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Texas is freedom land
1d ago
Search time is directly proportional to range. The more you zoom, the longer it takes to scan the whole field of possible approaches, and the more data you’re funneling to your GPU.
How far away do you want to make the decision? How much of the image needs to show a drone before the AI flags it? How closely does the countermeasure need to get to secure a kill? What’s the false alarm rate?
It’s probably possible. It’s definitely not trivial, and I would not want to be the guy testing it out in the field.
the_Culture_is_great
1d ago
On a personal level prioritization of care is right and good. What kind of world would be be in if it was morally wrong to care more about your wife!
Buying jewellery for your wife instead giving change to the crackheads on the street! Sure perfectly fine! I never give change out, I too prioritize myself and very much dislike the incentives that giving change creates.
Shooting the yelling crazy guy on sight because your children heard him say the F-word? Obviously obviously wrong. You'd call the cops on someone who did that.
There's a bar between those two extremes somewhere, if you set it low enough, even for the street crazies, that makes you a bad person. It would actually help if you specified where exactly you'd put it.
(I also think my argument here is giving the impression that my bar is very high, but it's absolutely not. I think the tolerance level is currently too high, and should be lowered, but you just can't drop it to the floor).
ZanarkandAbesFan
1d ago
"Israel actually makes Jews less safe!" as a statement by itself is almost always concern trolling, and the rest of your comment basically confirms that's what you're doing. But for what it's worth, here's why this is straightforwardly incorrect:
1/ There were hundreds of thousands of Jews living in mandatory Palestine prior to Israel's war of independence that the Arabs tried to slaughter as soon as the Brits moved out. Establishing the state of Israel was the process of not allowing this to happen. On a pure lives saved vs lost basis, this by itself justifies the existence of Israel even considering all Jews killed worldwide since then.
2/ Israel makes Jews unpopular, but Jews have always been unpopular, so once again this is concern trolling. The idea that Jews might have reacted to the holocaust by thinking "maybe we shouldn't establish a sovereign state, because then people will really not like us" is hard to entertain with a straight face.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
After reading the whole article:
In 2020, an investigation by The Times found at least 100 prostitutes travel to Davos for the summit according to a Swiss police officer.
Well, I guess this makes you right about both the rate, and the correlation with income. Though I suppose we'd need to know the native population of Davos prostitutes to know for sure...
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1d ago
Assuming that these are all generic representations of people that I have not met personally and have no additional ties to:
- 3
- 2
- 3
- 2
- 1
- 1
- -3
- -7
- -7
- -8
The reason for the low valuations on the generic "these are all fine" groups at the top is that I just don't think I owe very much to distant countryman in general. My high levels of care are reserved for people that I have much closer ties to. I wish no ill on the Ethiopian Christian or Saudi Muslim, it's just not my problem how things work out for them in their faraway land.
The negative rankings are somewhat challenging owing to the fact that whatever anti-care is owed diminishes with distance, so some of these numbers reflect distaste rather than a willingness to do anything.
I don't put any meaningful emphasis on race as an element of care. Individual behavior exceeds racial preferences for me in effectively all cases.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
1d ago
If you can find the 80’s run of Cricket literary magazine for kids, I have very fond memories of it.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
There are only about 2,000 men at Davos, only about 500 of them American. It wouldn't seriously impact the chart drawn above if every single one of them was balls deep in a hooker every night after the conference.
An Indian Abroad: London 2, Electric Boogaloo
Three years ago, I wrote about my experiences as a foreign visitor navigating British culture. Today I want to revisit that theme, but with the additional data point of having lived in the UK for almost exactly one year. This gives me what economists might call a "natural experiment" - the same observer, examining the same phenomenon, but with different baseline expectations.
Despite extended residence here, my mental map of the country has embarrassingly large blank spots. There’s a pin for Aberdeen (work), a few for Edinburgh (pleasure, ACX meetups), and a recent one for Manchester (visiting a cousin). That’s about it, at least if restricting myself to places a non-British person might have heard of. My last trip to London was three years ago, a time that now feels like a different geological epoch.
I ended up there this time, as I end up in many situations, through a self-inflicted logistical failure. Some circuit in my brain responsible for booking travel fried itself, and I reserved a flight a full week before I was meant to meet an old friend. My first inkling of this error came when I was already approaching Tottenham via the train, from my friend’s utterly bewildered text messages, which made it clear he couldn’t just drop everything to accommodate my sudden appearance in his timeline.
This, combined with a fresh and painful re-confirmation that Ryanair’s reputation is entirely earned - they’d put Ozempic in the tap water and perform pro-bono liposuction to reduce fuel expenses - left me stranded in Tottenham, asking the internet for advice. The consensus was that nothing of note was going to happen in Tottenham. I could have gone bird-watching in the nearby marshes, but I wasn't dressed for it, and the local hobos seemed to have cornered the market. One of them was having such an intense conversation with a musical passerine outside a Greggs' that I decided to cede the territory.
My search for coffee was its own little microcosm of London social strata. I always end up forgetting what Pret a Manger is like, and each time, I'm dismayed to discover that it's clearly for Instagram fitness influencers who are best described as having a ‘complicated’ relationship with food. The calorie counts suggested their target demographic subsists on positive affirmations and wifi. It's a good place to set up an eating disorder clinic, I need to put a pin in it.
The Starbucks was instantly overrun by a swarm of high-school students and their harried teacher on a field trip. I quickly became aware that they'd probably graduate and enter the work force before I could get a coffee. I ended up back outside Greggs, where a pretty girl in a hijab sold me a bacon roll, a tableau I filed away for future reference. Having eaten, I decided the only way out was downstream. I made for Central London.
London, upon initial re-acquaintance after a three-year hiatus, appeared largely unchanged. It remains the physical embodiment of a certain kind of Britishness, a dense, chaotic, and relentlessly cosmopolitan metropolis. It has more Mirpuris than Mirpur, and more Bengalis than Bangladesh. I'm allowed to say this, both because of the color of my skin, and because I'm technically half-Pakistani.
I'm aware that my presence here makes it another, infinitesmally darker shade. Alas, it can't be helped, in much the same manner that a Western anthropolist studying the reaction of a previously uncontacted tribe is partially responsible for the change he observes. I'll be gone soon enough.
The most salient difference was not in the city's character, but in its price level.
Three years ago, London registered as “ludicrously expensive.” Back then, my ex and I had work, not pleasure on our minds. I'm still mildly traumatized that a mere two months’ stay wiped out an entire year of my Indian savings. But this was against a baseline of Indian purchasing power, a notoriously poor benchmark for G7 capital cities. I have since spent a year recalibrating my internal price-sensitivity models against the economies of various Scottish towns and cities. Aberdeen. Edinburgh. I thought I had a decent map of the territory.
The map was wrong. The territory had shifted.
A more sophisticated economist would have a basket of goods to gauge inflation. My own benchmark is to use the price of a pint of beer:
As of the middle of 2025, a man can expect that a pint will set him back £3 in a rural pub. £4 where I'm currently at, at least in the seedier establishments I frequent. Edinburgh pushes 6, and I consider that exorbitant.
To my great dismay, London had breached the seven-pound barrier and was often sighted well north of eight. This is a price point at which the utility of purchasing a hip flask and a bottle of inexpensive whiskey begins to rise dramatically.
My understanding is that this is not a Pigouvian tax, just market forces at play. Perhaps this will turn out to cure alcoholism, the government has quite successfully priced cigarettes out of reach for most.
This price anomaly extended to most consumables, which seemed to be 50-80% more expensive than my last visit. I briefly considered the food stalls at Borough Market, it was very pretty, a perfect backdrop for carefully curated social media posts; but the place presented two problems. First, the prices were high enough to trigger my cheapskate heuristics. Second, a significant portion of the market is dedicated to the open-air sale of fish. The olfactory input was overwhelming. My brain, after being short-circuited with sheer sensory overwhelm, voted with my feet.
I eventually found a steak and a beer further afield, which stabilized my blood sugar but further depleted my finances. The situation was grim, but then a message arrived: my friend would be free that evening. I had a place to stay. This was excellent news. I now had a bounded problem: kill six hours without spending a fortune.
The obvious answer was a museum. They are large, climate-controlled, and, crucially, free.
The Tate Modern, Or, A Case Study In Emperor's New Clothes
The Tate Modern is an imposing brutalist structure which promises a certain gravitas. This promise is, to put it mildly, not consistently fulfilled by its contents.
I decided to work my way down, beginning my survey on the fourth floor. The first exhibit was a circle of rocks. Or maybe styrofoam painted to look like rocks; I was genuinely unsure. The wall text explained that the artist was part of a movement promoting the use of cheap, accessible materials. This is a laudable goal, I suppose, though it feels like a post-hoc justification for not learning to sculpt. The same artist also created art by going for long walks and plotting them on maps, a practice now democratized and arguably perfected by the app Strava. It is unclear if Strava users can apply for arts grants.
The next room contained another circle, this one of driftwood and other detritus, credited to twenty-five artists. This suggests either a radical commitment to egalitarianism in art or a form of credential-laundering not dissimilar to adding everyone in the lab to a scientific paper.
My own contribution to the art world was inadvertent. While walking down a corridor, I stopped to admire a large, textured piece that beautifully framed a doorway. It had depth, a compelling pattern of decay, and a certain raw honesty. It turned out to be peeling paint on a wall leading to a gallery closed for renovation. This is not a joke, I'm actually being deathly serious for once. As a certain psychologist once said, there are cathedrals everywhere for those who have eyes, and modern art where one might expect flies.
The next gallery featured a bizarre, Dali-esque trumpet suspended from the ceiling. Below it, people lay on a circular mat, listening to a low, interminable drone which, according to a placard, was the “sonic signature of the building itself.” I sincerely hope they invested in acoustic dampeners or earthquake mitigation in the future.
My legs and back ached from walking and the abysmal flight. The floor looked comfortable. De-coupling the supposed artistic merit from the clear utilitarian benefit of a padded surface, I laid down. It was surprisingly soothing, if not exactly art. My presence seemed to act as social proof. Was it the fact that I'm brown (and thus an authority) and was clearly enjoying the relief?
The mat quickly filled with people, jostling for a spot to be droned at. For a moment, I considered taking off my shoes and striking a yoga pose, just to see if it would catch on. My internal betting market put the odds at 70:30 that it would.
Then I found a small cinema with a sign warning of "sexual/pornographic content." Now we're talking. The film was called Pteridophilia. The description was, and I am quoting what I found online later, precisely what I read:
Pteridophilia I is the first in a series of five single-channel videos shot by artist Zheng Bo in a forest on the edge of Taipei, Taiwan. As suggested by the titular neologism (from the Greek pteris, or ‘fern’), the seventeen-minute work depicts naked queer men engaging in intimate acts with ferns, pushing past standard notions of human-plant relations to explore a radical potential for erotic interspecies intimacy.
The reality was less a radical exploration and more a deeply awkward spectacle. A series of nearly identical hairless Asian twinks (a statement I make with full awareness of cross-race effect) performed acts of frottage upon foliage, primarily various ferns and other plant life. The camerawork was the highlight, it was technically competent, always ensuring a leaf or branch was tastefully positioned to obscure the most explicit details. This statement doesn't apply to the few minutes (which feel far longer) when well-plucked ass-crack is on full display.
The primary utility of Pteridophilia, however, was not its content but its setting. The screening room was dark and furnished with numerous beanbags and mattresses. I found a corner and while sleep eluded me, I spent the next two hours in a state of semi-rest, lulled by the ambient jungle sounds and the occasional moan. The film looped several times. I cannot say I understood it better on the third viewing, but I can report that my back felt significantly better.
I noted that half the audience seemed to be giving it their rapt attention, beady eyes turned to jade by the gentle bloom, while the other half were like me, either on their phone or giggling away.
(If Pteridophilia I is so good, why isn't there a Pteridophilia II? Oh fuck, wait a second..)
The Tate Modern is free, which is its best feature. It's a great place to kill a few hours and use the loo, but I doubt I'll be back. The entire field of modern art seems to have achieved a stable, self-satirizing orbit.
The Bromley Tourism Board Presents:
I eventually caught a train to Bromley, one of the many towns swallowed by London’s inexorable expansion. Some urban planners and amateur astronomers joke that at this rate, the city will be a Dyson Sphere by 2100, and the ring road, a ring world. That's probably for the best; if the whole solar system has a London postal code, maybe people will stop paying half their salary for one.
My friend met me outside the station, fresh from the gym, as befits such a fitness freak. He also seems to be an amateur realtor, as he insisted on taking my sorry ass on a walking tour of what felt like the entire neighborhood.
The first stop was his previous residence. A nice enough house, which he'd been renting with his sister. Unfortunately, the lady had been wiser than us, opting for a career in finance. She'd recently moved to Canary Wharf, and begun dating the VP of one of the big-name finance firms. I must admit this makes me very jealous, stupid decisions have meant that I'm locked into the far less lucrative profession of psychiatry, and I lack the looks to sell myself as a trophy husband.
My friend thus had to rapidly downsize, finding new digs where he had his own bedroom and toilet, but had to share everything else with two housemates. He spends double what I do on rent, and I only have the one.
(Even without trying very hard, I've saved 40% of my psychiatry trainee salary by living where I do. I can't see myself doing much more than holding my head above water in London. The "London banding" pay increase for my profession (a mere 10%) seems like a rounding error against the cliff-face of London's cost of living. Why do you think the doctors are striking right now?)
Bromley gave me the impression of a reasonably stable mix of working-class and more affluent yuppie populations. My friend provided the baseline prior: Bromley is a high-trust, low-crime environment. The universe, in its occasional capacity for providing surprisingly clear experimental results, then presented a powerful piece of evidence. A young woman was jogging alone, apparently unconcerned by the encroaching darkness. Her path took her directly past us, two tall men of South Asian extraction dressed in black, who were at that moment pointing at houses and loudly discussing their market price, an activity that in a less secure context might be interpreted as casing. She seemed utterly unfazed.
I did appreciate my friend trying to clue his almost fresh-off-the-Boeing buddy into a better understanding of how London worked, but I must admit that my primary takeaway was a creeping sense of financial insecurity and existential dread.
Eventually, my legs threatened to give out, and the uppers (coffee) and downers (beer) that I'd been running on no longer sufficed. My friend reluctantly agreed to take us back home, and we discussed professional examinations till our eyelids drooped shut. I really should have considered finance.
The next day, we visited Canary Wharf. It feels like a different city-state entirely, a Singaporean financial district teleported into the Docklands, only missing a statue of Lee Kuan Yew. Central London? Rich, but visibly old money. The air in the Wharf was almost electric with the odor of money changing hands. Or perhaps Revolut were cutting corners with their HVAC systems, I'm no expert.
The Wharf is clean, modern, and efficient. I'm still not very good at assessing social class at a glance with my too-Indian eyes, but even I could tell the people here were posher, and the birds fitter (I'm not talking about the paddling ducks).
It is also, paradoxically, cheaper for many consumer goods than Central London. A pint of Asahi that cost £8 near the tourist centers was a more reasonable £5.75 here. I'm inclined to attribute this to stiff competition for the local office workers, who are repeat customers and thus more price-sensitive than tourists. This seems plausible. Tourists are a captive audience with poor information, ripe for exploitation. Office workers will simply go to the cheaper place next door, and if they're finance workers on top, they're both very mercenary and have a keen eye for arbitrage.
We observed the strange outcome of a government policy decision: an attempt to convert a luxury hotel in the heart of the Wharf into a center for asylum seekers. Leaving aside the political firestorm, the pure economic logic is baffling. It seems like an attempt to solve a problem using the most expensive possible tool, a phenomenon I've noticed governments are particularly prone to.
The approach to the hotel itself was cordoned off. Rumor has it that a Pakistani finance-bro finally broke under the strain of counting all his money, and ran amok. Last I heard, he'd racked up so many confirmed kills of the local white underclass that it was almost too burdensome to count, and now, was in a tense stand-off with police snipers while his own asylum application processed. I didn't have the guts to get any closer, I'm still rather unsure of whether or not I'm sufficiently high value human capital. Out of fear and a desire for self-preservation, we made our exit and went west.
In my first London travelogue, I'd noted how empty the city felt, at least for someone used to Indian metropoles (I prefer the Latin plural, rolls off the keyboard better). The city must have been personally affronted, because it was positively packed that Sunday. Hordes of tourists flocked and gawked, not that I'm any different myself.
We arrived at Covent Garden, which was standing room only. Camden, Borough - they're all tourist traps. So is the Garden, but they're all pleasant enough nonetheless. I got myself a bagel and some dessert, and bid adieu to my friend after accompanying him to Victoria station. I had, following his suggestion, decided to go visit the Natural History Museum. After taking the Tube the wrong way for a single stop, I figured out my bearings and successfully made my way there.
The Natural History Museum represents peak Victorian institutional design - it looks exactly like a museum should look. Unfortunately, it also maintains Victorian climate control, creating an interior temperature that could charitably be described as "surface of Mercury, and not the side facing away from the sun.” The museum is aware of this failing, apologizing through signage, but the large fans in strategic corners really don't make a dent.
I'm enough of an omnivorous nerd that most of the facts and factoids the average museum is eager to dispense aren't new to me. And I was a bit annoyed by some of my prior experiences with museums in the UK, be it the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, or the Tate. Still, I had higher hopes for this one.
My time there didn't dash them, the museum had a standard but decent set of exhibits, and most importantly, it had dinosaurs. You really can't go wrong with dinosaurs; they appeal to all age groups from infants to those who remember them flourishing in their distant youth. If I were Tsar, every museum would be legally obliged to at least keep some chicken bones in a cage, and every zoo a cassowary on a leash.
A relative highlight would be the animatronic T-Rex. Alas, it won't be winning any awards, and is no match for Rexie from Jurassic Park. I felt that they'd undersized this specimen; charitably, it might be a sub-adult. Not to my taste, give me Sue or Stan proportions or I'll sue. Anything less is blatant disrespect for the Tyrant Lizard King.
The low point was watching a grown woman confidently identify a woolly mammoth as a dinosaur on an interactive display. I felt a pang of sympathy for her school teachers. At least she was in the right place to correct such serious deficiencies.
(I must confess that I get minimal marginal utility from museums these days, in the age of Wikipedia. The awe of seeing a coelacanth specimen is lessened when I have already seen high-resolution photos and watched a dozen documentaries about it. The museum's primary function shifts from information dispensary to a kind of physical proof-of-existence.)
Eventually, the museum closed, but not before I got to enjoy the plight of an unfortunate cyclist. He'd been turned away from the exit at one end by a member of staff, and as he approached the other one, he was informed that it was closed and he needed to go the other away. To add insult to injury, he'd been told that his electric bike was allowed if he dismounted and walked it, but was now being threatened with vague but dire consequences by this other gent. I left him desperately trying to get these two employees to talk to one another, or at least let him out of the grounds. My schadenfreude was well sated, but I was bone tired and unwilling to venture further afield.
I parked myself at the Wetherspoons in Victoria station, and then the one in Bromley, to kill time till my friend was home and also kill my liver. Ah, I've come to appreciate Wetherspoons. The prices are distinctly lower than the London average, and seem consistent across locations. When you factor in the deals on meals, with a drink being heavily subsidized in combination, can you not afford to wine and dine there?
My extended family, a product of pre-1960s Indian birth rates, came in clutch. I have a sort of uncle who is a more successful version of me. He’s a distinguished consultant psychiatrist who aced the best med school, has more published papers to his name than I have pubic hair, and lives down in England. My only advantages are my youth and a much better-styled beard, and arguably a better love life.
My uncle, much like his nephew, had decided to take up exercise to compensate for an exceedingly sedentary lifestyle. This went south when he pulled his back while deadlifting and was entirely bed-bound for a good month. His octogenarian father had to fly in from India to help, as my uncle had no close friends nearby able or willing to do him a solid, and his ex wife probably burns voodoo dolls of him to this day. An opportunity to pay my dues to both an uncle and great-uncle? I couldn't turn down the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, and even I believe that social ties need occasional lubrication.
I'd remembered their existence the night before, and reached out, truthfully telling them that I had screwed up and was in London far longer than I'd planned for, and my buddy was politely hinting that he'd prefer if I found other accommodations for the week. This was surprisingly well received, and to my surprise, I found out that they lived barely the next town over.
I didn't want to go empty handed, I'm not that uncouth, especially when they're offering to let me stay nigh indefinitely in his very nice house. My friend softened the eviction notice by taking me to a nearby café, and then to the local Marks and Spencer.
I was unfamiliar with that chain. Before I'd first come to this country, my ex and I had been trying to make every penny count. We'd done our research and discovered that M&S and Waitrose were for the affluent or aspirational bourgeoisie. I have stubbornly resisted lifestyle creep and stuck to my Tesco/Lidl/Aldi triumvirate. Not to mention that the two premium chains didn't consider my home city worthy of being graced by their presence.
I was blown away. M&S was clearly a cut above the rest, but the sticker shock I was dreading didn't materialize. I don't know if it was aggressive angling of their store brand products (which were very comprehensive), but the price differential was far from obvious. I made the most of it, and loaded myself up with sweets and savouries meant to pay my way. Clean, better lit, more pleasant staff, what's not to love?
The journey to my family's place was uneventful. I've come to appreciate London's public transport all the more after discovering first hand how abysmal it can be in the less urban parts of Scotland.
Evidently, decades of working for the NHS does lead to the accumulation of modest wealth. My uncle might let out parts of the house on an irregular basis, but as he told me, it's less for the money than it is to have people around and looking after the property while he's on vacation. I suppose that's another thing distinguishing the two of us, I'm a couch potato, the man can't stay put in the country for longer than two weeks.
Shortly after settling in, I ended up accompanying my grand-uncle to the shops. Might as well put those muscles to work, and demonstrate respect for my elders while I'm at it. On the search for cauliflowers (the supermarket had none, just broccoli), he had me tagging along on the local promenade. Further augmenting every existing replication of stereotype accuracy, he was attracted by the display of copious amounts of gold on display outside a combination goldsmith/pawn shop.
I followed him inside, mildly curious. I've never bought a gram of gold in my life, and had no reason to be in such a fine establishment. The first thing I saw was a tearful lady with a baby in the stroller, asking how much she'd get for a ring she pulled off her finger. The figure quoted wasn't to her taste, and she stormed off - or at least left as aggressively as feasible with a baby in the basket.
It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself when you screw up your travel plans and have to sleep on beanbags in a fern-porn cinema. And then you see something like that, and you remember that some people are navigating much harder problems. I hope she found a better price for her ring.
At the time of writing, I'm back at their place, enjoying a rare opportunity for leisure. I'm likely going to be here till the end of the week, using the opportunity to expend what's left of my annual leave. Further updates may or may not follow.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
It's also negatively correlated with income in general.
birb_cromble
1d ago
Bears is definitely US or Norway. No way it’s Russia- it’s just too poor to win on widespread species. Canada, Japan, Scandinavia, all have bears.
I think I wrote that while I was trying do do some per Capita GDP vs megafauna math. If it's just "has animals", you're definitely right.
Eupraxia
Of all words spoken, all things read / most true was that which went unsaid
1d ago
· Edited 1d ago
I’m curious, if you were to estimate the level of care you owe to the following people on a scale of 10 (as a brother) to -10 (omnicidal maniac), what would it be? (assuming you’re a white American)
-
Another white American
-
A white European living in Europe
-
A Hispanic mestizo legally living in the US
-
A Hispanic mestizo living in Mexico
-
An Ethiopian Christian
-
A Saudi Muslim
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A black American who has been convicted of two counts of petty vandalism and one count of shoplifting
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A white American who has been convicted of three counts of felony assault and one count of attempted murder
-
A Simbari tribesman who practices traditional pederasty rites
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A black American pedophile with a preference for young white boys
Crowstep
1d ago
There's definitely some other studies showing that graduate women are marrying high-earning non-graduate men, like your plumber friend. That explains how graduate women have been able to maintain their high marriage rate despite a lack of graduate men to go around.
How did the wives of your friend compare to him in terms of age and educational credentials?
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
Yes, and that's fine. Their problems are theirs to solve.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
All these ideas fall to the same issue. You can't trust the people with discretion. Do you really trust a high school (or middle or elementary school) principal to decide who is worthy of corporal punishment? Especially given the outside incentives? Beat cops may be better people than the criminals they arrest... but only by a little bit, and they'll be happy to beat up anyone they dislike, who gives them lip, or who gets in their way.
faceh
1d ago
Yes, we've all recently learned that the multimillionaire CEO of a tech company will risk it all to have an affair with the head of HR at said company.
I'd agree escorts aren't the MODAL case here, for sure.
But for most guys, a night with a decent escort is not likely in the budget, so he's likely to throw money at strippers or somesuch.
Rich guy has that fallback, but is not necessarily going to need it.
pigeonburger
1d ago
I wouldn't even say that the people in government are specifically dumb, just that we aren't selecting them for what we say we want (competent administration) but instead for what our revealed preference is (we select them for their ability to comfort our tribal biases). And for that, they are actually very good, some of the best we have.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
If nothing else, they can afford to pick a high-end escort for a night.
1% is the general number for American men using escorts or prostitutes in the past year, and the highest estimates are only two and a half percent. It's also negatively correlated with income in general.
Just not a real thing people do at a level where it would impact these numbers.
RenOS
something is wrong
1d ago
Yeah, that's what I meant with the first paragraph. But he indicated wanting to actually use sorceries, so I didn't expand further on that.
the_Culture_is_great
1d ago
If you're going to make this argument I you can't elide those details and still argue in good faith.
Actually spelling out at least the broad outlines like you did is good, it gives some sane limits and allows us to discuss actual tradeoffs.
all solutions that removes these people from the street are superior to those that let them there, including some that cross moral lines
This is exactly how I read what OP wrote, and it's obviously abhorrent if you allow solutions like "shoot on sight", or "Vagrant? Straight to the mines, no appeal".
hydroacetylene
1d ago
Uh, does this distinguish between kinds of rich men? I know a master plumber who founded a construction company with some big contracts. Four ex wives.
hydroacetylene
1d ago
Australia probably wins for giant flightless birds. It also probably wins for giant lizards.
Crocodilians- I mean there’s american alligators, and theres saltwater crocodiles in Australia. Aquatic mammals almost certainly goes to US, with elephant seals even if manatees are too marginal.
For large browsers I think the US wins again, with moose.
Bears is definitely US or Norway. No way it’s Russia- it’s just too poor to win on widespread species. Canada, Japan, Scandinavia, all have bears.
pigeonburger
1d ago
It's a huge huge difference though. Canada to the US is almost a 6x difference. Do the inherent population and cultural differences between Canada and the US really justify that? And even if they did, is more prison the best way to close the gap?
Population has some effect. Cultural though I think does much of the lift here. America has an ambitious culture, which I believe pushes people to more extreme behaviors. Canada, as far as it has a national identity, is defined by not rocking the boat and getting along. This dates back to the foundations of both countries as independant entities, the US being created in a bold armed revolution, Canada by convincing daddy Great Britain that its peoples are getting along now.
It's not just Canada, much of Europe is the same in this, ambition is looked at with suspicion. This leads to calm, sedate peoples. Americans are more ambitious, which leads to a more aggressive people; more Americans resent and resist the idea that they have to be content with their lot in life, which leads many to act erratically.
If you make it illegal to do this or stretch some disorderly conduct law, the people who will get collared will largely not be these guys
I ran into an example of this in even a small town policing context. An older Dead Head hippie lady decided to create, then cycle through semi-permanent campsites nearby an elderly relative's property. One camp she chose was as close as possible to private property while technically still sitting in national forest. I'm talking yards when there's thousands of acres of accessible national forest to choose from. She must have decided a great cosmic injustice had occurred when more secluded alternative sites were offered for her, uh, more natural demeanor and trash. Areas that would be out of view of a sweet, old God fearing woman.
If the squatter was ever liable to exude nice old hippie vibes instead of robbing your campsite is karma, also fuck you scumbag vibes I never saw or heard about it. One expects, unless you're in Vermont or something, a Sheriff can be called out to apply some pressure on behalf of an elderly taxpaying resident. If not to drive a squatter out of town, then at the very least to make a token effort to comfort a voter. "Yes ma'am, you give us a call" instead of "Sorry, nothing we can do-- federal land." Nope.
Eventually this was resolved with trashy, angry nudist hippie squatter moving on. Maybe there was liaising between police and National Forest Service I never learned of that aided in getting the squatter to move on, or maybe the federal land excuse really should dissuade any action. Regardless, I was left a greater impression that the injustices and costs of small town prejudice in law enforcement are mostly just that. Not any great leeway to actually get stuff done or help people that should matter.
hydroacetylene
1d ago
There were jaguars on the Texas gulf coast until the 30’s. Tigers lived in thé actually populated parts of southern Russia until soviet times. Mountain lions lived through most of the east until the late nineteenth century and they’re still present in the outer suburbs of most American cities in the west- their ecological requirements aren’t that different from pantheras.
Wolves live up and down Italy. Bears are surprisingly willing to live near people.
Clearly large predators living near civilized people is a thing that has, in fact, happened.
I think they are aware of that, and are saying that the juice is worth the squeeze.
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