domain:aerosociety.com
It's a brief way to point out that arguments must be taken to their logical conclusion in order to be properly considered, and people who refuse to "bite the bullet" and address the full implications of the positions that they espouse are either stupid or lying. Below are some examples found with Google.
Premise: All human life is equally valuable.
Observation: I can point to a human life that has approximately zero value.
Conclusion: Either all human life has approximately zero value, or all human life is not necessarily equally valuable. Anybody who tries to take a third position on this issue is either stupid or lying.
Premise: Permanently damaging a healthy human body in order to alleviate a mental condition is bad.
Observation: Sex-change/gender-affirmation surgery involves permanently damaging a healthy human body in order to alleviate a mental condition.
Conclusion: Either sex-change surgery is bad, or pemanently damaging a healthy human body in order to alleviate a mental condition is not necessarily bad. Anybody who tries to take a third position on this issue is either stupid or lying.
raakaa
2hr ago
The terms “modus ponens” and “modus tollens” come from formal logic. They tell you how to deduce conclusions from statements.
Modus ponens says that if you know that A is true, and that B is true whenever A is true, then you can deduce that B is true. For instance: “If someone is a hunan, then he is mortal. Socrates is a human. Therefore, he is mortal.”
Conversely, modus tollens says that if you know that B is true whenever A is true, and you know that B is not true, then A is not true. “If someone is a human, then he is mortal. Zeus is immortal. Therefore, Zeus is not a human.”
The full expression extends these terms to the realm of politics and morality. For a naive culture war adjacent example: “Christianity says that gay sex is bad. Christianity is good. Therefore, gay sex is bad.” This is a sort of moral equivalent to modus ponens as described above. But, if you support gay rights, then you can do this in reverse: “Christianity says that gay sex is bad. Gay sex is good. Therefore, Christianity is bad.” This id the equivalent of modus tollens.
The expression thus can be viewed as saying “if you support a consequence because a preexisting belief of yours says that it’s good, then someone else could just as easily reject that consequence and say that your preexisting belief is bad.”
ProfQuirrell
2hr ago
Let's say you have a statement:
If A, then B.
There are two syllogisms that can be derived from this statement, one of which is referred to as Modus Ponens and the other of which is Modus Tollens.
Modus Ponens: If A, then B A Therefore, B
Modus Tollens: If A, then B Not B Therefore, not A
Where the statement / joke comes in is when you start making an actual argument where the two people agree on the conditional, but one is arguing that A is true and the other is arguing that B is false. Let's say something like:
If morality is objective, there is a God.
The first person takes the objectivity of morality as proof that God exists, but the second person takes the non-existence of God as proof that morality can't be objective. Despite both parties accepting the conditional, they still believe different things.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2hr ago
Hard to say. I'm certainly typically more sober earlier in the day. Also there must be some rancid oil or something in the early morning that maybe is taken out or otherwise disposed of in the evening. I don't think I'm alone in thinking the smell can be quite strong, but it may be that the smell is also quite different at these differing times.
Starlight is supposedly one of the more effective do-gooders but she can't even make a dent in Homelander's popularity, can't do any material damage to Vought, and can't even shift political outcomes in her side's favor.
Not just that. Starlight thinks she's in a war for America's soul, but is also so concerned about her purity that she refuses to go out and motivate people because she hates the Starlight brand....while also using it for her bullshit ramshackle charity org? It's past incompetence to even consider this.
As someone who grew up watching Supernatural, Kripke going "woke" seemed like a blackpill but are we sure this whole thing isn't some not-so-veiled critique of left-wing activism?
crushedoranges
2hr ago
It wouldn't be a proper comic book story without a egregious, poorly-researched error.
ok-target-7361
3hr ago
The allure of the smell of ramen shops is inversely related to the hour of day-- meaning in early morning the smell is revolting. Late night, enticing.
Is this an observation of your internal state or how the smells change during the cycle? (They boil bones for the broth for around half of the day, don't they?)
edmund-nelson
3hr ago
Ahhh I see you're like "the few examples of actually good uses of military action are incredible and I want more of it."
Sadly I just agree, The Saga of Tanya the evil was the best war show of all time in spite of it involving fucking magical girls. The levels of thinking in those books/shows was just off the charts. I get a lot of the same vibes as when I hear Skullagrim review mary the virgin witch somehow by having higher variance the animated shows can have some of the best depictions of conflict.
I really liked the Saga of Tanya the evil and am looking forward to season 2, Season 1 was so good and while the books are ok, the animated version really sells you on the "this is what war is like" doctrine (except for mary sue fuck mary sue)
ok-target-7361
3hr ago
Your observation is preempted (kind of) by Frank Herbert, when Miles Teg is tortured by the returners from the Scattering, he notices that the man in charge must be high status because of how impractically tiny his briefcase is.
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
3hr ago
a clear upper hand
Operation Bagration was a clear upper hand. Right now, the Russian army is strong enough to exploit Ukrainian tactical failures, but nowhere near strong enough to create opportunities of its own.
ok-target-7361
3hr ago
Can somebody explain to me in simple, preferably monosyllabic words: what does the expression One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens mean?
hydroacetylene
3hr ago
I mean, are there any indications that Saudi Arabia is actually going to start accepting other currencies?
JulianRota
3hr ago
I finished House To House. Not much more to say about it than what I said last week. The remainder of the book is mostly minute-to-minute gory detail of SSG Bellavia's mostly single-handed fight to retake a particular house in a tricky location from some well-dug-in insurgents. Exciting and engaging stuff for sure. but not a ton of deep insight.
Started reading The Devil's Chessboard by David Talbot. Non-fiction, apparently about how Allen Dulles and I guess associates formed a sort of secret government starting in the 60s or so I guess. I suppose I'll see how good it ends up being.
ok-target-7361
3hr ago
Can you tell me which rule I broke, and whether the decision to ban me came before or after identifying that rule?
ok-target-7361
3hr ago
Physically, middle-aged. But in my mentality towards the opposite sex I fully identify with the male character.
ok-target-7361
3hr ago
/r/PoliticalCompassMemes of all places tipped me off about an entertaining animated short movie depicting two mercenary groups in realistic urban combat: https://youtube.com/watch?v=OTLGWNruuOE
Very inferior in quality to Astartes, but still quite nailbiting while dialogue-free.
ok-target-7361
3hr ago
Thanks, I fapped.
But I enjoyed it in other ways too. Though I don't think you have a correct understanding of a flush in poker.
No_one
3hr ago
The FPV operators are well behind the lines and so far indispensable because their skill matters because for some reason, Silicon Valley still haven't delivered a good killbot.
There'll be plenty left.
atokenliberal6D_4
Defender of Western Culture
3hr ago
The way I see it, countries should follow a general "[insert country here] first" framework, and people with deep roots should have relative priority over newcomers.
Do you mind clarifying or giving a justification for why things should be like this? Specifically, what does "deep roots" mean? Is that things like like involvement with local community wherever they live and civic engagement or is it more like having ancestry in the country going far back? I would totally agree with you if its the first and vehemently disagree with the second---for the same reason that personal connection is what's important, not ancestry (see again the comparison between a close childhood friend vs. cousin you've never met before).
SteveKirk
3hr ago
More likely every Ukrainian who would think to do that will be dead by the war's end, and the country will be run by parasites that went to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government
No_one
3hr ago
It'd be completely unsurprising if the war ends, Ukrainians find out they've lost half a million dead for nothing and then one night every prominent neocon in the D.C. area gets a thermobaric RPG warhead* delivered into his bedroom at 3 am.
It's like how good is anti-FPV surveillance? FBI seems interested in chasing politics. And you would only need some guys to smuggle in a ~50 RPGs and a bunch of drones. They could be flown over the internet easily.
*that's how the leaders of the Donbass uprisings were killed. It's the most powerful and compact 'bang per buck' out there. Unclear whether they were killed by SBU or Kremlin.
deadpantroglodytes
3hr ago
I agree that it would be interesting to see a detailed analysis like that and I realize you aren't saying large QOL improvements would be exculpatory ... but reading your comment made me think about discussions about progressive indoctrination in US schools.
It's plausible that learning progressive manners and beliefs will give children a substantial leg up, socio-economically. Depending on events, graduates of the Evanston, IL public schools system might be on average, better-positioned than those from, say, the Florida suburbs in the US of 2045. But I don't think many parents resisting leftward changes to their public schools would be impressed by that.
The analogy is quarter-baked, but just contemplating it weakens my openness to arguments that material improvements can justify inter-generational dispossession (for lack of a better term)
supporting race blindness makes a comment one of the most controversial in your posting history
We can trade examples all day long, but I don't know how else to interpret even a moderator (who I think should be more aware of the general pulse of the forum than either of us) saying this:
Looking through my own "top" and "bottom" comments I am not surprised or offended by their placement. My "bottom" comments are often my controversial mod decisions, or times when I have decided to defend viewpoints that are unpopular here on TheMotte (like race blindness, or open borders)
(adding emphasis)
No_one
3hr ago
I have to agree with Dean, there aren't any real Nazis in Ukraine. You can't be a Nazi and fight for a country run by a Jew.
Hitler could make anyone an Aryan by fiat. He did just that with the Mischlinges Field Marshal Erhard Milch, General der Flieger Helmuth Wilberg, and others who had proved their military value. One photograph of Wilberg shows him resplendent in uniform with no fewer than 12 medals pinned to his proud Aryan, formerly half-Jewish, chest. Nonetheless, despite Wilberg’s altered religious status, he insisted that he fought not for the Fuehrer, but for Fatherland and Volk. The distinction was a common refrain among Hitler’s Jewish military men, and some Aryans as well.
I wish I could wrap my mind around that. Is it performative? Is it a fetish? Or have these people been subjected to so much demoralization propaganda that they now worship ugliness and degeneracy? That they've been pavlovian trained to wound themselves spiritually on uglification?
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