levels of credibility. Regardless, if God were to descend from the heavens and reveal exactly what percentage of rapes result in an accusation, it would be irrelevant to the false accusation rate, because a false accusation requires there to be an accusation in the first place.
  • The 2% false accusation rate is the lower bound of an estimate (2%–8%) from what I believe is a US study from 2009 (a different year and/or country than the studies which were mostly ignored to, charitably, "estimate" the 10% reporting rate figure) hosted here by a different, but aligned, activist organization.

This is certainly one of the methodologies of all time.

Source 2 shows their homework by skewering the very survey which Source 1 used for its 2% false accusation rate, in much the same way that Scott Alexander did in 2013. Both (correctly, as we claim to grant the presumption of innocence in the relevant jurisdictions) bother accounting for inconclusive claims in the numerator and denominator, but I recommend Scott's analysis since it also grapples with selection effects regarding the non-reporting factor.

Regardless of how believable you find the analyses (Source 2 or Scott's; I wouldn't dignify Source 1 with such a characterization), they are at least operating on the level of evidence relevant to assessing accusations, whereas Source 1 is not.

If I am being overwhelmingly charitable, I would say that taking claims made by activist organizations (of any stripe) at face value is unwise, and that if you want to use them in your reasoning, the fine people at Morton have a variety of products suited to this purpose.

If I am being less- but still far from un-charitable, I would say that I suspect you read neither of those sources (particularly Source 1) and just wanted to slap up a couple numbers to make a "but who could say, really" sort of point. One of the reasons I might suspect this is that multiple others still bother to read things as well. I can't imagine that throwing out links without reading them would improve one's credibility, and while I'm just some rando who broke a decade-long streak of lurking during a coffee break, more established members like @phosphorus2 and @FCfromSSC expressing parallel sentiments should motivate exercising more care and deliberation when posting—it certainly would in me.

Most of your post made some excellent points but I feel the final paragraph was not necessary, kind, nor true.

an infographic they made (and which doesn't render for me on the archived page—possibly a skill issue)

Yes, the infographic was removed from that page over the years. Here’s a picture of the infographic. As an aside, when Amanda Marcotte (a radical left-wing feminist, if you ask me) says the infographic is wrong, there probably are methodological issues with it.

Yes, I linked to that study, but since I linked to a contradicting study, I think it’s more fair and reasonable to conclude I don’t have an opinion either way than me making an “implication of equivalent credibility”. My general view is that I am not qualified to have a strong opinion on the issue, [1] although like you I think concluding only 0.2% of rape accusations are false is probably an emotional appeal which doesn’t survive cold logic (and even Amanda Marcotte feels that way, for the record). But I credit the Enliven project for at least showing their homework; most social media graphs like this are completely made up.

The only opinion I have is that there are enough false rape accusations out there that people accused of rape deserve due process and presumption of innocence, not this “believe all women” nonsense.

Something about that study, however, elicited a very intense emotional reaction from you, as evidenced by the bad faith accusations such as “throwing out links without reading them”.

When I read the entire PBS article, as I did when it first came out, my impression was that it discredited Reade’s accusation because, logistically, it just wasn’t possible for Biden to assault her that way in the place she claimed to have been assaulted.

The sense I get from other posters is a negative emotional reaction to PBS, since PBS is a “blue tribe” source of information, and some people here have a negative emotional reaction to any and all “blue tribe” sources. In the particular case of the Reade accusations, PBS had to present a strong case that Reade was full of it, but they had to, since their audience when they wrote that article had a large number of “believe all women” readers, do so in a way without directly contradicting the “believe all women” mantra, which is why the article presents a lot of evidence without making stronger conclusions.

Indeed, one thing I notice is that when I support the red tribe here, I get upvoted, but when I support the blue tribe, I get downvoted. I don’t think it’s helpful to be an echo chamber for either side, but since most places default to left-of-center opinions (where I often get downvoted and/or buried when I question blue tribe talking points), I also come here to try and get a balanced world view, ideally without excessive emotion.

[1] I do have strong opinions on other issues, such as the claim that 80% of the women sleep with 20% of the men, but that’s an issue I have researched deeply enough to have a strong opinion about.

My final paragraph was being kind. It was a description of my own (conditional) internal state, so I can verify it was true. Its necessity is left to the judgment of the reader—though I note that none of what anyone posts here is strictly necessary in the barest sense (and yet...). I do appreciate you linking the infographic, but I cannot help but point out that if it was taken down from its original source and you had to instead link the graphic as part of an article written by a radical feminist saying that it tripped her BS detector in the direction opposite her biases and is probably crap, then it's probably not worth including it at all.

Casually linking to two studies and inviting people (in this case, me) to look at them and see which source is more reasonable in its methodology doesn't engender any particular conclusion other than that you didn't seem to have read them particularly carefully. That I had to click through to find that one of the (as-described) studies isn't a study, but instead yet another innumerate, made-up social media graph which added negative value to the discussion was, in a nutshell, the point of my post. I know the graph was made up, because Enliven did show their homework. I award them no points, and may God have mercy on their souls.

Touching briefly on the object level: I think we are in agreement on due process and presumption of innocence.

I'm not sure what the back half of your response (PBS? Upvotes? Your GitHub?) has to do with anything I said, but after reading through, I think you might be misinterpreting others' disagreement and skepticism as emotional reactions. While I can't speak to others' feelings or lack thereof, you did impute an intense emotional response to me, and I invite you to not do that again.

Isn't it important to distinguish between formal rape allegations (immediately went to the cops and got a kit, pressed charges) and "casual" ones?

We could take those two numbers at face value and assign the first one to the former and the second to the latter.

For a personal example, I once made out with someone (several times) of an evening, we talked about our childhoods, Fullmetal Alchemist lore, and Noir tropes. I offered her a ride back to her place, we walked arm-in-arm to my car, she said she was "tired" so I dropped her off without anything other than a final kiss and a hug.

The next day she was "So Tired of Straight guys assuming I'm not asexual" and a year later the incident had become Sexual Assault.

Yet I still haven't gotten a knock on the door from the cops.

I’m really sorry you had to go through that.

As someone posted in a sister post, Scott Alexander wrote an article about false rape rates over 12 years ago and I will quote the relevant parts of that article as they apply to your life:

While rape victims have some incentives to report their cases to the police – a desire for justice, a desire for safety, the belief that the evidence will support them – false accusers have very strong incentives not to – too much work, easier revenge through other means, knowledge that the evidence is unlikely to support them, fear of getting in trouble for perjury if their deception gets out. So I consider it a very conservative estimate to say that the ratio of unreported to reported false accusations is 4:1 – the same as it is with rapes. A more realistic estimate might be as high as double or triple that.

Some questionable methodologies claim that all false rape accusations are reported as real rapes to the police, but that kind of thinking comes off as motivated reasoning to me, and the false accusation you have had to endure shows that a lot of false accusations aren’t filed with police.

The claim seems like nonsense. From what I can find, the only verified evidence of the supposed assault is this 2023 Facebook conversation:

“I feel morally obligated to warn you if you were anything more than friends with Graham,” she wrote in a message reviewed by CNN. “He’s not all bad, but I ended up in a bad situation with him and I will just very politely call him consensually careless at times.” When the other woman asked if “he forces himself on people?” Racicot replied “doesn’t listen when drunk…”

This is extremely strong evidence that he did not commit any assault. A raped woman is unlikely to convey her experiences like this. He’s not all bad??? Bad situation? Not providing a yes/no when asked directly if he committed assault? No woman since the end of the Ottoman Empire has characterized her rapist as “not all bad”

No woman since the end of the Ottoman Empire has characterized her rapist as “not all bad”

The counterpoint is a fairly common stereotype. "Girl tells her boyfriend she was raped/sexually assaulted, then he finds out it was a guy she still follows on Insta."

I think a fair number of women have, let's say, awkwardly complicated feelings about men who are sexually aggressive.

"Girl tells her boyfriend she was raped/sexually assaulted, then he finds out it was a guy she still follows on Insta."

There was even a recent Obsession meme on this theme that caused much maddening among online whiteknights and womenfolk: “how your gf looks at you when you ask her to block the guy who 'raped' her in 2019.”

Also featured in the above screenshot is a pesky wrongthinker confirming with a female replyer whether she indeed blocked her father on Instagram but not her rapist/“rapist.” Chicks preemptively blocking their fathers lest their Instathottery get exposed is already funny enough in and of itself.

ETA:

While I'll leave the link above in case anyone wants to continue using it for exploring what might be going on with attempted old.reddit auto-conversions, see here for an alternative that should work for everyone, courtesy of @erwgv3g34.

Your link is broken

Yeah that might have been “meme of the year” for me. I saw the movie and loved it but immediately knew that feminist interpretation of it would be unbearably wrong and annoying.

It’s a horror movie about unwittingly getting exactly what you wished for in a throwaway moment with essentially no recourse to change it.

It’s a simple yet effective straightforward horror movie with minimal subtext, but of course online feminists have to find someway to make the male protagonist take all the blame for what is essentially unknown demon magic and extraordinary bad luck.

Seeing it thrown back at them is hilarious and never gets old.

My favorite tweet about it was in the same genre:

“Horror Movie ideas for 2026. Men: What if your girlfriend was insane? Women: What if you had to be kind to a man you weren’t attracted to?”

Yeah, the movie is about "love potions and love charms are bad and here's why: mind control is not a nice thing and if you call up demons, you get demons".

“Be careful what you wish for”, a tale as old as time. Well told, for sure, but very well trodden ground.

Your link is broken

It works when I hit “edit” and copy the link out to paste it, but it doesn’t work for me either when I click the link from the posted comment.

It’s likely due to the old.reddit.com conversion we have under “Settings.” I don’t know if there’s a way to hardcode it so it opens the same way for everyone regardless of settings.

Just upload it to The Motte.

/images/17834438272360094.webp

Horror Movie ideas for 2026. Men: What if your girlfriend was insane? Women: What if you had to be kind to a man you weren’t attracted to?

To be fair, the horror (for women) is not in being kind to an unattractive man, but in being mind-controlled by an unattractive man. Still a banger tweet, though

Yeah the joke is understated on both ends; “insane” doesn’t begin to cover the condition Nikki was subjected to.

Demonic possession more like.

Ehh, one is a difference in degree, the other a difference in kind.

She’s not being mind controlled by a man, she’s possessed by malign man-made sorcery.

If she was really under his control she wouldn’t do half the things that she did, he hated it too. He spent like half the movie utterly terrified of her.

Your link is broken

It's not. The site has an old .reddit.com redirect in it's settings, that's broken. Just switch it to reddit.com (without old.) and it will work.

This is the image url: https://preview.redd.it/i-hate-memes-that-use-this-image-v0-upg3gp8rln5h1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f41ffae8bfae3bf5e37ae67f398546f7a46cc158

Mirrored here: https://i.imgur.com/nKqIi9F.jpeg

I think people should start screenshotting/mirroring reddit considering how much they like to fuck with everything. (For example, reddit now blocks people from viewing old.reddit.com without an account.)

For example, reddit now blocks people from viewing old.reddit.com without an account.

My experience is the opposite. I can browse old Reddit all I want, but new Reddit throws up a sign-in screen about 20 seconds after the page loads.

A few days ago, the company made a post explicitly stating that access to old . reddit . com soon will be blocked for non-logged-in users.

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I don't think you need to be a feminist at all to see Bear as the villain of the movie and it's deeply disturbing to me how popular Bear-sympathetic interpretations have gotten. I want to say it's feminist-driven negative polarization.

I mean, basically once the bullshit magic trinket actually turned out to be real and he understood it to be the cause of everything, the only way bear could “do the right thing” was to kill himself or commit murder.

Casting him as the villain is an insane reach despite his personal failings or character flaws; he was 100% fucked no matter what.

The director basically just came out and said Nikki is probably going to prison for the rest of her life after the end of the film.

It’s a straight up tragedy, the need to cast either of the protagonists as “the villain” is indicative of how poisoned our gender discourse is and how abominally privileged women are in western society

I agree that he blundered his way into an extremely fucked situation and that (contra the director's statements) the One Wish Willow company bears more responsibility than he does. But he still basically impulsively asked the devil to help him rape his crush and then spent most of the movie feigning ignorance about it. Medieval peasants would have an easy time condemning him for witchcraft and I think they would actually be 100% justified in doing so. I don't think the line of thought "it is so absurd to think that the One Wish Willow is real that I have no responsibility to consider that any anomalous events might be the result of it working" can coherently coexist with Bear's decision to use it in a private emotional fit in the first place. If it's real enough to make a wish on it's real enough to keep a fucking eye on.

Ah, I see.

A couple things;

I don’t particularly like or empathize with bear, I think he’s a spineless twerp with lots of personality issues. That being said “Satan, please help me rape my crush” is the most uncharitable take on his actions possible.

He wanted her to love him more than anything in the world, without really taking the request seriously. It was in a fit of desperation he said this thing, there’s no evidence that he thought it was actually going to work otherwise even a loser like him might have worded it differently. He, unfortunately, got exactly what he asked for.

Unrequited love / lust is a pretty common, gender neutral phenomenon that just people will experience in their lifetime, we ha level just been culturally trained to find it toxic coming from a man, and really only recently.

Most people in this situation would experience extreme cognitive dissonance, man or woman. Coming to the conclusion that “I, through a magic item that I don’t and can’t understand, directly caused the torture and annihilation of someone’s else will through unknowingly careless action” is maybe one of the toughest pills anyone could ever swallow, both intellectually and emotionally, and 99% of people would only come to that conclusion until everything else was eliminated.

We know he’s in a movie and he doesn’t; if this thing worked on basically any of us it would take a long time for someone to come to the most painful and “logical” conclusion.

We see him go through every step of this process and by the time he’s finally figured it out and accepted it he’s basically forced to either kill himself or commit murder, both things most people straight up don’t have the balls to do.

He’s not a villain, he’s just a garden variety coward. There’s literally billions of people like that.

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Eh, I think it's wrong to think about anyone as "the villain" besides the evil possession magic. Bear is deeply flawed, most centrally he's chronically passive and indecisive. In TLP terms he wants the company to want to pay him more but not to have to ask for it. The only action he ever took to get what he wanted was something he calculated as being totally unable to help, making a throw away wish. Then he's in the relationship he knows something is wrong but chooses to basically ignore it and just go with it because he's cartoonishly incapable of acting. All of that and more is true of him, but after he made the wish that he had no way of knowing would be interpreted monkey's paw style in the worst possible way there was nothing he really could have done besides killing himself. I'm not quite willing to raise "if you don't kill yourself to right a wrong you didn't intentionally commit" to the level of villain. He's a coward, but that's a forgivable sin.

That appears to go to a deleted post from 14 years ago?

Turn off the Old Reddit redirect in your account settings.

Still looks deleted even in new reddit. Weird. And now I feel dirty.

Did you click the old reddit link, and then removed the prefix? That won't work, reddit does some stupid redirect pointing you to that deleted post. If you don't want to change your settings, try copying the link url from the comment, removing the old. prefix, and only then going that cursed site.

No. The link is outright broken. This is the correct link without the old.reddit.com part of the url that the link explicitly had in it.

The old Nice Hat post. It was deleted, tragically, by mods last year, but it had a 50's retro-futurist hat. Very sad to see it go.

Reason #9854904 to just nuke Xitter, reddit, really all the big social medias altogether man. I don't see any other way to one-shot MeToo and its spinoffs and sequels. Becky says Brad raped her at a frat party 10 years ago, Brad says she initiated by putting her hand on his crotch, Becky says but she changed her mind and resisted yet Brad persisted anyway. Now you, dear reader from Florida (incident happened in Maine!), now that you've heard of this incident that you have no means of verifying, you don't have any excuse to NOT do your civic duty as a kind human being to support Becky and castrate Brad. What do you mean "evidence"? Obviously none exists a decade later, that doesn't mean it did NOT happen! What do you mean she's still following his Insta and blocked her dad? Don't you see the optics problem of questioning the victim? Do you not understand she was afraid, the convenient cheatcode to explain away all the critical queries? Stop GASLIGHTING her you privileged MAN!!

When something as vaporous as optics becomes more important than verifiable reality, we should just declare rule of the mob and be done with it. From approaching a girl all the way to her bed, think about the optics! And you're shocked that an entire generation of men would literally splatter at terminal velocity than ask a girl out?

As for the tweet, I'll grant that a rapist is scarier to potentially confront than a non-aggressive boomer dad but Jesus-tapdancing-Christ her grandkids will be repaying the generational aura debt from that one.

The pundit class has been pretty significantly telegraphing that the guy is incredibly radioactive and that the republicans are just waiting for the filing deadline, and the NYT knew about this and suppressed it.

Supposedly the big thing that's being sat on is sexual warcrimes, which sounds absurd but this is a guy who said he wants his house to be robbed so he can rape the robbers*.

*Per one of his sexual assault victims.

sexual warcrimes

Is this metal band name taken?

Thank you for making me do this google search.

Also, apparently the PC approved term is "Conflict-related Sexual Violence."

I will put that next to "non-domiciled."

Both of which sound more “math rock” to me.

The applicable term is simply 'war rape', I think.

Unfortunately the euphemism treadmill does not allow that, see for example "IPV" (intimate partner violence).

the republicans are just waiting for the filing deadline

...with what?

I mean I don't know for sure, it sounds like they may have additional sex crime allegations of various kinds. I was hearing from journalists months ago that "everyone" knew about these accusations and that some of them were being held onto or quashed (in the case of the NYT).

Most of the people who were saying that are saying more stuff is left in the tank.

The nuclear warfare option is something from his time on Kik. The platform has a bad reputation for underage users, and while I'd understand the argument that what's been shown so far is much worse than waving his dingaling at a 17-year-old, there's both political and philosophical reasons the latter might be more of a showstopper.

But on top of the question of whether that exists, the trouble is the old "Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across". Nothing from this point onward is more dangerous to a Senator than to a random loser; any further threat is just another layer of double-or-prison.

(maybe literally; the statute of limitations in Maine for rape is 20 years)

It's entirely possible they can release some conversations with a young lady considerably younger than seventeen.

Platner officially denies the allegations, but you can tell from his statement that deep down he knows it's true.

What about this video gave you the impression he knows the allegations are true? He just recited a paragraph of legal boilerplate and a stump speech, in the exact same flat tone of voice.

I suspect the Kuleshov effect.

I hate Platner and would not be surprised if he really did, but Democrats somehow manage to drum up convenient rape allegations against just about everyone the moment they become inconvenient. The allegation itself is just yet another he-said-she-said, and as far as I can see, the "she-said"-part is not even incompatible with both getting drunk and not communicating well.

The story is patchy. Front door unlocked? Hears someone coming up the stairs but doesn't even get off the couch? Doesn't mention trying to push him off or fight him off? Gets away from him into the bedroom but doesn't lock that door? Doesn't call anyone to come over and help her? Sticks around while he's passed out/asleep until the next morning, then tells him go home and don't call her again? Doesn't wake him up because she doesn't want him driving drunk but, y'know, doesn't call the cops after he forced himself on her?

It's not impossible, but that sounds less like rape and more like "hook-up I regret".

I don't think it's patchy. From the article, they were in an on-again off-again relationship, so sexual encounters were normal, and maybe even showing up unannounced could have been normal. It's not difficult to imagine the "no" not being a particularly strongly felt "no", more like a "dude you just barged in here and immediately tried to have sex with me, get off" and then a realization "oh he's not taking 'no' for an answer...". Not taking 'no' for an answer is the dictionary definition of rape, but this case seems closer to marital rape than an actual tried-to-fight-him-off-and-cried-for-help type of rape. If that happened, it's very possible to not feel particularly unsafe while he drunkenly sleeps next to you satiated but get bad vibes that your boundaries were ignored and decide to cut him off the next day.

If anything, those details make the story more plausible. It isn't being played up, just plainly stated as basically a "consent accident", which she apparently sees it as, too. As for me, Graham Platner doesn't seem like the subdue-her-and-rape-her type, despite his rough personality. Well, unless he mistook her for a home intruder.

"Consent accident" is kind of brilliant actually although I'm struggling to imagine many other use cases in which it would carry the same meaning you've given it here.

It's been a meme in certain circles for years.

just plainly stated as basically a "consent accident"

"What? She tripped, fell, landed on his dick?"

It's hard to call it a hookup after they've been dating for a while. There's also really complicated feelings when it comes to people you know and trusted up to the point where they did something terrible. Women stay in abusive relationships all the time, and people regularly allow themselves to be taken advantage of by family members. If she knew the guy for two years and he hadn't done anything similar prior to that time, it's probably easier for her to view him as a decent guy who had a bad night as opposed to someone who should go to jail. It's not that different than having a brother who stole $10,000 from you to feed his gambling habit. You may disown him and never want to talk to him again, but that doesn't mean you're going to report him to the police and participate in a criminal investigation.

I would call it a non-consensual hookup. Less bad than an average rape, but still kind of rape. If you've had sex with someone several times and like them, and aren't opposed to having sex with them in general but just don't want to at the moment, you're way less likely to get violent with them than if a stranger attacks and tries to rape you.

I don't know what your marriage/SO situation is, but consider a time when you weren't in the mood for sex (maybe you're trying to get to sleep because you have to get up early the next morning, maybe you literally just had sex, maybe you're over at someone's house going to the bathroom). If your SO corners you, drunk, and tries to have sex with you despite it not being the right time or place, you're not going to stab them with sewing needles to get them to stop. I expect you'd use significantly less violence to make them stop and be much less likely to call the police on them afterwards when they're sober even if you do give them a stern talking to.

Now, in terms of the reasons rape is bad, in particular the physical and psychological trauma, this is way way less bad than a normal rape. But it's still bad, and not the same as a "hookup I regret". The hookup I regret is when the man did nothing wrong and the woman retroactively tries to change the morality of the action. If it wasn't wrong when he did it because he followed all of the rules, then it's not wrong. But if he's not following the rules, if he is forcing himself on someone who does not want it and unambiguously makes it clear that they do not want it, then he is doing something wrong. He is a bad person. Less bad than a central example of a rapist, but somewhere in the same ballpark, regardless of what word you use to describe it.

I don't know what your marriage/SO situation is

To my understanding @HereAndGone2's knowledge of the dynamics of intimate relationships is entirely secondhand, but I'm open to correction.

Unlike the way you describe the link it is not "Platner outed as an actual rapist".

It is "women who dated him says it was rape, kinda, she didn't fight him off or stab him with the sewing needles or go to the cops or anything like that or even try to run out of the house after he was done".

Racicot told POLITICO she connected with Platner on the dating app Bumble in 2019 and had consensual relations with him prior to the night he allegedly assaulted her.

That night in late 2021, she said she had exchanged text messages with him and told him not to come over, saying she wasn’t in the mood for company. Later that evening, she said she realized when she heard a sound on the stairs that he had let himself into her house, which was unlocked.

Platner came up the stairs, Racicot said, to where she was on a couch. He got on top of her and kept grabbing her, she said, while she repeatedly told him to stop and that she wasn’t interested. Racicot said she smelled alcohol on his breath and believed he was “almost blackout drunk” because Platner ignored her protests and continued to grab her after knocking over an antique sewing kit, spilling small needles everywhere.

“And, the look on his face and realizing what was happening, I just realized that, like, I am in a situation where there’s no consent here,” she said.

Racicot said she tried to separate herself from Platner by telling him she couldn’t be in that room anymore, after which he followed her to her bedroom and had sex with her against her will. She said he also ejaculated inside of her despite her telling him not to, as she was not using birth control at the time.

She went to clean herself up, she said, and when she returned, Platner had fallen asleep. She contemplated waking him up to kick him out, but worried he could hurt someone driving in the state he was in.

The following morning, she said, Platner tried to put his arm around her and she pushed him away. She said she asked him whether he remembered what had happened the previous night; according to Racicot, Platner said he didn’t remember. Racicot said she told him to leave and never contact her again.

That's a whole lot of "it was non-consensual but I didn't do nothing about it" going on there. At this stage it's pure "he said/she said" and rests on "could it have happened like that? yes. did it happen like that? who knows?"

Is it consensual unless you stab him or call 911? I sympathize with not trying to escalate if you're in a room with a man who could easily overpower you and kill you and be an ongoing source of misery in your life.

That all said, I love how Democrats really badly need a normal salt of the earth white guy who codes blue collar that you could have a beer with, but it turns out those kind of guys don't attend enthusiastic affirmative consent workshops and "I got this Nazi-looking tattoo when I was drunk in the Marines, what's your fucking problem" doesn't travel well among people where symbols can have meanings.

Normal blue collar guys aren’t casually raping people.

Presuming her account is the fact of what happened, sure that's rape.

It's plausible it's closer to he forcefully advanced on her and she didn't clearly say no. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of men consider this hot consensual sex.

Affirmative consent workshops teach you to look for an explicit yes and it you don't get one assume the answer is no.

I sympathize with not trying to escalate if you're in a room with a man who could easily overpower you and kill you and be an ongoing source of misery in your life.

Yeah, but there's no sign she tried getting away or locking doors or the rest of it. She heard him coming up the stairs after getting in her unlocked door, and didn't jump up and try and lock her living room door, or grab her phone and call a friend, or the likes of anything to protect herself. Fear of being overpowered, yes, but he was so drunk he was "knocking over an antique sewing kit, spilling small needles everywhere" and she managed to get him off her and then she went into her bedroom instead of running out the door. That is not sounding like "oh no he came over uninvited and I'm scared", that's "dammit I told him not tonight, ugh just humour him and maybe he'll go away".

Is this the same here and gone?

This woman made a few bad choices(having a previous hookup with platner). Then afterwards he invited himself over and she told him not to come. She unwisely didnt lock the door so he just let himself in. Then she told him to stop while he grabbed her and tried to mount her. If that’s not rape, what is?

I don’t think he’s saying if that’s what happened it isn’t rape - it’s that it’s all simply she said this happened 5 years ago.

It sounds completely believable.

But also, you know, what if it isn’t true or didn’t happen that way?

Oh, hydro, there are a lot of legal definitions of what exactly is and isn't rape, and judges make comments about it.

I'm now sufficiently burned on "oh wow hey just so happens that at precisely the right moment to help us get rid of this guy we hate, someone comes forward with an accusation of sexual assault that conveniently has no witnesses to support or, for our purposes, prove it never happened, gosh what are the chances, eh?" stories of this kind to be very dubious.

Lack of consent is not in itself rape. Suppose it hadn't been Platner walking in her front door. Would she have fought that guy off, called the cops, tried to get help? Because the story can be interpreted to be "she kinda would have gone along if he'd been sober, but because he wasn't, she just shrugged and let him get some so he'd go away in the morning". There's nothing there about "and I tried fighting him off, and when I got into my bedroom I locked the door but he broke in, and I tried calling for help but he grabbed my phone" etc. in the story.

Could have been rape. Could have been choice she later regretted. Could be "I don't want this guy in office, so here's my story". Could be a lot of things. I don't like Platner, but this isn't enough in the story to say "yep definitely rape rather than dubious consent". A lot of women (and men too, I guess) have sex out of a sense of duty or obligation, that doesn't make it rape.

Lack of consent is not in itself rape.

I mean definitionally it is:

The revised UCR definition of rape is: penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.

That doesn't mean this story is true of course. But having sex with someone without their consent is rape. Whether they fight back or freeze or do nothing.

If she consents to having sex with Platner no matter how grudgingly then it isn't rape of course, you are correct there. But then there is consent. Lack of consent is exactly what turns sex into rape.

without the consent of the victim.

I think HereandGone is implying a sort of tacit consent. I don't consent to my cat laying me and clawing at my belly... but I don't do much more than call him an asshole and then scratch his ears. I've personally been on the receiving end of similar sexual behavior, and calling it rape feels like it seriously devalues the concept. I was not "forced against my will", I was "annoyed by a drunk wife until I decided that getting her off was the quickest path to getting back to sleep".

For the cat example, you have technically been assaulted no (assuming we held cats to human standards at least for the analogy to hold)? Someone else who likes cats less could throw your cat across the room in self defense. The fact you don't take it seriously is your prerogative, but in a human to human scenario that would be assault (or battery or whatever). If a man walks up to you and scratches your stomach with sharp fingernails, I assume you are not going to be as sanguine (though, hey what do I know, maybe that would float your boat!)

For the wife example, however grudgingly you did indeed consent. So that's not the same as "lack of consent"

Lack of consent is the literal difference between rape and not rape. If she does indeed grudgingly consent to Platner then it is not rape I agree. If she doesn't consent at all then it doesn't matter what other actions she takes, it is rape.

After 5 years and with presumably no evidence it might not be prosecutable or provable beyond a reasonable doubt of course, either way.

For the wife example, however grudgingly you did indeed consent. So that's not the same as "lack of consent"

I think this is the line being discussed. HereandGone is interpreting her actions as being closer to "begrudging consent". The problem with

Lack of consent is the literal difference between rape and not rape.

is that, particularly among people who have an existing, ongoing sexual relationship, that line can get blurry.

It can! But the statement wasn't about why he may have assumed he had consent or similar. Her statement was that lack of consent does not make rape. Not that the line was blurry, or that he may have assumed consent, or that it wasn't communicated well or anything of the sort.

The literal difference between rape and not rape is the lack of consent. The line might get blurry as to whether she did consent, I agree. But if she did not it is rape.

If she just meant the line is blurry then her choice of wording was poor indeed.

More comments

But in this case she was saying no multiple times and was physically forced into it- assuming her story is accurate. That’s a pretty textbook definition of lack of consent.

I think consent exists on a sliding scale. At a value of zero, escaping the situation is the whole of your utility function, and you would happily order a nuclear strike at your location if you could, evaporating the perpetrator, yourself and millions of bystanders in the process.

At a value of 1, you are enthusiastic about the sex (but likely not to the point where it dominates your utility function, because that rarely happens).

Between these two extremes there is a lot of road, and at some point we put up a road sign labeled "rape" -- which is perfectly reasonable.

In the absence of other complications like diminished ability to consent (e.g. due to age or drugs), obvious coercion or pre-arrangements (like CNC or agreeing to wake-up sex), the line we draw is typically verbal (though voluntary actions may reinforce or negate verbally stated preferences).

If the alleged victim is saying "no" (and not contradicting that by undressing himself or his partner) as the sex begins, that is rape. If his last words before sex begins are "okay, let's just get this over with", that is verbal consent (even if he had said "no" before), ergo not rape. If he says nothing, the person initiating the sex better have a convincing story how based on past encounters or nonverbal signals.

We generally do not require rape victims to make a credible attempt to kill the perp or themselves to escape the situation. "She did not even try to choke to death on her own tongue, so she was likely enjoying it" is not a defense which is very successful. OTOH, violently resisting will typically leave forensic evidence which can be helpful in situations where verbal consent is in dispute.

I will grant you that it is entirely possible that he was simply pleading with her until he got some reluctant consent, which would make this not rape. But the fact that she did not call the cops when he fell asleep is not sufficient.

Obviously there is a lot of road between "not rape" and "enthusiastic consent", and most of us have walked parts of that road at some point. Relationships take compromise, both with regard to what movies to watch and what sexual activities to engage in, and when. Monogamous relationships even more, because alternatives are constrained.

Still, showing up drunk at the home of a previous hookup when she told you not to do so and beg for sex is rather close to the "(barely) not rape" end of the spectrum.

This is a good breakdown. If the story is true, what he did isn't good or acceptable, and may well deserve to be called rape. But at the same time, it's qualitatively different from snatching a woman off a running trail and having his way with her while she cries and begs him to stop.

If this woman is telling the truth, then it was rape- she said no(in fact told him that before she showed up at her house) and never changed her mind. I would certainly be willing to believe that she's lying, but it seems a lot more likely that her story- she was agonizing about telling someone because she supports him politically(she does seem to legitimately be a progressive democrat), eventually told NYT, they tried to sit on it, but then it leaked- to be true.

She didn't fight him off because she couldn't, she was scared, etc. That does not equal consent. She straight up told him no.

That does not equal consent. She straight up told him no.

Yeah, but it's much more dubious consent than rape, if I go by the report. She got away from him but didn't run out the door or lock the bedroom door or phone someone to come get him/come get her. Now maybe there will be a fuller account and more details, but the preliminary story is he was drunk and there's no mention of "he broke down the door" or "he grabbed me before I could get away".

"oh wow hey just so happens that at precisely the right moment to help us get rid of this guy we hate,

My understanding is that the "right moment" for Platner's political enemies would have been after it was too late for him to drop out and a replacement candidate to run, right? In which case this is only the right moment for Platner's political allies (although you might fairly object that Platner may have enemies inside the Democratic party), and their interest in pushing the story would be to get him to drop out before the story surfaces at the "right" moment.

Or am I wrong on the timeline, or is there inside baseball that I am missing?

I was thinking enemies inside the party. Collins and the Republicans probably don't care so long as he goes, and the second choice is a squishier Dem they can beat.

I could buy this, but I don't know enough inside baseball to speculate on who would count as his co-party rivals. Do you?

My guess is "people who want to win". Knowing or plausibly worrying that there was worse yet to come makes this a rational call from the rest of the party if they want to take the Senate. It could be some kind of Establishment vs DSA war, but there are more extreme standard-bearers for the DSA side, and most of the Establishment seemed willing to support him four days ago. Maybe his white maleness meant that he was the only leftist candidate who was susceptible to shivving, which would be hilarious.

No, different articles claim different people might step up or be nominated (e.g. I've seen suggestions that Janet Mills, who previously withdrew from the race, might be persuaded back).

The thing is, can a different Democrat win? Who will they pick?

Traders at prediction markets think it is very likely that Platner will drop out. As of Monday evening, they give Platner just a 3 percent chance of being the next U.S. Senator from Maine. After Collins, at 37 percent, the next-most-likely election winner is Troy Jackson, at 34 percent. (Jackson, a progressive Democrat, came in third in Maine’s recent gubernatorial primary.) Under Maine law, Platner has until next Monday (July 13) at 5 p.m. to withdraw from the race. The Maine Democratic Party would then have two weeks (until July 27) to replace him with a new nominee.

The comments section on the most recent post over at Silver Bulletin is interesting, because there's a range of people on there saying "I'm from Maine and I think they should pick Jackson/No, he's got baggage too! Pick Shah!/They need to pick someone from the left/No, they need to pick a moderate/Mills now has a great chance/Mills was hopeless, that's why she dropped out". I have no idea who they'll select out of all that.

A lot of women (and men too, I guess) have sex out of a sense of duty or obligation, that doesn't make it rape.

I don't think a lot of men really have much experience with this. Furthermore, I believe that according to human instinct[0] having to do this disqualifies you from being a man[1]. (Which is also why most human societies, bar the ones over the last 100 years, have this baked into their understanding of male homosexual activity, regardless of whether or not they actively prosecuted it.)

That knowledge gap creates some significant problems, though, since you have to guess as to how bad the problem actually is. So you can't tell nearly as well if the opposite side/sex is bullshitting you, and if you default to "just Believe Them" for a few generations, you get this situation, where normal relationship dynamics have effectively become rape (or can become rape arbitrarily), especially in the marginal case (like this one) where that duty/obligation is all that's left in the relationship.

It's understandable that, if this state of affairs is broken to the point it's getting in the way of other political goals, the "side" that gained a sociopolitical advantage from normal relationship dynamics being rape (whose candidate it ostensibly is) would start pulling away from the polemic and towards nuance/reality. The principled ones break first.

[0] Generalizes to 'being taken advantage of', but this is specifically why Samuel Jackson's character says those things in the first place. Bitches are by definition female (shorthand for "obligated/subordinate"- not a prescription), which is why calling a man one in this context can even be a bad thing in the first place.

[1] And is part of why men in that position don't usually like talking about it if and when it should happen to them. (And if it involves a woman, why the response is some variation of "nice" or "how'd you con her into it?", and in either case is followed by disbelief should the man complain about being turned into the obligated/subordinate partner. In conventional relationships other men will mock the complainant by making whip-cracking sounds.)

Look, as unimpressive as I find the accusations…I’m really surprised to see this framing from you. We’ve got a lot of users who have said similar things in the past, and I could have sworn you’d blown up at them.

If the accuser is telling the truth, then it’s rape, plain and simple. That just happens to be a big “if.”

I think Platner is a louse. I think he probably did behave badly. But as I've said, I've been burned by all the political accusations that only show up when oopsies, looks like The Wrong Guy might get elected.

If she's telling the truth, she was an idiot as well. Unlocked front door, could have been anyone coming up the stairs and unless she knew or strongly suspected it was Platner and not a stranger, things might have gone a lot worse. Maybe the news media are just being careful, but they're all reporting it as "sexual assault" and not "rape". Here is an interview she did where she went into more detail. It's still a bit of a grey area, because (for example) how many posts have we had on here discussing how women put men through shit tests? "Don't come over" after texting with him where he thinks she's asking him over could be seen as "Bro, she was shit testing you. Women want dominant men, you backed off like a pussy? You were supposed to head over and convince her to sleep with you!"

I think rape is wrong. I also think, for example, that if you go out and get so drunk you can't remember who you went home with or if you had sex with them, then you too are contributing to the risk whatever might or might not have happened.

Nonconsensual sex? Yeah. Rape? Depends on exact legal definition in Maine or wherever this might be tried.

how many posts have we had on here discussing how women put men through shit tests?

I think most of those posts fall somewhere between uncharitable and unhinged. I was under the impression you usually thought the same, which is why I was surprised.

Again, I don’t disagree with your assessment of the credibility.

I suppose part of it (a large part) was because I was around for a similar story of "I was raped by X and Y" in my home town that went national, was tut-tutted over by All Right-Thinking People, the accused went to jail to the accompaniment of scorn and derision from everyone from the trial judge on down... and it was later revealed to be all invented for reasons of (a) mental disturbance and (b) revenge by the claimant and the witness she said she had.

Throw in the Kavanaugh case, where we went from Blasey Ford who at least had "it could indeed have happened like that" to the High School Drug Rape Gangbangs (which we were supposed to believe just as unquestioningly) plus at least one accuser who admitted to lying in order to get Kavanaugh off the court, and that put the kibosh on it for me and politically-charged accusations that conveniently come along years afterwards when the guy is on the brink of getting public office.

Jill Schmoe accuses Joe Schmoe of doing bad stuff where the accusation is recent, credible, has some corroboration, and isn't politically or otherwise motivated? I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Jill Schmoe accuses Joe Bigname just when Joe is going for substantial public office and there are those who would love to see Joe fall on his face? I'm going to need a heck of a lot of proof backing that one up.

I dont find it that surpirsing. Limited patience with people has always been part of her brand, and the accuser sure is a "come on man" character here.

You could apply this same logic to the allegations made against Trump by Ivana Trump. It's about the same level of veracity, with one difference: Ivana retracted her statements after the fact. I don't believe that people who say this now wants to stick to just the facts - mostly because everyone who tried was sent to the social gulag a long time ago. If you dared make such a argument to those of progressive and liberal leanings, you would have been called a rape apologist. I was there. I lived through the MeToo period. Superficially this is a fair argument to make. But if you lived in the past ten years - if you have been exposed to public discourse at all - you know that this is the left not living up to its principles that it used to oppress men.

Because even feminism is subordinate to the cause, in certain conditions. You can make the most crunchy granola hippy defend a ex-blackwater totenkampf-toting sexual abuser if he says the right platitudes about Israel. People sneer at the right-populists all the time, but at least they have a movement. They get elected. Platner is a man that doesn't deserve any loyalty but every tankie and communist has torched their public reputations to defend him in the past few months. It would be funny, if it didn't make your heart ache.

She contemplated waking him up to kick him out, but worried he could hurt someone driving in the state he was in.

Are we going to talk about the implication that he was driving a motor vehicle while drunk to her home?

Personally, I do not see a lot of light between "prone to rape when drunk" and "prone to reckless endangerment of others when drunk". Both should be disqualifying for public office in the eyes of the voters if they believe the allegations.

Especially if it is recent behavior, as in this case. If he had done his alleged crimes when he was 17, served his time and then decades later entered politics, things would be different.

Are we going to talk about the implication that he was driving a motor vehicle while drunk to her home?

Which indeed yes, I imagine he was drunk driving and yes, this is a serious claim.

I would be shocked if Platner hadn't been a habitual drunk driver for long stretches of time, given everything else we know about his character.

The allegation is weak, but added to the others might be enough to sink Platner. I think it's a ratfuck by the Democrats, and so does Freddie DeBoer. Doesn't mean it isn't also true.

My hot take? The Dems have spent so much time equating masculinity with toxicity that when they had to pivot to appeal to men, this is what they came up with. "How do you do, fellow Nazi Rapists!"

In a purely political sense, this is one long series of unforced errors which is deconstructing the moral authority of the party/movement (such as it was). Platner still hasn't faced a Republican. This is all inter-Dem infighting, with popcorn on the right.

My hot take? The Dems have spent so much time equating masculinity with toxicity that when they had to pivot to appeal to men, this is what they came up with.

first_time.jpg?

There was also the humiliation ritual that was “white dudes for Harris,” of which had a wide-ranging AoE in cringe-induction among men across all races and across the political compass.

Wait, Freddie thinks it’s a screwjob?

Revising my estimates down a few points.

so does Freddie DeBoer.

Thank you for adding a moment of joy to my afternoon.

Reading DeBoer's article and comment section is wonderful. It's just so funny to watch the party of "If 9 people sit down at a table with 1 Nazi, you have 10 Nazis" morph seamlessly into, "Look, just because a man has a big Nazi tattoo on his chest doesn't mean he's a bad guy, you know?".

To be fair to the commenters, about a third to a half of commenters are saying variations of, 'screw the electoral dynamics, I'm not voting for a guy with a Nazi tattoo'.

Confucius say if you wait by the river, the bodies of your ops float by eventually. Or something.

I expect Platner and his supporters to try and blame this all on the Jews/Isreal before the month is out.

Big if true.

I’m not going to jump on the hate train, since it’s firmly “too good to check” for a lot of people. Plus, you know, completely unverifiable. But assuming it’s true, this guy ought to be unelectable.

For those suggesting a ratfuck: do they actually have time to pivot, or is this basically tanking the whole party’s chances for Maine? Would that really be worth keeping a center-left populist out of office?

If it’s not a ratfuck, they will let Platner pick a successor. He did win the primary after all.

What? If it’s genuine, why would they do that? He can only drag down his replacement.

And so long as he denies it, what incentive would he have to help out?

Because he won the primary. He creamed the establishment candidate. She didn’t even make it to Election Day.

Presumably his political opinions are genuine. If he’s forced to quit (which he will be) he should quit on his own terms.

Maybe I was unclear.

The accusation represents new information unavailable to primary voters.

If that’s not enough to lose the general, they don’t need to drop him like this.

If it is enough, then his endorsement is worth less than nothing.

Therefore, they have no reason to drop him but keep asking him for input.

Okay, let me break this down.

  • Maine voters like Graham Platner’s politics and affect.

  • Maine voters do not like that Graham Platner is “consensually careless”.

  • Graham Platner would choose his endorsement based on alignment with his politics but not alignment on date rape.

  • Therefore, Graham Platner should get to choose his replacement.

I see where you’re coming from, and I guess I’m just not convinced that the average voter decouples those two things.

But what if Graham Platner would in fact choose his endorsement based on alignment with date rape but not alignment with his politics?

Well then he wouldn’t drop out. No one is better positioned to make date rape mainstream than Graham Platner.

This accusation isn’t date rape- he entered a woman’s house after having been refused entry and then raped her. They weren’t on a date(although they had been in the past).

Nate Silver suggests it might be this guy:

Traders at prediction markets think it is very likely that Platner will drop out. As of Monday evening, they give Platner just a 3 percent chance of being the next U.S. Senator from Maine. After Collins, at 37 percent, the next-most-likely election winner is Troy Jackson, at 34 percent. (Jackson, a progressive Democrat, came in third in Maine’s recent gubernatorial primary.) Under Maine law, Platner has until next Monday (July 13) at 5 p.m. to withdraw from the race. The Maine Democratic Party would then have two weeks (until July 27) to replace him with a new nominee.

The true ratfucking would be to dump this the day after the filing deadline. This is the Democrats defending themselves from the upcoming Republican oppo research dump.

If he drops out of the race before July 13th, the Democrat Party of Maine gets to pick a replacement, which would almost certainly be the sitting governor that Platner beat for the nomination by default after she stopped campaigning.

That's why the Reps have been heavily hinting that they have killshot levels of dirt that only come out after it's too late to replace him.

If they're lying, and Collins just baited the Dem establishment, it would be a legendary act of dirty politics.

Wether or not you want to call this rape in a legal sense, it is beyond normal levels of shitty. (Assuming it's true, and it's messy and mundane enough to be true) On an interpersonal level, I'd not want to associate with this guy and I'd be particularly disgusted at any leftist or feminist that still did, or want to vote for him or fuck him.

it is beyond normal levels of shitty

I dunno, there's a lot of shitty in the world. Read her story and it's possible to take another angle on it. This was back when Platner was drinking. The pair of them hooked up and were on-again off-again. She's at home texting him and tells him "Don't come over tonight, not feeling it". Her door is unlocked. She hears him coming up the stairs. She does... nothing. Lies on her couch. He comes in. She does... nothing. He's groping and trying to get it on, she can tell he's drunk, he's so unco-ordinated he knocks knick-knacks off the table. She does... apparently nothing except tell him stop and no and go away.

She manages to get up and away from him and goes into her bedroom. Where he follows her, because apparently... she didn't lock the door or call a friend or call the cops or anything.

Is this sounding like "Oh no I'm scared he's gonna rape me" or more "Oh crap, I told him I wasn't in the mood"?

They have sex. He falls asleep. She... lets him stay there and sleep it off, because she wanted to wake him up but then changed her mind because she didn't want him driving drunk.

Again, is this the story of "I was just raped"?

Morning arrives, he wakes up, he tries to be friendly, she tells him "Do you remember last night?" but he doesn't because he was drunk. She... tells him go away and don't contact me again. He leaves, it would seem. She... does nothing, doesn't call cops, doesn't do anything so far as can be told.

Because, she says later, she didn't want to think of herself as a rape victim and didn't want to go to the cops. (What the hell would she have done if it hadn't been Platner coming in her unlocked door and walking up the stairs? Which now makes me think she had half an idea he might show up, and was maybe half inclined to be 'well if he does turn up and I'm kinda in the mood we might...' but then he was drunk not sober when he showed up).

Now that last, didn't want to call the cops because that would make her the victim of rape, okay maybe. That happens. But the rest of it? Sounds more like "ugh, it's easier to just let him have his drunken fuck and kick him out in the morning" than what could be called rape. Non-consensual, maybe. Not enthusiastic consent, definitely. But rape? Well, if we stretch the definitions, which seems to be what is going on here.

And I'm going off what her story is in the reports, I've seen nothing of what Platner himself has said.

I agree with @Skulldrinker that "beyond normal levels of shitty" seems like an accurate way to characterise Platner's behaviour based on this description.

Exactly. This is one of those things that warrants social consequences regardless of legal ones. Especially since this is the no-means-no, yes-means-yes-unless-i-change-my-mind-after-the-fact, [11 out of 9 women will be raped by bro at a frat party while making 70¢ on the dollar, I Respect Women (who are the future, and also The Force)] crowd.

Yes, yes, I know, my rules, your rules, >,<,=, enforced fairly/unfairly, who/whom, et cetera.

And, well, bluntly it seems completely in-character for everything else we've seen of Platner thus far.

Could you convict him of rape in a court of law? Probably not. It is a notoriously difficult accusation, after all. But as something to add to the pile of evidence that Platner is a lousy person. I'm inclined to agree with Josh Barro. He lacks conscientiousness. He has poor executive function. He fails the character test for office.

(And just because I feel defensive, yes, there are a great many people currently elected to office in the US who also fail the character test, including many on the right, and including the president. This is also bad. But one bad thing does not excuse another bad thing.)

This discourse gives a lot of "people talking about sex instead of having it" vibes. Even married couples have dry, unenthusiastic sex often. One person is interested, the other isn't. But they'd just do it and be done with it rather than say no and start an argument. Terminally online people who lack the life experience to understand that awkward, iffy, or straight up unsatisfying sexual encounters are a normal, common part of adult life for most people.

The last wave of allegations against Platner purported that he messaged women while being married and used the Kik app, dubbed the "predator paradise". The insinuation was that he may have traded or soilicited child pornography without directly saying something defamatory. It's interesting to see the MeToo language come crawling back and it's the same arguments we've heard before: "women don't lie about such things". Maybe true 20 years ago, but not in the digital age.

Ok, but this isn't dry, unenthusiastic sex. This is just straight up rape. She told him no and he persisted anyway. That's the central example of rape. The only issue is whether she is telling the truth and I'm inclined to believe her absent any convincing argument otherwise.

I'll reply to you and @hydroacetylene here.

The "no" sounds more like reluctance and unenthusiasm leading to (as @HereAndGone2 puts it) "ugh, go away okay just let him get off then he'll go away". Yes, a sober enthusiastic "yes" (implied or explicitly stated) is the best marker for consent, and no-means-no is a reliable metric for SA. But it's fuzzy and not 100% perfect, awkward sexual encounters and "I said no/I was drunk but we fucked anyway" seemed to be the recurring theme of many MeToo stories. Technically could qualify as rape, but this depends entirely on what this person was feeling at the time.

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills- be entered her house uninvited and forced himself on her while she was saying no multiple times. In what universe is that ‘unenthusiasm’ rather than ‘actual rape’? Literally, what would qualify as rape to the people defending this behavior as ‘eh, hookup culture gets messy’?

It's so weird, why are people defending this.

Is it a j00 poster thing? I hate that that is my first thought.

It doesn’t seem to be the jewposters defending this. Or the misogynists. I can’t actually find the pattern.

More comments

Well, we allegedly got "She texted him that she needed her ass massaged but we kept that out of the story", so yeah: "And it was a night where him and I were texting back and forth and he had taken something that I said as as an invitation and that's not how I meant it."

Before publication, a Politico reporter told the Platner campaign that Jenny Racicot, on the night in question, had been “texting [Platner] about needing her glute massaged.” The reporter added, “That detail didn’t make our story.”

Blurred lines, indeed.

Her: "Man, my lower half hurts after I did something strenuous. I could use a glute massage!"

Him: "Literal booty call, I'll be there in a jiffy!"

If she gave consent over text, then he drove there and she said no, it’s still rape. Acceptable recourse for being led on was to (for example) break up with her.

I'm not such a stickler that I would reject a drunken unenthusiastic "sure", but the biggest deal-breaker for me is that she physically walked away from the living room when he touched her (or at least, that's what she claimed). Absent anything else, that's a clear indicator that she didn't want it. Up until that point I might be willing to forgive him for just having a drunken misunderstanding, but when he followed her and touched her again, that's pretty clearly rape. (Again, assuming she's telling the truth.)

The story, what we've got so far, sounds much more like "ugh, go away okay just let him get off then he'll go away" than "help, help, I'm being raped, somebody help!"

That she left the front door unlocked after texting him "no, not tonight" is more like "well if he does come over and if he does convince me to do it" than "I'm done for the night, just gonna lie here and scroll on my phone".

Is there any sign Platner did chase underage women? All the ones mentioned so far seem to be adults, is this just more "any stick will do to beat the dog" in order to get rid of the undesirable?

But she did say no. Literally, multiple times.

I feel like I’ve fallen into bizarro world. People are bending over backwards to defend this guy, and it’s not even our usual mysogynists.

I can’t believe we’re on the same page against here and gone on the definition of rape.

To be clear- I believe women, even sexually active women, are perfectly capable of refusing consent, and that verbal statements that they are doing so should be taken at face value.

Ctrl + F "sloot" and "erwgv3g34" getting zero results is the plot twist of the century for this one

Sounds like a Babylon Bee headline. "Entire nation in shock as politician who once said that rape victims should take some responsibility for their behaviour accused of sexual misconduct".

The actual Babylon bee headline is ‘Rape Allegations Mar Reputation of Local Nazi’.

I think what gets me about this story isn't the rape allegation, but the fact that after everything else only a rape allegation matters. He made the right mouth sounds, so he got a pass on all sorts of other behavior.

It's a shame Democrats threw out their Christian upbringing. Otherwise Platner would be able to say he found God and it's all good now. Since it's a given that literally every single human being seeking public office is a monster in human looking flesh, they really need to come up with some sort of secular redemptive act. I'm not sure donating to the ADL is cutting it anymore.

More likely what mattered is his poll numbers looking bad.

I think you're correct that the poll numbers are the direct lever involved, but my understanding is that just kicks what gets @WhiningCoil about the story up one level, i.e., Platner got a pass (in the polls) on all sorts of other behavior, but what mattered (in the polls) was a rape allegation. It's still a worthwhile distinction, since the relevance and valence of some issue to political higher-ups and to the voting population can differ significantly (cf. immigration), but that might only magnify the frustration.

The closest analogue I recall was a lot of people up in arms that Andrew Cuomo was pushed to resign after a series of sexual harassment allegations rather than his disastrous decision to put a bunch of COVID patients into nursing homes.

Edit: grammar

Huh. I think the “found God” strategy would actually work, since his main appeal was always to bring in conservatives.

Not that I expect him to take it.

He didn't bring in conservatives, his appeal was that he would juice turnout among the grassroots working class left who are now politically homeless due to the DNC's increasing moderation.

Obviously, it's not based on an accurate worldview.

What sort of redemption is there in secularism even?

Otherwise Platner would be able to say he found God and it's all good now.

In Christianity genuine repentance means it's all good with God now, but one of the things the genuinely repentant want to do is to reduce future temptation to sin for themselves and others, which makes "and so there don't need to be any secular consequences for my actions either!" a huge red flag suggesting non-genuine repentance.

Secular decision theory isn't much different here. It might be possible to rewrite your own mental hardware to be more virtuous from that point onward, but it's rare enough that you can't expect others to trust it's not a fake unless you're putting out signals whose cost exceeds the benefit to you of that trust. Donations are particularly tricky, because donees who don't trust you might just make the signal backfire by returning your money; some of Harvey Weinstein's attempts come to mind.

I haven't followed this story closely enough to assess the facts or Platner as a person.

But I worry that a system of "Your ex-lover says bad things about you and now you are toxic waste" is basically a system that bans normal people from running for office.

The vast majority of exes have bad things to say about their former partners. Crazy, bipolar, abusive, violent, lying, cheating, scumbags all of them.

And the only way to be sure you never have a crazy ex is to never date. Crazy ex girlfriends might seem sane when you meet them, or they might be sane when you meet them and suffer a mental break later*.

Per a quick Grok, 90-95% of ever-married Americans have premarital sex. The median partner count is about six for a 42 year old man. That's six rolls of the dice, and if you roll under 5 on a d20 you can't ever run for office. And you can't really know how you rolled until you've already staked your whole life and fortune and reputation on the run.

That's not really any way for a country to function. Normal people have to be able to run for office. Otherwise our only politicians will be freaks, people who have lived their whole lives in a kind of asceticism designed to protect their future political careers.

Sex and romance are a full contact sport, and we want to issue lifetime bans to anyone who commits a foul.

*Growing up my father got letters from a woman he dated some time in the 70s before meeting my mother. She went through a mental health crisis after moving to a foreign country and marrying a man there, and sent FiveHour the elder hundreds of letters making up dozens of stories to...idk maybe get him back or something? She actually died at one point, at which time her "sister" started sending the letters, then she came back and sent the letters herself again. I suppose this experience informs my views.

Per a quick Grok, 90-95% of ever-married Americans have premarital sex. The median partner count is about six for a 42 year old man. That's six rolls of the dice, and if you roll under 5 on a d20 you can't ever run for office. And you can't really know how you rolled until you've already staked your whole life and fortune and reputation on the run.

Perhaps it's better that the electoral system filters out unlucky people. Then again, this is probably a very lossy and inefficient way of filtering such people out; a more direct approach would be to just make every candidate play one round of Russian Roulette together.

But also, it might not be better for you if your elected representative has better luck. Him having good luck could mean that him and everyone around him avoid the bullet, or it could also mean that he avoids the bullets while everyone else around him doesn't. So perhaps wed want him to be on the lucky end of the spectrum but not too much luckier than the people he's representing.

So select for people with exes with moderately bad things to say about him.

I wouldn’t say that the rape(y) allegation was what did Platner in. It was a final straw on top of everything else. I’m okay if normies are brought down by a combination of being communism-curious, training antifa goons on how to use firearms, lying about nazi tattoos, getting nazi tattoos in the first place, sexting numerous women within his first year of marriage, hanging out on apps known for underage hookups, pretending to be working class, pretending to be oyster farmers, lying about why he went to a prep school, etc etc.

Just avoid doing, you know, some or all of the above and a lying crazy ex probably won’t be enough to derail your campaign. Swalwell got elected a few times and almost got the governor’s chair, after all.

Real weight bearing "almost" in that last sentence.

People voted for Platner despite/because of all of the above, and now he's being driven out by unresolvable accusations from his ex gf. That looks less like "straw that broke the camel's back" and more like "trap card activated."

And yet most politicians make it through the process without catching this kind of scandal.

The point about Platner is that he's not normal. He's spent his entire adult life as a barely functional basketcase. This story isn't actually what sunk him - the fact that it was published in Politico was a Schelling Point to let the Dems know that he was getting kicked out. He literally had a different ex-girlfriend story drop a few weeks ago in the NYT, but the take was "She's a conservative just doing politics, so we can ignore her allegations".

It's likely that no one who withdrew an endorsement did so based on the facts of the actual accusation, but rather for reasons of triangulating around his odds of beating Collins.

The normie candidates who once dated a Latina or emo chick are still safe.

different ex-girlfriend story drop a few weeks ago in the NYT, but the take was "She's a conservative just doing politics, so we can ignore her allegations".

Importantly - it seems like they knew about this and didn't publish so that they could spin that narrative.


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