domain:aporiamagazine.com
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
1d ago
A fair question to ask. I do it both because I'm bored, and because I genuinely enjoy helping people. I feel bad for her, she lacks the kind of agency that most people on this sub takes for granted. I genuinely don't know very many stupid people in my personal life, it's amazing how much good looks and money can cushion you from the consequences, right until it doesn't. She lives her life in a daze, circumstances seem out of her control, everyone seems nice, but they're often just lying through their teeth to get into her pants. Someone who was smarter would confidently wrest that to their advantage, she just suffers. I suppose that's why she likes me, I'm one of the few men she knows who never lied to her, or stopped treating her kindly when she had nothing left to give. (The bit about getting laid next time I see her is mostly in jest, I'm a red-blooded man with no serious objection to sleeping with hot models, but I'm not going to go out of my way to achieve that)
The most influence she plausibly has over her life is her choice of partner, and giving her some advice doesn't cost me much.
If it's primarily charity, then there are millions of other recipients who would likely benefit more from your ministrations with a much lower risk profile.
All they have to do is ask. I try and help just about anyone who does, male or female! I'm not quite Captain Save-A-Hoe, but I know my tendencies. Am I drawn to broken people, or are they drawn to me? God only knows. In my day job, the answer is clear.
e.g. ruining a hypothetical future relationship that does have real potential.
I'm presently single. Just like last time, it wouldn't be very difficult for me to cut her off should that change. In the meantime, I would genuinely be happy for her if she did find a nice guy to settle down with, she's not a bad person. I will probably wrangle invites to the wedding, God knows I miss hitting the buffet line at the Big Fat Indian ones now I'm away. It would be very funny, if nothing else.
This attitude is what turned so many Mottezans away from being principled on this topic, noticing the massive gap between what people say they will do and how they behave in practice. Turns out very few people are really bothered by racism or sexism or discrimination in general, there's several populations that are totally fair targets. Alas, "your rules applied fairly" is not a stable point and assumes people are honest about what their rules are supposed to be.
See the issue otherwise is that editorial control is removed for business owners. Take that LGBT cake incident a while back. If business owners do not have editorial control under the first amendment, then the bakery would likely not have had legal protection over what speech they can and not produce for a client.
Edit: Or even worse, imagine you have an employee go on TV and start insulting your customers. Your customers stop buying from you, but you can't fire the employee. You are compelled to give him a job no matter how much he sabotages your company because to do so otherwise would be violating his free speech, despite the fact that it's your private company!
Are they allowed to select by religion? Hmm... looking at FIRE's page I may have been remembering that CLS v Martinez case, that student groups at public universities can't. Vaguely recall some other exception but maybe not.
Yes, student groups at public universities are not the same as a private religious university.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
Although I enjoyed reading this and enjoy rubbernecking at a potential car wreck as much as anyone, what's the point of staying in touch with her?
Fuel a sense of superiority. Won't lie, I was guilty of rubber necking in the same fashion when I was in my 20's. You take the short path, lock down your education and career, it's a good feeling. But your peers might have taken the short path in other aspects (family, investing, home ownership, etc). It compensates for the lack of other life milestones in those other areas.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
And so at the end of the day, you end up with the choice of being hijacked into accepting unlimited loss so the people on the low side feel better, or saying "yes, chad" to "If X is rational, it's not bigoted and it's not clear why it should be a bad thing". Or not saying it but acting in the same way, as with Jesse Jackson's famous remark about being ashamed at his relief that someone he heard walking behind him turned out to be white.
magicalkittycat
1d ago
You avoided the question, since you did not identify what free speech right is now being targeted by the government by the government not providing monetary grants.
No you asked "Which free speech rights do you believe are being targeted by the government now?"
I gave you a link to a FIRE article going over one of them. You don't get to change your question now because you don't like the answer.
magicalkittycat
1d ago
I found Nobel-prize-winning economist Paul Krugman's post-election predictions that Trump was absolutely going to trash the market and destroy the American economy.
Krugman literally days after was like yeah ok that's too alarmist, protectionism and short term thinking on the climate are going to be economic issues in the long run but it's not like they explode everything right away https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/opinion/trump-slump-coming.html
Which yeah, protectionism is pretty terrible in the long run. We had a whole bout about it in the 1700s with free traders like Adam Smith and Hume tearing into the idea of mercantilist style trade theory. Capitalism exists with the concept that markets and trade are good.
People being hyperbolic doesn't mean real issues don't exist, it just means people are hyperbolic. I've heard plenty of hyperbolic conservatives talk about how Covid vaccines was going to be used to insert nanochips into people, heck I overheard a neighbor once say that everyone who was vaccinated will die within a year. That didn't happen.
If racism is rational, it's not bigoted, and it's not clear why it should be a bad thing.
If sexism is rational, it's not bigoted, and it's not clear why it should be a bad thing.
If the logical consequences of labor meriting little to no wage is rational, it's not bigoted, and it's not clear why it should be a bad thing.
As soon as you start asking "why it's clear it should be a bad thing", it's a direct attack on the social license of the people whose set of characteristics predict they'd be on the low side. This is why the left is the way that it is, in attitude and in membership. Parasitism is a valid evolutionary strategy.
Now, liberalism had an answer for this in the "accept a dead weight loss to the incapable such that the categories stop being easily predictable [in the sense that it becomes more likely a citizen X is being treated as they deserve individually, not citizen X having special/non-special protection for being a hypenated-X]". But that process takes time and is vulnerable to being hijacked by "therefore the standard is evil".
magicalkittycat
1d ago
I've lost count of how many times I asked you how what Trump did violates any of the principles you supposedly hold, and how many times you ignored the question.
Ok so what do you feel about a member of the Trump admin saying on video that he desires to ban pornography across the entire nation?
Sure. So back then I was pro-Rowling, and helped the left as much as I could. Then the left went full-censor, and now Trump is in power and cutting their funding for practices that are illegal in the left's own framework. How am I the one that started it, and not them?
So you carve out that you aren't a hive-mind in conservative or leftist groups and aren't responsible for the censorious behavior of others in them, but don't carve out the same thing for "them"? There are plenty of examples of powerful institutional censorship from conservatives both now and in the past, you can go check on FIRE or CATO or Reason for instances of now and pick up a history book on religion vs science for an incredibly easy view of the past censorship efforts.
ThenElection
1d ago
Although I enjoyed reading this and enjoy rubbernecking at a potential car wreck as much as anyone, what's the point of staying in touch with her? It seems she provides mostly idle amusement and the possibility of future sex. It also seems to have some outside risk of blowing up in your face--e.g. ruining a hypothetical future relationship that does have real potential. If it's primarily charity, then there are millions of other recipients who would likely benefit more from your ministrations with a much lower risk profile.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
I don't think that merely summarizing court opinions is an appropriate basis for being considered "lawyer-brained".
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
This can’t have been any easier than including a paragraph or two of your own commentary.
I don't have any opinion on which judges are correct.
I’d have preferred page numbers instead of block quotes.
Preliminary "slip" opinions from New York's appeals panels are published in HTML without page numbers, not in PDF with page numbers. I have seen people refer to a 320-page PDF, but it's not official.
(Weirdly, New York's trial courts publish slip opinions in a mixture of HTML and PDF.)
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
1d ago
This is not a very substantive comment, but you are most lawyer-brained non-lawyer I know. It's impressive (and I mean this as a compliment), I had a career counselor once suggest I take my wordcel self down that path, and I'd have probably gone insane.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
…this can’t have been any easier than including a paragraph or two of your own commentary.
I will rule that it does clear the bar, but dang, I’d have preferred page numbers instead of block quotes.
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
1d ago
· Edited 18hr ago
A Look Into Indian Gender Relations (And Marriage)
I have this habit of staying in touch with exes and former romantic interests. There are some acrimonious exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking, it leads to interesting places. Today was one of those days.
About a year ago, I found myself in that peculiar liminal space between the end of a serious relationship and receiving news that I'd successfully matched into psychiatry. I was consumed by severe anxiety during this period, convinced that my odds of making it were poor. With nothing to lose, I decided to cast a line into the dating pool and see what the ecosystem had to offer. Some of the fish, you could immediately understand why previous anglers had practiced catch-and-release. A small minority appeared mentally stable but lacked long-term compatibility potential.
Getting into psych felt like divine intervention. I still had several months to kill before starting, and dating apps became more of a time-killing mechanism than a serious commitment strategy. During this brief interregnum, I dated a model. Or arguably the second one, depending on whether you count a fashion designer who occasionally modeled her own products.
The stereotypes about models turn out to be empirically accurate. They constitute one of the most neurotic, high-strung demographics I've encountered. This particular specimen was gorgeous, came from a wealthy family, and within a few dates was proposing marriage.
She was also, unfortunately, somewhat unhinged. She carried an OCD diagnosis that manifested in an inability to use public restrooms (at least in India), complete inability to look at or touch bare feet, and dietary restrictions that bordered on eating disorder territory. In theory, I could have managed all of that. What proved insurmountable was the fact that she wasn't very bright.
I sometimes wonder whether men who marry purely for aesthetics fully grasp that children inherit genetic material from both parents. I would never marry someone intellectually deficient, simply because no offspring of mine deserves the curse of inheriting my appearance and her cognitive abilities. This woman had drawn the genetic short straw; the rest of her family consisted of high-achieving intellectuals.
Her problems stemmed primarily from extreme naivety. When we first met, she'd recently been dumped by a boyfriend she'd dated for several years. He was the archetypal fuckboy: a weaselly individual who owned and managed a popular nightclub and showed few compunctions about leveraging this for personal advantage. She explained that he'd attended a bachelor party in Thailand (the implications are identical to what Western readers would assume), and had sworn extensively that he'd maintained perfect fidelity. Then an anonymous contact had direct-messaged her photographic evidence of him engaging with local sex workers, plus clear documentation of him bringing one back to his hotel.
She'd been devastated and sought comfort from her mother, who remained remarkably unconcerned: "What's the big deal? He didn't cheat on you, did he? All men are like that, they need to satisfy their needs elsewhere." The boyfriend proved unrepentant, initially denying the allegations, then immediately ending the relationship when confronted with evidence.
I remember one eyebrow threatening orbital escape velocity when she related this story, with the other joining it somewhere near my hairline when she declared that I seemed like a good man and we should get married. I attempted polite deflection; I maintain certain ethical standards about removing undergarments under false pretenses. I told her she seemed nice, was extraordinarily attractive, and would definitely find someone willing to commit (Someone Who Isn't Me). The usual diplomatic pablum.
To avoid unfair character assassination, she possessed redeeming qualities. She was relatively down-to-earth by hot model standards, not particularly promiscuous (she even usually only slept with the men who had already lied about marrying her, which in a way is practically Victorian by modern standards), and didn't exhibit excessive enthusiasm for depleting her father's or future husband's finances. She was family-oriented, good with children, etc.
I saw her a few more times, sighed when she revealed she'd visited her ex, departed for Scotland, and experienced severe secondhand embarrassment when she had a pregnancy scare and decided I was the appropriate person to consult. I provided general advice mostly out of sympathy. Life presents unique challenges when you lack intelligence and constantly get manipulated by men seeking short-term pleasure when you want long-term commitment. Nevertheless, she continued calling at inconvenient hours requesting that I return and marry her, which became increasingly awkward after I acquired a girlfriend here. I changed phones and neglected to provide my new number.
We maintained Instagram connections, and she suddenly contacted me after an extended silence requesting a call. I was bored and agreed.
She'd been dating someone seriously for most of the year, with genuine intent to commit. He owned a small business in the same industry as her father (who was significantly more successful). She described him as kind and thoughtful ("he's almost as good at putting me at ease as you are!") and they'd discussed marriage.
I'd previously noted that she was relatively undemanding. This man was, if not impoverished, financially struggling. He lived with his parents and younger brother in a cramped house in an undesirable neighborhood, where said brother slept on the sofa due to insufficient bedrooms. Worse, his family maintained extremely conservative values. She'd once visited wearing a perfectly reasonable sundress, and his mother had become hysterical and demanded she cover herself during future visits.
When their relationship became serious, she'd issued a quasi-ultimatum. He needed to move out and secure independent housing before she'd cohabitate. He'd objected, claiming financial impossibility and, more importantly, cultural violations. In his tradition, men remained with parents unless circumstances provided no alternative.
(She genuinely impressed me by stating that she ought to tell him that in her culture, it was expected that the bride and groom get their own place. I almost clapped like a seal.)
I can't fault the financial reasoning, but surprisingly, she revealed that her father supported the marriage idea and offered financial assistance for property purchase or rental. She'd specifically mentioned openness to relocating within the same apartment complex or neighborhood to maintain family proximity. This would represent a massive downgrade in living standards for her, given her upscale current neighborhood.
Her father had actually offered to transfer control of his business empire to this man. The boyfriend couldn't claim financial hardship; his prospective father-in-law would fund the relocation and provide the keys to the kingdom. The man remained unhappy. His pride was wounded by the concept, and he claimed his family would judge him for accepting.
(He also had the audacity to demand substantial donations in the form of thousands of dollars worth of gold jewelry for his extended relatives.)
As I, self_made_human, absorbed this information, I was shaking my head vigorously. Some people genuinely don't recognize good fortune. As an honest wage slave in a foreign land, I could only marvel at this man’s ability to fumble the largest economic windfall of his life for the sake of an ideology built out of sticks, mud, and maternal approval. If some elderly gentleman developed such fondness for me that he offered both his daughter's hand and most of his wealth, I'd definitely give it serious consideration. I'd be tempted even now, except for my complete lack of interest in operating a large clothing business. This guy already ran a struggling version of the same thing. What did he have to lose?
I expressed sympathy and truthfully stated that I considered him an idiot with either no backbone or one bent in the wrong direction. The latter might be attributed to a stick lodged in his posterior. Speaking from experience, I explained that I had previously stood up to my parents when I was dead set on marrying one of my exes, even when all the world had protested that she wasn't good for me (it's neither here nor there that the World, or at least my parents, were right about that). She wanted me to communicate this to him directly via video call. Her plan involved presenting me as a UK-based psychiatrist she'd consulted for advice (technically accurate, I suppose). She offered substantial payment for this service. Then she requested assistance with her cervix, because I had, for reasons that escape me now, mentioned hymenoplasty.
"Do men really care if their partner is a virgin?"
"Some do? But it's 2025, you can work around it. But didn't you tell me you'd been together for a year? Don't tell me you didn't sleep with him."
"I did."
"Then how is he going to object to you not being a virgin on your wedding night? You can claim that's his fault!"
"Nooooo... I was thinking about if it doesn't work out, what about the next guy?"
I desperately pleaded with her not to approach my own parents (gynecologists) seeking that service. That isn't quite the kind of referral they need from me. A Muslim female gynecologist? Experts in that field, please look up one of those. She remained persistent, so I attempted to discourage her with graphic details about how women in historical periods would use bladders filled with chicken blood to simulate the expected gore. I recall conducting basic sex education using conveniently positioned curtains to demonstrate hymen rupture and restoration. Med school has taught me many things, some of them useful.
I eventually managed to escape, but my conversations with this woman are fascinating solely due to the absurd destinations they reach. I declined another round of marriage proposals, citing prior commitments, but mentioned I'd contact her during my next visit. I probably will, because getting laid is likely the minimum compensation I can expect after the sheer confusion and bewilderment she generates.
Models? Not even once, specifically not twice.
Oh, I don't think we disagree as much as you think; when I spoke about coercion/pressure to commit torture, I was very much picturing something unglamorous and "selfish", not a "torture a terrorist into releasing vital information" trolley problem, or even judicial arguments about deterrence. I'm talking about a scenario where even by cold hard utilitarian analysis, refusing would still be the moral thing to do - but where many ordinary, well-intentioned people would probably give in, and even you or I cannot be entirely sure what we would do. Say, some Saw-style thing where a sadist kidnaps you, tortures you a bit, then pushes you into a locked room with a bound victim and orders you to torture them even more severely, or else he'll torture you some more instead - though still not quite as badly as what he's asking you to do to the other guy.
That being said, we still disagree around the edges, insofar that I don't think anyone ever deserves to be tortured in a vacuum, even the worst POS you can imagine. I'll only go as far as saying that if you need to torture information out of someone to save more lives/prevent more suffering, then it is more acceptable to torture an evil man than an innocent; but we're talking about a spectrum of necessary evils.
Bartender_Venator
1d ago
They're just chinos, not dress pants (sometimes available in wool iirc), but Epaulet's Wilhelm cut is designed for serious lifters. Even their regular cuts are extremely flattering and have a lot of thigh/seat space.
I don't really know how to flirt
If you cannot play the "game", just be very direct while being open to rejection. Direct compliments on her, asking for her number, offer to buy a drink, offer to dance etc. You don't have to come up with a unique interesting conversation to approach each stranger. Since you seem to be doing the numbers, you will quickly learn what works often and what doesn't. Also, get a wingman (preferably female). Also get somewhat buzzed/high but not too much. Also start smoking or vaping.
I don't know how to dance with other people
Maybe where you are this is different, but I have never met anyone while dancing in a rave. It is too loud and chaotic. There are usually some chilling areas for smoking or resting. That is where I have had 99% of every random conversation I have ever had in such events.
P.S. "girl who is interested in you but you aren't interested in her" has probably friends around! She will probably introduce you to them if you don't totally ignore her. They might be prettier.
Bartender_Venator
1d ago
Tailoring is not the end of the world. If you can get one shirt tailored to the fit you want, you can take down the measurements and send them to Luxire or a similar overseas place for made-to-measure shirts around the same price point as State and Liberty (depending on fabric quality and sales, but I can promise you even their cheapest fabric will be better-looking than some kind of "stretch performance" thing).
07mk
1d ago
Thanks for clarifying. Your comment makes sense. Your belief that crushedorange's comment above isn't a case of action which is intended to "lead to more people being free to express themselves" seems almost certain to be true based on humans in general and my vague, fuzzy memory of his comments in the past specifically.
Bartender_Venator
1d ago
The other advantage of disassembling a planet is that doing so also disassembles the gravity well.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1d ago
Aren't you worried about receiving too many hits to the head at that age?
Throwaway05
1d ago
The one I always think of -
roystgnr
1d ago
This is an excellent explanation and example of its application ... though, as an aside, my opinions are 180 degrees off from yours on the specific example.
At the abstract level, torture might be fine. History is full of war criminals and psychopaths who pretty clearly deserved to be tortured, and if extra suffering for them were also to elicit information that could save innocents or even just potentially deter others who would otherwise someday do as much damage to innocents, that's a win-win.
It's in the realistic messy practical scenarios that all the reasons for an absolute ban on torture take precedence. An absolute ban is a Schelling point in a way that "except when it's really okay" can't be; the risk of mistakenly torturing innocents may outweigh the benefits of mostly torturing the deserving; the damage done to the torturer's psyche makes them a dangerous person to have in a position of that much authority even if selection bias didn't make them too dangerous to begin with; the damage done to the torturers' culture may erode the rule of law or imperil peaceful future coexistence with an offenders' community; etc. etc.
If a commitment to free speech doesn't count as a "moral principle" if you implement it by taking action that leads to more people being more free to express themselves instead of taking action that leads to any particular instance of someone you observe speaking being unpunished
But that's not what I was trying to say at all. Rather, I was saying that a commitment to free speech only counts as a moral principle in of itself if you place terminal, axiomatic value on free speech, and not merely instrumental value. If you undertake a course of action which is intended to "lead to more people being free to express themselves" in the long term at the cost of some censorship now, then you are indeed a consequentialist and motivated by a moral principle of commitment to free speech. The distinction I'm making is between that scenario, and an outwardly-similar one where the consequentialist is only judging expected outcomes based on non-freedom-related criteria; where he only defends or abandons free speech as a means to those unrelated ends, without assigning inherent moral value to it one way or the other.
Compare opinions on the sanctity of human life. You can be a consequentialist who believes that killing human beings is wrong; equally you can be a consequentialist who holds no such principle, but believes that causing suffering is wrong, and murder needs to be outlawed because permitting wanton killing leads to a societal breakdown and an increase in suffering for the living. Either consequentialist might support courses of actions which involve killing people in particular circumstances. It's just that one will consider the murders an evil which is only permissible if a greater good balances it out, while the other views killing as value-neutral, to be permitted or banned only as a matter of instrumental policy in the quest to prevent suffering.
Many such cases. I knew an attractive, intelligent woman who was incredibly sheltered and naive (raised wealthy and insulated). She ended up dating a rather oafish guy for several years (who similar to your example, was also offered the keys to the kingdom by her wealthy father but turned it down because he was "going to make it on his own" [he did not]), and seemed to date him because he was the first man to speak to her at the first student mixer before classes started. It was fascinating to watch someone so intelligent at coursework and tests have zero practical intelligence for interacting with people who might have ulterior motives.
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