domain:imgur.com
So you agree that with informed consent then trans people should generally be allowed to have surgeries and we should only step in, in the most unusual situations? I'm confused by your position here.
Well, the confusion seems to be that you're taking my point about not imposing a medical treatment on someone unwilling, and applying it to turning medicine into a free-for-all where anyone who asks for a particular treatment should get it. The former is how modern medicine is supposed to work in the West, and the latter very much is not. Otherwise we wouldn't have tons upon tons of regulations, licences, and various limits on who is allowed to do what in that field.
While I'm a bit anxious about turning medicine into a free-for-all, I'm not against it on principle. Even in cases like the trans issue, it would be a marked improvement over the status quo, where currently specialists lie to parents about the accuracy of diagnosis, negative effects of lack of treatment, the reversibility of the treatment, and where alternative treatments are sometimes banned as "conversion therapy".
Your own post pointed out the people writing WPATH were concerned about making sure their patients were aware of the risks and potential outcomes
In private. In public they work very hard to minimize the perception of those risks. Compare the videos I linked to, to the article from (WPATH member) Jack Turban, for example.
Given that, then by your own logic above why are you worried about this at all? If the patient gives informed consent then no-one is imposing a medical procedure.
Other than what I mentioned above, that the concept is supposed to prevent unwanted treatment, rather than open the doors to any wanted treatment, the problem is that there is no informed consent, as admitted by WPATH itself.
Given that you completely dropped the argument about "good intentions" justifying different treatment of ideologies, and are now changing the subject, I take it you concede it?
Ethan
Quality assurance
15m ago
Do you think he was telling the truth about his life? It seems nearly too adventurous to believe, though that may be owing to my shelteredness.
Dean
17m ago
So I find myself constantly waffling between the expectation that we'll see a new industrial revolution as AI tech creates a productivity boom (before it kills us all or whatever), and the expectation that the entire global economy will slowly tear apart at the seams and we see the return to lower tech levels out of necessity. How can I fine tune my prediction when the outcomes are so divergent in nature?
By recognizing that even if the global economy tears itself apart, there are parts of it that will not only survive, but relatively thrive as islands of relatively stability. Deglobalization is to some degree inevitable- it's already occuring and even accelerating in many contexts, and macro trends suggest further- and as things deglobalize, producers and investments will shift. Investment flows go first where it will be safe, then where it will grow, and the regions that are relatively safely will get injections to grow further. The industries that support hi-technology development will be disrupted, not just destroyed, and then they will relocate.
When they relocate, they will generally consolidate along new lines production less prone to disruption. That is most likely to be the American alliance system as a market-driven model with the most access to the pre-deglobalization market connections, and a PRC state-driven model brute forced with state spending along with its generally mercantilist model.
And more importantly, how can I arrange my financial bets so as to hedge against the major downsides of either outcome?
Diversification is nearly always the safer option, but if you wanted to minimize risk you wouldn't be framing it as financial bets.
If you want to bet, then bet on the west, specifically the North American market. Its political problems are not unique, its security threats relatively marginal, its demographic problems are fundamentally distinct from the depopulation trends of its primary strategic rivals, and its strategic rivals are far more limited than they are often perceived, which is the classical consequence of deliberate propaganda states. It's also likely to be one of the primary beneficiaries of the upcoming deglobalization.
SSCReader
17m ago
Right the BLM movement is spawned from but not controlled by the black communities that are impacted by it one way or the other. I'd agree there.
SSCReader
18m ago
Well, when generalizing there will always be exceptions of course. I'm sure there are some who may believe there is more of an agreement than there is, and others who perhaps care less about being seen to be paternalistic. All movements contain variation.
SSCReader
23m ago
So you agree that with informed consent then trans people should generally be allowed to have surgeries and we should only step in, in the most unusual situations? I'm confused by your position here.
Your own post pointed out the people writing WPATH were concerned about making sure their patients were aware of the risks and potential outcomes. Given that, then by your own logic above why are you worried about this at all? If the patient gives informed consent then no-one is imposing a medical procedure.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
26m ago
· Edited 21m ago
Literally just don’t make AI porn of your female classmates?
There is kind of an issue here in that Evil Maid attacks are so goddamned easy on a campus (especially the collaborative Evil Maid where one conspirator deliberately creates the distraction) that "beyond a reasonable doubt" is unachievable without substantial resources and any lower standard gets loners expelled by bullies manipulating the system. Admittedly, one can do this with actual child porn anyway, but that's trickier to get and, due to being actually illegal, risks the police coming in and actually tracing it to the bully.
SSCReader
29m ago
Why should that be surprising? I've worked with politicians nearly my whole working life. That isn't a surprise at all to me.
SSCReader
31m ago
Sure, possibly. But the rest of your argument doesn't automatically follow--
But that's my whole argument! You might well get the same punishment, it might well still be bad, but my entire argument with OP is that we see recklessness or negligence as being just as bad as intentional harm and I argued that did not appear to be true.
If you are conceding that, then that is the totality of my point. I don't have a further argument beyond that.
Botond173
32m ago
The Ridgway people even brought in the legendary FBI behavior psych unit (of "Mindhunter" fame). Their composite profile of the killer was along the lines of "white male between 30-50, does a manual labor type job, drinks beer, smokes, may have prior military service or outdoors interests." Again, the authors point out that that profile narrows it down to .... 40% of all men living in Seattle! Interesting and also infuriating to see how far people can build a career off of what amounts to a Forer statement.
I don't know much about this case but I assume the FBI had nothing else tangible to evaluate besides the bodies that were found?
jake
40m ago
I should have couched it more: I consider a weakness of BC's argument to be its reductiveness. If 1999 was the peak of human civilization, consider how "poorer" in possessions and quality of life people were in '89; '79; '69; etc. Also consider how families shrunk from each preceding decade. It doesn't take long before you find dozen-kid families in destitute households. Civilization marched on, it got better. We're not looking at the thing itself. Those modern households at question: generally single mothers, generally non-white, or if white, black children, 3/4+ kids--we're seeing social questions in divorces, children out of wedlock, and especially children from multiple fathers, and we're seeing governmental issues in their voting, where to leftist politicians, are described most congruently with reality when called "bought." We're looking at the consequence, or asset or vassal of the thing, when this is the framing. It is reductive, so I presented an opponent's hypothetical reductive response. Yes, as fitness has been labeled by eminently foolish leftist mouthpieces as at best "right-wing" and at worst (to them, they know not what they say) "fascist", physical fitness and "traditional", insofar as it's genetic, beauty standards are being conditioned into the masses as rightist. The right embraces this for obvious reasons, they're being freely given the easiest image W. The Soviets were very interested in fitness so I expect it will be remembered by history as quite the mistake when the American left decided on tolerating and more encouraging fatness as an angle for political power. Short of pathology or actual brain-hacking, there is not enough time or words in the world to make the average guy think of "placeholder excessively overweight woman celebrity" as more attractive than say, Sydney Sweeney.
I'm glad you brought up the question of "leftist" governance. One of the most insidious rhetorical tricks communists pulled (and there are many, as they are typified by such) was the invention of the concept of the "Lib-Left." Leftism is an inherently authoritarian ethos and this is evidenced by a simple looking at history. Since Marx, there has been no leftist political movement anywhere in the world that achieved majority power on the promise and subsequent delivery of a reduction in size of government. Leftism in all circumstances, again when in majority power, invariably strengthens itself. A state that seizes a child to trans them has identical spiritual power to the Soviets seizing Kulak land. In creating "Lib-Left" the trick was cemented with the two-axis political spectrum, thereby allowing leftists to deny any governance as left unless it were economically left, ie avowedly communist. Thus, all governments that failed to achieve communist utopia could be labeled "Auth-Left" and/or "not real communism", or even "Auth-Right", as everyday leftists were free to continue beating their drums in support of the most evil ideology ever conceived by man. We're swiftly approaching the final dissolution of political rhetoric into purely friend/enemy distinction, and I hope just as much that we are swiftly approaching the end of rightist political discourse entertaining the two-axis premise. Or at least until a new two-axis spectrum is likely conceived, but this one without the communist framing. To repeat just to be clear: I reject leftist framing as leftism requiring communist economic policy; leftism is about a powerful state, and the American state is very powerful indeed.
ControlsFreak
56m ago
For progressives here the answer is that their moral precepts that they should not be enforcing solutions on black communities (that they don't think black communities have asked for) means that is not an acceptable approach to black on black violence.
And part of the problem with that is that black communities are deeply divided themselves, on this. There is wariness about how their communities have been treated in the past, degraded trust levels, and much much more.
Where in this chain of reasoning do you think the progressives who are championing particular solutions, at a national level, get off this train? Do they think that it's okay for them to enforce their national-scale idea on black communities? Do they just not realize that black communities are deeply divided? (Do they just not care?)
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
1hr ago
Why would alien life be a problem?
As far as I understand it, the Catholic church is relatively agnostic about the possibility of alien life - it's not explicitly forbidden.
Also, would microbes be a problem, or only intelligent life?
ace
1hr ago
Oh, I'm also running an Invidious instance for one-off searches/views. It also strips ads and sponsor segments, but obviously can't work offline.
Lizzardspawn
1hr ago
What is it about music that creates emotional resonances?
Your brain is a junkie that loves the high of predicting the next note/part/lyric correctly just in time. At least that was some conclusion around 2010 of some science paper that passed between my eyes back then.
Lizzardspawn
1hr ago
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle prevents us from modelling anything with that degree of accuracy even in theory
I think that we could probably generalize a bit further - long as you have NP problems in the human body there is chance for unpredictability of the human mind to hide there.
ace
1hr ago
What are your issues with Youtube? I think it's amazing. There are so many people making so much good, varied content.
Here's my workflow: Daily, my server runs a script that calls yt-dlp to download a text file list of channels and custom searches, strips out the ads and uses SponsorBlock to strip the sponsor segments. Then it repackages it into an XML podcast feed. My phone has an app, Downcast, that pulls these videos like a podcast and plays them offline.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1hr ago
Full English Breakfast is great!
You can make perfectly decent food at home with fish, beef or lamb and vegetables. That's Western style. Steak, sausages, carrots, potatoes, beans... Put some salt and pepper on. Good to go.
FiveHourMarathon
The Gun Would Go Off
2hr ago
What year did blockbuster movie and primetime tv casting in Hollywood peak in terms of racial accuracy of casting?
I was thinking about it. Just as we reached the point where we wouldn't use scotch tape to create Asians, we hit the point where we randomly cast characters as the wrong race for fun.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
2hr ago
Simply find examples of parties on opposite sides of the political spectrum cooperating to actively pass bills or do other positive work together, while centrist parties vote against it.
Several people have cited examples from countries with multiparty systems, I guess it was proved.
I think the attempts to come up with consistent "theories of left and right" fail because ... while it is not fully arbitrary random whether any particular party of random time period and historical circumstances is considered left or right, it is a result of partially random path-dependent process of self-sorting to tribal groups. People assign these labels to themselves and others according to what makes sense to them at the time. Then the next generation self-sorts again, in updated circumstances. Their thinking may have been influenced by systematic theories of politics and ideological treatises, so there is some amount of consistency (to the extent the systematic theories were self-consistent) ... but surprisingly often, the rank-and-file did not read the lengthy treatises. Sometimes the popular theories people acted upon turn out to be poor at modelling world, and lead unanticipated outcomes. If the process is not governed by systematic laws, attempts to draw systematic theories to explain the process will fail.
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
2hr ago
But I don't think Russia was very industrialized—my impression was that that mostly happened with Stalin? There were many more peasant farmers.
Overpopulation was one of the reasons why the revolution happened. Cities used to be population sinks, but Russian cities weren't big enough to absorb surplus peasantry. A large supply of industrial workers meant that the price of labor was low, turning the proletariat into literal incels, since the only housing they could afford was not a room, but a single bunk.
Forced land redistribution started even before the Bolsheviks took power, they were the one smart enough to legitimize and endorse it (Decree on Land). The resulting yeomanization of Russia bought them about ten years of goodwill, until peasants started switching to cash crops and fodder from wheat.
f3zinker
Its A/B testing all the way down
3hr ago
I'll stop pointing it out even preemptively the day people stop saying " I don't want to be big, I'm okay with your size". That's not a compliment!
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3hr ago
I urge caution on taking Zeihan seriously. He's very charismatic, I watched one of his talks and the talk about rivers and geography was quite interesting.
But is he actually right? The man was predicting 'collapse of China in 5 years' for about the last 20 years. He's been predicting 'America number 1 as the rest of the world collapses' for ages. And that's not the world we're seeing. His core thesis wasn't just wrong, it was the opposite of what actually happened. It's not 'America retreats inwards in splendid isolation as everyone else fights, world sea trade collapses along with China', it's 'American relative power is diminishing as China, Russia, Iran work together to pressure and undermine the US world order, which America bitterly defends'.
Whenever you see Zeihan you should think 'what if he's just completely wrong'. And I think he's wrong specifically here too. If we're talking AGI by 2027 or 2030, then demographics doesn't really matter. War may well delay AGI but AI is now a part of military development. China has their robot gun dogs. Israel has their AI targeted airstrike program. Everyone wants the targeting and sensor edge. High-tech wars are won by sensors and software and AI is clearly important for both. China has Made in China 2025, high-tech development to develop new industrial forces. The US has the CHIPS Act. The race is on!
Population aging starts really mattering by mid-century. It already has some effect of course but how could it severely slow AI development, which is happening on the year-to-year level? And there are clear counter measures to aging-induced malaise. People can reduce the consumption of the old. Nations can reintroduce fertility. It's really not that hard. People naturally want to have children. It's only that vast cultural energy goes into suppressing this urge - TV, movies, memes and so on all create an expectation that young men and women should spend their most fertile years in higher education and work, not raising children. It's a cultural issue that needs a cultural solution.
Affirmative action for parents in the workforce and education. Glamourize parenthood. Return to traditional marriage, encourage devout religion. Anything but these measly subsidies.
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
3hr ago
The vast majority of homicides are straightforward to solve: the motive, the weapon or even the perp himself are obvious or at least limited to a manageable subset of all possibilities.
Let's say you have a well-dressed man with no wallet or phone found shot in a dark alley. It's obviously a mugging gone wrong or a disagreement over purchasing some vice. You round up the usual suspects, they all have alibis. Maybe some traveling crew? You check all out-of-state plates seen last week in the neighborhood, all are boring civilians.
Okay, stage 2. Maybe it's a hit made to look like a mugging gone wrong? Again, you check the usual possibilities: infidelity, business troubles, money troubles at home. Nothing: the victim was a midlevel manager in charge of a boring department, kids are too young to plot against him, no signs of being gay or having a mistress.
You've hit stage 3: psycho killers. While muggings gone wrong are so common that you have a solid solution template, the template for catching psycho killers is very limited: get all other unsolved homicides and start looking for something in common. Any other similar victims? Similar weapons? Similar circumstances? If there's a match, go through every single detail again and try to find a connection.
Sometimes it's something actionable: you have three similar homicides, you trace the bus routes at each location and find out that there's a bus stop you can reach all three locations from (true crime story from the 90s!). Sometimes it's something obvious and not very useful.
Homicides you solve at stage 1 are cookie-cutter, the biggest challenge is doing the paperwork right. Homicides you solve at stage 2 are "interesting". Homicides you (usually don't) solve at stage 3 are fucking frustrating. However, they are a tiny minority of all cases. It's better to centralize this capacity as much as possible (now matter how heart-rending violated and butchered schoolgirls can be) and concentrate on stage 0: minimizing the number of stage 1 homicides that occur.
The reviewers say he was overly self critical in the early part (there is no record of his murder trial) and, later, told more accurate truths because his later life was rather more a matter of public record. I dunno. I do think it does not strain credulity to imagine he did live most of it One wouldn't make up indulging in slavery or sex slaves, I imagine. Or maybe one would.
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