domain:slatestarcodex.com
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
3m ago
That’s got to be it; I think I might have given you or someone else here a hard time about being 6’0” & 160 as when I’m the same height and the last time I was that weight I was a cross country runner in high school and super skinny. I was in good cardiovascular shape but I had essentially no upper body strength.
The difference for me is that I have never broken a bone, I’m likely a true outlier in bone density. During college I gained a lot of weight but started lifting heavy and my best health I was like 225 & 20% body fat which means even with literally no fat I’d be heavier than 160lbs.
I wasn’t even that jacked, but I’m also primarily German / Nordic with significant west African admixture and I’d been athletic my whole life so I think I’m just genetically very dense both in terms of musculature & bone.
Funny enough when I gained all that weight I did it by cutting out all land based meat entirely; it was all fish, eggs, beans, and rice which got me in the best shape of my life.
They've helped students here and there sue for damages, but I've never seen them make a university cave and change policy.
They shuttered the entire "bias response team" of the University of Michigan just a few years
And just recently won a policy change at George Mason University.
Anyone who has said free speech would be easy to defend would be a liar, but anyone fighting for free speech knew that from the start. You don't win by being perfect everywhere at once, you win by taking it on battle by battle.
So you'll often see libertarians defending Corporations, Universities or NGOs for trampling your rights (It's a private entity, it can do whatever it wants!), while they condemn the government for doing the same. Or they'll be a feckless speed hump against the expansion of the welfare state, and crucial allies for open borders, ensuring we get the worse of both worlds.
That's crazy, the idealogy around limiting government and protecting individual private liberty primarily wants to limit government and protect private entities. At this point it might as well be a generic "they don't agree with me about everything, I like it when they're allies but hate them when they're opposed" complaint.
Your whole comment comes off like you're against principles just because those principles sometimes come into conflict with your desires
Rov_Scam
11m ago
To clarify, when police searched Epstein's house as part of the initial investigation, the computers had already been removed. Later, the FBI learned that they were in the custody of a certain individual, and the USAO requested that they be turned over. Epstein's attorneys initially agreed to produce them by a certain date, then asked for an extension, and on the extension deadline they took legal action to prevent having to turn them over. By this point negotiations were underway, and in the course of negotiations the USAO agreed to postpone the date of the hearing, which was then rescheduled for late September. By this point, the self-imposed indictment deadline was nearing, and the parties were close to a deal, and they agreed to postpone the hearing indefinitely, Once the deal was signed the matter was dropped.
I agree with you that they should have pushed the computer issue a little harder, but I can understand why they didn't. The idea that they would contain evidence that improved the prosecution's position was speculative. I wouldn't call it incompetence so much as poor judgment. If the computers contained video of Epstein engaging in the sex acts that they already knew about, it would improve the case, but not by much. They could have been a game changer, but that was conditioned on them containing child pornography, or worse, containing evidence that he transmitted CP over the internet.
We need to step back and consider what they were likely dealing with. This was 2005, and the taping system probably wasn't brand new. You were looking at 480p tops, compressed, taken with a wide angle lens. I don't have any information about the camera equipment that the police discovered, but they did mention that the cameras were hooked up to the computers for recording. Epstein could certainly afford commercial-grade recording equipment, but most such equipment would have recorded to disc at the time, and not a PC. So we're likely looking at webcams. In either event, though, any video would have been low-resolution and recorded from a fixed vantage point. Webcam videos from 2005 weren't great, and commercial surveillance video wasn't much better. There would have been problems authenticating the video and identifying the victim as a minor.
I think that Acosta's plan was stupid and ultimately ineffective. It's certainly not what I would have done had I been in charge. However, once they were committed to that course of action, I don't think that yielding on the computer issue was a huge mistake. A mistake, yes, but not a huge one. It's pretty clear that the defense strategy was to draw out the process as long as possible. If the prosecutors had insisted on sticking to the September hearing, it would have required postponing the indictment deadline again, since they'd need to give time for the defense to turn over the computers and for the FBI to analyze them, and then to figure out what what to do with the information. The defense holding back could have just been a ruse to get another extension. I personally think that once they became aware that the defense had the computers they should have put everything on hold until they got them, but Acosta was hell-bent on state charges and thought a deal would be easy. I think Acosta just figured that the indictment was ready to go and if they made a deal he'd be happy and if they had to indict there was plenty of time to get the computers. I don't think he wanted to delay things based on the speculation that there might be evidence of other crimes. It was a bad decision but it was understandable.
thejdizzler
17m ago
Probably a difference in bone density. I have to think I have lighter bones, which probably explains all the stress fractures in college.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
23m ago
I think your instinct is correct in general with regards to how much the game is up in terms of being able to “hide your power level”, I’m just an extreme outlier living in an extreme outlier environment.
I have a very social job that requires me to be everyone’s buddy and have an “always on” personality. Disagreements, even polite ones, are not tolerated and heavily punished.
The area I live in is not only deep blue like the Pacific Ocean, it’s extremely isolated from trends that are obvious to outsiders.
I live in the DMV area and close enough to the dark heart of the stay-behind operation of Obama’s America that I’m dealing everyday with maximum ideologically motivated reasoning. I call it the “Iron Bubble”, people are extremely out of touch and in denial with what’s been shifting underneath their feet in the culture at large. Ironically, it’s very “Hitler & his closest associates in the Bunker” vibe, or reminiscent of “Baghdad Bob”.
It’s not surprising, there’s real money and power at stake here with the fall of the old order. Things like DOGE & the fall of DEI broadly have extreme direct consequences to these people. I’d love nothing more than to loosen up and be sincere as is my nature, but it’s like being in a squad of Japanese soldiers who are holed up in an island and don’t know the war is over.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
27m ago
In the past I've known people who've made a simple HTML page with some links on it set as the home page for easy access from new tabs. Not sure if file:// would send a referrer, but a lightweight local-only server isn't crazy either. I doubt they know they're sending referrer headers.
Supah_Schmendrick
27m ago
This idea has been played with. Personally, I liked the resulting comic series, but YMMV.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
34m ago
I recall you had a post a while ago where you said you’d dated both men and women. Did you develop a preference for men?
something that requires a deep emotional connection to work
Well, I guess all I can say is, join the club. We don’t have fun prizes but there are occasional butterflies in the chest.
I found straight/bi men are generally more understanding when you make it clear that that's not what you're after (if they're manipulative, it's at least a sign of knowing what you want).
Interesting. I’d never considered that being played could actually be preferable to sex-forward behavior, but I can see it. I guess gay men just didn’t even make an effort? Just, “oh, no dick pic, seeya?”
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
34m ago
I'm still convinced that veganism isn't harmful for performance, at least in endurance sports. Plenty of endurance athletes at the highest levels are at least mostly vegan.
The gourmet vegan diet available to people with time and money (so that all macros are hit and they have a wide variety of plant proteins) is not the typical vegan diet I see among regular people.
I'm closer to 160 now, but a 150 with a height of 6' put me at a very normal BMI of 20.
I'm 6'2" and was 155 for a long time. I look skeletal in those pictures. I don't look much better in later photographs where I was 170. That's a 20-22 BMI. I'm not going to tell you you're a twig or emaciated, but it was a terrible look for me.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
43m ago
While I don’t doubt your take on your friends is correct
Believe me, based on some conversations I've had to sit through, they are True Believers. And probably example #1 of Henderson's luxury beliefs theory. They are vocally (strongly, and often) in favor of all kinds of lefty positions that are destructive to society, and they follow none of them. Aside from not attending church, one would be hard-pressed to identify a traditional belief they don't obey.
Otherwise, I agree with you fully because I've followed the same pattern.
People just assume because I’m smart, courteous and well spoke and I keep my cards close to my best that I agree with them.
These days, this provides less coverage than you might think. I do the same, but my nigh-absolute refusal to engage in culture war politics has led some friends and family to (correctly) conclude I'm to the right of Attila the Hun. As the sage said, one must be very right wing to not discuss politics.
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
45m ago
I don't think 4chan "won" some much as the simply contributed to the blue and grey tribes collapse in influence which cleared the way for the Tea-Party to build a national mandate.
Totalitarianit
47m ago
I remember watching Earthlings in college and it serving as the last straw before my attempt at veganism, which eventually shifted to vegetarianism, which eventually shifted all the way back to me eating meat again. The way humans treat animals on a global scale cannot be morally justified, so I don't even try to justify it. If there are practical policies we can implement to reduce suffering without upending entire industries then I'd be happy to contribute.
As far as the nutritional aspect, I'm not learned up enough on micronutrients, absorption, macros, etc. to go toe to toe with people, but what little I do know about nutrition makes me think the vegan diet still isn't where it needs to be to keep people at their optimal level of health.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
52m ago
Somewhere there is a good sketch comedy when you realize a good chunk of "almost every person" who'd be scandalized actually agrees with you.
I don't think you're alone: I think I am far more centrist than you are, but the rest of the description applies to me. I try to avoid discussing politics IRL, although griping about general government incompetence is evergreen, although not trivially to actually solve generally.
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
52m ago
Im not even convinced they lost the culture war. It's the liberals who appear to be imploding.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
57m ago
Values lie below principles and give rise to them. Principles crystalize in particular environments, and whether they are worth having is dependent on how well they enable the execution of values in that environment.
Both environments and values shift over time, but the point of principles is that they do not shift. Because they do not shift, they are sheared away under sufficient values/environment drift. This does not greatly complicate choosing sides, because that is better done for values reasons anyway.
gattsuru
58m ago
Yeah. There's been a long-standing conflict between AAQCs not needing to be correct so long as they're positive contributions for the community. This at least looks like a serious if flawed attempt to discuss a complicated rather than active trolling, so it's far from the worst version of that issue, but the lack of engagement with even the most overt criticism of the most central claims makes it really frustrating.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
59m ago
I think most people who fear IQ as a concept are generally unwilling to live in a world of winners and losers. They don’t want to admit that being born a loser is possible and that no amount of trying hard can overcome it. Women seem especially prone to this because they’ve been socialized to be “nice” and to believe that “if everyone had access to the stuff the rich have, they’d all succeed.” IQ is a monkey wrench in that concept of the world. A hard limit.
Throwaway05
59m ago
He was poor, but what he had going for him was that he was likable and not dysfunctionally insane and his crime didn't fit neatly into reprehensible crimes like murder or assault with a deadly weapon
I think people miss how foul tempered the vast majority of "real" criminals are. Half the patients I treated in prison felt entitled to call everyone a faggot then demand thirty different types of controlled substances. If you make at any attempt at all not to be a huge asshole than the system is extremely more likely than not to go extremely soft on you.
Sure - it isn't guaranteed too, but I met guys who committed incredibly heinous murders and because they were nice they were treated like they committed a white collar crime.
Yea I think it's gotta be genetic because those injuries were from the days I was chowing down on steak/hamburgers every night at the college dining hall, so unlikely that it was from diet.
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