domain:freddiedeboer.substack.com
Pasha
Defend Kebab
10m ago
Even when the war was developing very dangerously for the Russian army they have only ran a very limited conscription scheme that amounted to “urged volunteering” of the lowest classes of the society. My understanding is that they sent summons to stg like 10 times the men they needed and as soon as the targets were reached by people voluntarily responding to the summons in 1-3 days they immediately ceased recruitment. I am not aware of any coerced conscription of a Russian man who would otherwise definitely not enter the army.
Right now the Russian army has a clear upper hand in fighting and reportedly a steady stream of volunteers. Meanwhile an incredibly disquieting amount of press gang/abduction style of conscription videos are coming out of Ukraine.
This is my reasoning for why there won’t be ever real conscription for this war in Russia. Russian speaking friends I have talked to seems to agree with this assessment
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
13m ago
Which is funny for bump stocks, but it's not like this has stuck to bump stocks. There's a fair argument that SCOTUS doesn't, but Aposhian, GOA v Garland, and Guedes all strike here. Guedes even had Gorsuch writing out bad some lower court opinions were. In 2020, he could punt in the hope that other courts would give considered judgement -- "provided, of course, that they are not afflicted with the same problems." Today, we know exactly how that turned out, and what cost it took to receive other courts making the same fuckery with Chevron.
The thing to remember here is that the Supreme Court does not want you to have guns. Even the six are elites and elitists. (OK, maybe not Thomas). They're appalled at the idea of guns in the hands of ordinary people. But they have a peculiar attachment to the high-class Constitution debating society they're in, and they have a side, and that side is both pro-gun and sour on expansive regulatory powers. So they want to make the point that the Constitution does support gun rights and expansive regulatory powers, but also ensure the actual system of government restricts guns by any means necessary. Thus, decisions with loopholes that they refuse to plug, a refusal to provide any interim relief, and slapping down the Fifth Circuit when it attempts to apply these academic decisions as if they matter.
BahRamYou
23m ago
He certainly pissed off the Worm fan community (by refusing to bring back the main character, and re-writing a lot of the continuity from Worm). But uh Panacea yeah... apparently now she's a Evil with a capital E because she's a rapist. Before there was some moral complexity and shades of grey, she did bad stuff but only because she was so messed up at the time. Now, no, she's just pure evil.
At least, that's what people say in summaries, I've never actually read that far. I've only read the first 5 arcs, I just can't bring myself to go further because of what a slog it is. So, so much of it is just therapy talk + dumping on this christian cult strawman punching bag.
Felagund
25m ago
Roberts and Kavanaugh definitely vote together more with each other than with Barrett.
do_something
26m ago
It looks pretty certain at this point that they won’t be conscripted
why you think so?
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
28m ago
Every seething rage-poster who gets modded claims it's because of "ideological motivation." I see no reason to go to the trouble of creating a new vector for them to litigate their grievances, and a million ways such a metric would be gamed.
Felagund
29m ago
I don't think the liberal justices are insincere, exactly. (Actually, I'd need to go back and look at Dobbs to see whether I'll stand by that.) I think it's just closer to turning to asking what Congress/the Constitution/former versions of the court would want, which in practice are interpreted as benevolent entities in accord with their own opinions.
NunoSempere
29m ago
I agree that $100k is expensive compared to other things in daily life, but... even if you're earning $30k/year, three years worth of wages for a second kid seems in the range of reasonable? It seems like less than what you would spend on a kid over a lifetime, for some people it adds a huge amount of meaning to life, etc.
As an aside, it's not distributed over 20 years, which does make it much more difficult. I wonder if you're a stable couple, whether a bank would give you a loan for this, or whether IVF clinics have payment plans? Even if not, this seems like the kind of thing some people could ask friends and family to borrow to do.
Like, in general $100k is a lot, but it seems like it can correspond to the strength of desire and will to have a kid.
That said, I'm viewing this from an odd, detached angle as a pretty young guy, so I'm probably missing a lot of the complexity a couple faces when making that decision for real; sorry.
do_something
35m ago
Oh, NCD is 50% lizardmen by volume. Sadly, they got stupider and less interesting as NCD got popular.
Just that "I love Putin" confusion is really rare there and basically extinct, even in ironic or satire form - and below lizardman levels.
Felagund
38m ago
But it's a textual nightmare; it means the statute about update notices qualifying never applies.
It's not that it wouldn't apply, it would just be that it would only apply if the time/place had to be changed (from another time/place), right?
Tanista
41m ago
Really? I've heard the exact opposite, that Wildbow went out of his way to basically piss off the surprisingly large Worm fan community in terms of how he handled common topics of discussion like Panacea and Gray Boy loops (some accuse him of actively retconning characterization in the case of the former).
I've never cared enough to read enough Ward to find out, personally.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
56m ago
Which, of course, means they have no power at all. In fact, the more seats they get (short of an absolute majority), the more power the far left has. Unless Ciotti wins his fight, but I suspect what will happen is the wrangling will go on until Ciotti loses.
No_one
58m ago
E.g. me calling bullshit on the incredible claim that prime ministers would brave possible artillery shelling and go into a half besieged city for a very short meeting by pointing out there are no unambiguous photographs of them actually being there.
They didn't think to even snap some selfies or a short video in Kiev.
Anyway, yeah, I know you've got a thankless job but maybe it'd be reasonable to display an 'upvotes/word count/comments/mod attention' statistic out there so it doesn't look ideologically motivated.
Anyone competent could add that in in a couple of hours. I could probably do it in a couple of days, even though my coding is limited to cheating and tweaking in javascript 'games.'
No_one
58m ago
E.g. me calling bullshit on the incredible claim that prime ministers would brave possible artillery shelling and go into a half besieged city for a very short meeting by pointing out there are no unambiguous photographs of them actually being there.
They didn't think to even snap some selfies or a short video in Kiev.
Anyway, yeah, I know you've got a thankless job but maybe it'd be reasonable to display an 'upvotes/word count/comments/mod attention' statistic out there so it doesn't look ideologically motivated.
Anyone competent could add that in in a couple of hours. I could probably do it in a couple of days, even though my coding is limited to cheating and tweaking in javascript 'games.'
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
1hr ago
I didn't include it for the sake of brevity, but there were some really funny episodes during this whole thing. At one point the Facebook and Twitter pages of the party were attacking each other because the password holders belonged to different coalitions.
They're just now removing his party credit card from him (as the treasurer is from the liberal coalition). It really has all the trappings of civil war except violence, which is hilarious.
Although my favorite image from the whole thing is tiny Valerie Pécresse, trying to act tough and saying there is "no place for traitors" as she's coming to try and fail to remove Ciotti.
2rafa
1hr ago
I think the polls suggest they’ll probably get 20-60 seats short of an outright majority.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
DPRK news used to be more active, but was dedicated to hilarious fake North Korean propaganda.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1hr ago
Yes. I've noticed this for awhile. Im mostly a lurker, and an occasional commenter. I've found the top level threads dreadfully uninteresting and way too long, for awhile now, maybe a year? You can tell when the post gives itself it's own b bold little title as if it'll get a place in the vault.
Lately I've found the small question thread and fun thread to be more, well, fun.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
1hr ago
Party leader Eric Ciotti is squarely on the conservative side which is more popular with the base, while his lieutenants are on the liberal side. A high-low vs middle configuration if you will.
As a result of the dissolution, Ciotti announced an alliance with the RN. This immediately lit the fires of rebellion.
His lieutenants unanimously moved to remove him from the party over this. However he ignored the decision, saying it was illegal and barricaded himself at the seat of the party.
Hey hey hey, you're not supposed to be making DECISIONS here. You're supposed to be the disreputable figurehead who attracts the base while we respectable people set the policies.
zeke5123a
2hr ago
A couple of responses:
- Let’s just caveat that the reason we have disparate outcome is solely related to HBD—not saying that is true but thought experiment. If we as a society deem that conclusion out of bounds and have a desire to provide equal treatment, then after we continue to try to equalize by removing other impediments but get no farther (because the problem isn’t equal treatment but unequal talent) people will have to either accept the out of bounds conclusion or will adopt a god of the gaps approach to unequal treatment. Maybe they’d call it systemic racism. Maybe they’d start putting a massive thumb on the scale for certain populations and cause real societal harm (as jobs aren’t just spoils).
Now this is obviously slightly tongue in cheek but I am making an earnest point. I do think there are other things we can and should do (eg blacks didn’t always have super high single family rates). But a belief in tabooing HBD will have a kind of “false” Noticing effect. If we could just taboo the whole discussion on disparate impact on different populations maybe it would be more optimal but who knows.
- I agree that maybe sometimes where costs are low fairness matters. But for example if it’s late at night and I see a group of young blacks walking in my direction I’m going to put a lot of effort in getting into a safe place. Probably wouldn’t if it was a group of Asian teen girls. This is in one sense unfair. But the potential cost to me is high to outweigh the fairness. On the other hand, if I am interviewing a black candidate and an Asian female candidate I’m going to try to be complete impartial and see how they can handle tough interview questions.
omfalos
2hr ago
What are the odds for Rassemblement National to win a majority in the National Assembly?
Great post (as always--you're a great contributor, which I think you know, but which bears repeating).
Young Mormon men seem to have no issue marrying chaste(ish) pretty blondes who will vote for Romney and deliver 3-4 children, because that’s their milieu. Too often some chubby suburban secular engineer whose primary hobbies are video games and online political discussion thinks he deserves the same.
To further elaborate on this point--young Mormon men also seem to have no issue marrying a reasonable match. Some years ago a Mormon colleague invited me to his son's wedding reception. The bride was obese; the groom, a NEET. The groom's father said "she's a nice girl. I wouldn't say she's a great catch but let's be honest, neither is he." But he had done a Mormon mission trip and she had the right social attitudes. Now they've been married maybe 15 years, no kids (fertility issues). Neither ever completed college, they both do gig work to scrape by with the help of their parents (they're in their 40s now!). They have dreams and goals they're unlikely to ever achieve, but they have a common social milieu, and they're clearly better off supporting one another than they would be as atomized incels.
It's not a life I'd want, but I have to remind myself--it's the kind of life most people get. Most people don't even get a bachelor's degree. Most people aren't particularly attractive. If we reserve the "good life" for "high value" people, things are going to get real bleak, real quick. But without the social support structures encouraging men and women to accept a good match, rather than always "marrying up," that's where we're headed.
Lewis2
3hr ago
Have any of you noticed flocks of Kennedy supporters gathering ballot access signatures over the past couple of weeks in your areas? In my midwestern city, the streets are teeming with them—one every couple of blocks downtown and one darned near every 50 feet in the major parks. It’s an impressive operation, only slightly marred by some similar tactics to those laid out here. Not one, for example, has mentioned Kennedy’s name when asking me to sign. Their approach is always “Will you sign to ensure ballot access for the Independent party this coming November?” You have to actually read the petition to figure out it’s for Kennedy.
beefypo
3hr ago
Yes, "stereotyping" was probably the wrong word for the concept I had in mind, "discrimination" is probably a better term. And by discriminate, I mean - to infer something about an individual based on the base rate characteristics of a group identity that he/she belongs to. I am interested in when, and when not, it is okay to discriminate.
I will return to the dark road example, I apologize if you think it is a bad faith argument but I think it is illustrative. In the days following the man/bear meme question, I saw many women say that they would much rather run into a woman rather than a man if walking alone in the woods because the risk of physical/sexual assault is higher with a man. This was considered good/smart/wise risk assessment as this perception is based in reality and backed by crime statistics. It was not considered sexist to treat this individual man based on the statistics of his group (men).
Now compare the same scenario except swap in asian man / black man. We apply the same statistical reasoning yet now it is considered unacceptable and racist. Can you explain why?
The other examples I listed in my previous comment were included merely to point out additional instances where it seems okay to discriminate. I could of course list many more where it is not. I remain unclear on what the underlying principles/rules are for how society arrives at this determination.
What’s their reasoning for staying?
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