domain:betonit.substack.com
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1hr ago
-Involuntary commitments are always correct.
I'm already off the train.
-The type of people who are involuntary committed are not safe to own guns.
Certainly many of the type of people who are involuntarily committed are not safe to own guns. However, I know one person who was involuntarily committed as a result of a drug reaction (to prescription drugs); while the commitment may have been correct at the time, they certainly shouldn't have their gun rights taken away forever.
-Even if both of those true, you need a trial to take the guns away.
Yes. Taking someone's constitutional rights away, especially on a lasting or even permanent basis, is a Big Deal. It shouldn't be done without a trial.
If the problem is the third option, how much are you willing to pay to facilitate that? Are you willing to have people temporarily held in custody in some form until after the hearing, because they've been tentatively described as someone who can't have guns for safety reasons but they can't be taken yet?
We already have this; the problem is that just being held means they lose their gun rights forever.
Your frustration with overall NJ gun laws (which are braindead) make it easy to miss Chesterton's fence, the alternatives are force.
The relevant fence is Schelling's, not Chesterton's. There isn't one on this slope, as the NJ gun laws demonstrate. And when I bring up NJ gun laws, the first argument from many "2A advocates" I get is "they aren't the way you say". If I demonstrate they are, the answer is "good". That's not being a 2A advocate.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
1hr ago
Okay, initially I wrote a rather harsher response, because the combination of projection ("You are being snide! You are responding with Nuh-uhs!") and the old "emotional investment" gambit (a low class tactic usually seen in forums where going to straight to ad hominems is the norm - "Huh huh you are arguing with me, you must be emotional about this! Like a woman!") annoyed me. However, from your lengthier reply I think you are arguing in good faith and deserve a kinder response. So, just to make a few points in order:
-
If you are referring to Revolutionary France, that was more than 200 years ago. 200 years was your criteria, hence my confusion.
-
A common tactic I see, usually from Christians, is to accuse atheism of being responsible for the mass atrocities of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al, when the defining feature of communist dictatorships was communism. State enforced prohibitions or control of religion are just one aspect of communism. It's not the atheism that is their ideological driving force, it's the Marxism. (Indeed, I would argue China never really became "atheist" in a real sense. They just replaced Confucianism with Maoism.)
-
I still disagree about Rome and the Weimar Republic, and I think you haven't really brought much evidence to bear that "control of women" was the defining or even most significant failure leading to their collapse. Even you back down a bit from that proposition, merely citing it as a contributing factor.
-
Yes, I am kind of personally invested in my society not collapsing, but I don't think I am just ignoring evidence that it is. I just think we are on a long slow decline for a lot of reasons, not a rapid collapse that is happening because of modern hypergamy and male avarice.
To address your broader meta point: no, I am not going to accuse you of being personally misogynistic. But anyone proposing something like "Women must be controlled or their sexuality will destroy society" has to grapple with the essential misogyny of that position. You can bite the bullet and say "Yes, for the good of the species, women must be treated as property." You can propose social guardrails (like Christianity) that hopefully will constrain them in a less brutal fashion. You can argue against the premise (I am far from sold on it). Or you can go full blackpill and say "Who cares what women feel, they aren't even people." (Not hyperbole, that is more or less the position we have actually seen a handful of people take here over the years.) But a lot of this talk about how women being able to choose and the feminization of society seems to just complete lack any empathy at all for the position of a (female) person being told to accept a society where she has little or no say in who gets to fuck her and when and whether she will be impregnated. That's stating it in its bluntest terms, but it's hard to dismiss the hysteria of of women wearing Handmaid's Tale cosplay at protests when they can actually see men who really are proposing what they fear. For those who are honest and say "Yes chad" to that, okay, points for being forthright about it, but you don't get to sneer at feminist arguments anymore, because they are actually right about your intentions.
haroldbkny
1hr ago
Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton
How did this case come about to begin with? Is Texas just requiring the same sort of "age verification" that's existed since the 90s (the website says are you 18 and you click yes)? If so, how was it possibly worthwhile for FSC to sue over that?
Throwaway05
1hr ago
Where do you get off the train?
-Involuntary commitments are always correct.
-The type of people who are involuntary committed are not safe to own guns.
-Even if both of those true, you need a trial to take the guns away.
If the problem is the third option, how much are you willing to pay to facilitate that? Are you willing to have people temporarily held in custody in some form until after the hearing, because they've been tentatively described as someone who can't have guns for safety reasons but they can't be taken yet?
Your frustration with overall NJ gun laws (which are braindead) make it easy to miss Chesterton's fence, the alternatives are force.
If the problem is the first part, well fair, but they are probably similarly level of correctness to felony charges and that stuff.
If the problem is the second part...you need to encounter some people who are being committed.
Overall I think that would change your view right quick.
Throwaway05
2hr ago
Some people will give us that info but it's usually pretty useless as make and manufacturer issues mean that the level of variety is high.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
2hr ago
I'm much more about Nietzsche than Sex and the City, which I've never seen.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
I don’t see why ‘not automatically citizens’ is so awful a condition. US citizenship is not closed and getting naturalized is common enough we can assume the good ones will get there eventually.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
2hr ago
The kid with the e-thot was conceived naturally.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
The law is about pornography to minors, hence ‘rational basis’ and not strict scrutiny. Seems pretty obvious.
HaroldWilson
2hr ago
Not really because, as well as the things Stefferi points out, Stalinism is a much narrower concept than 'leftism'. When someone asks for 50 Stalins, the whole point is that they're not actually asking Stalin to do anything different, it's just theatrical non-criticism - if there is real criticism it is directed at the rest of society for failing carry forward Stalinism with sufficient zeal. When Bernie criticises Obama, he is asking him to be more (or at all) leftist, but in ways that actually demands he changes central elements of his policy and ideology.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3hr ago
I agree, one can also see elements of the pre-WW1 crisis slide ('22 war in Ukraine, '23 Israel war, '25 Iran-Israel conflict), a gradually heightening sense of hysteria about foreign threats and this looming drama of '27 being the year when it all kicks off: AI and China-Taiwan.
GBRK
3hr ago
Surely, justice demands there must be some quantity of sweat expended over some period of time before we recognize a deep tie of kinship and mutual responsibility?
the way you're asking this question conflates the mother and child, but that's the very point I'm arguing against. Certainly, the mother has only expended a very limited amount of sweat relative to what they've produced over their entire life-- but the child, at that point, has given literally everything they have to america. Even then, it's fair to say that we want another 18 years of sweat out of them before we extend them any greater liberty than the right to exist on our soil, just as we do for the children of legal inhabitants. Dipping my toe into the child-separation debate, I concede that it makes sense to say, "either leave the child with CPS or renounce its American citizenship to take it with you when you're deported." I'd disagree with that policy on practical/utilitarian grounds, but deontologically find the position blameless.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3hr ago
Quizno’s deserved a better fate.
FarmReadyElephants
3hr ago
My ex-girlfriends have been put on hormonal birth control in their teenage years for acne and period pain. For some doctors, it seems like the default to get every pubescent girl on birth control, without any discussion of the drawbacks.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
3hr ago
Setting aside the whole sustainability of the idea that critiques from some particular viewpoint are somehow invalid because that viewpoint is different from yourself (and it is really a question of perspective - a Communist who attacks Obama for being a neoliberal could claim that the Tea Party types were just demanding Obama to be even more neoliberal than he actually was): no, the example is "There aren't enough Stalins".
Is this a meaningful distinction? It is in this case, since we're specifically talking about cults of personality. If we're talking about parties or ideologies, sure, I could see the point, but we're talking about specific personalities, and in this case a political cult of personality really generally demands complete fealty to the personality, independent of political ideologies. Attacking a personality from the "further same side" is the same as attacking them from the "opposite side" since both are evidence of disloyalty, "further same side" probably even more so. Again, Stalin vis-a-vis Bukharin and Trotsky is a good example.
Another Stalin-related example of how political cults of personality work is a demand that you follow the personality's line even if they make complete u-turns. When Yezhov is Stalin's guy, you agree he's a good Communist; when Stalin gets rid of Yezhov, you agree he was a traitor all along and edit him out of photos. When Stalin declares that Hitler is the greatest threat to Soviet Union there is, you attack Hitler; when Stalin declares that Hitler is OK now and the Western imperialists are the true treat, you change your line instantly and forget your attacks on Hitler even if you're Jewish yourself; when Hitler attacks Soviet Union and Soviet Union allies with the West, you change your line about Western warmongering in the middle of the speech if needed. And so on.
Does this apply to Obama and Trump? I can't think of good examples regarding Obama - Obama changed his line from anti-SSM to pro, but most of his partisans had probably already made the switch already. On the other hand, there just was a case of Trump's actions changing the views of at least a great number of his supporters instantly; the bombing or Iranian nuclear sites, making the GOP support for such strike go from 47% to 77%, meaning that there is at least a large number of Republicans willing to change their stance to Trump's instantaneously.
FarmReadyElephants
3hr ago
Anyone who gives birth on our soil, after no matter how short a period and with no matter how temporary a status, gives birth to a US citizen. Surely, justice demands there must be some quantity of sweat expended over some period of time before we recognize a deep tie of kinship and mutual responsibility?
GBRK
3hr ago
Framing citizenship as a "reward" is completely nonsensical. Citizenship is the codified form of the chains of responsibility and liberty that bind individuals and their communities together. Whether someone is born to illegal parents has no bearing on whether they dutifully maintain those chains. You're correct that dirt isn't magic, but you're completely ignoring the fact that blood isn't either-- citizens by Jus Sanguis don't have an intrinsically stronger claim. Rather, it's mundane, ordinary, sweat that ultimately cements the body politic together, and the children of illegal immigrants donate plenty of theirs. Understanding that, America grants them their citizenship without regard for the the sins of their fathers. And that would be the right, and just, and honorable way to do things even if illegal immigrants and their children weren't an economic net positive.
(I could accept the argument that America shouldn't extend citizenship to people who don't work or pay taxes in america. But only if you apply it globally and say that at the minimum America should ban dual citizenship for everyone, and at maximum all expats should be given nansen passports.)
BurdensomeCount
—Your em dash is showing...
4hr ago
That study doesn't even control for basic shit like differences in average education levels between those who get vs don't get vaccines. When you do that I expect all the effect to go away.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
4hr ago
I'm not sure I understand what would it mean exactly for qualia to be physical. Isn't it like...obviously something fundamentally distinct?
Mainstream secular stance of "conscious states trace material configurations" feels more like soft-dualism where the mind part plays the junior role, but it's still there
Which non-communist countries would these be?
France.
Because I think the single unifying trait you are ignoring here is communism.
Definitionally atheist communism, yes. I observed nothing about China's fall, I said the worst of them all was the nation that never had Christianity to discard. This is a fact. Weimar, and especially Rome, you can't just say "Wrong." Not here.
Sure, but I could name a bunch of other ruinous traits also easily found in most countries in decline. This argument is specifically about whether it's control of women (or lack thereof) that is a unifying thread. You mentioned automation. I could mention that and a host of other economic, technological, and tribal concerns that probably figure much more prominently in any potential societal collapse than the "mistake" of letting women have sexual agency.
What do I make of every one of your responses being a mix of snide quips and "Nuh-uh"? I would make that you have personal and significant emotional investment in my assessment being wrong.
Same, mostly. I would be happy to be wrong. I don't care about these things. I want my mental model of the world to align with with the world. I have no personal investment in the actual "why" of the fall of Rome or Weimar Germany or even the decline of America. I'm American, so it affects me and I am personally invested in it stopping, but I don't attach moral significance to any particular interpretation of the decline. If it turned out the problem was in fact women's liberation not going far enough, then that's the truth. It's what I'd want it to be, mostly, I would have an ethical problem with any attempt to empirically justify abortions, but if "sexual agency" is not just a euphemism for the freedom to make terrible decisions and can actually be quantified as beneficial, then once again, that's the truth, and I'll heed it. I dislike being incorrect, if my paradigm is wrong and my interpretation for why we're in decline is wrong, then I will change them, but you gotta show me why.
I'll go a little more on this in the next paragraph but I want to take a moment to be clear. I'd resent any implication of misogyny, and you haven't done that one bit, but for anyone else reading. I truly love women and I don't mean this as the cad. I'm a guy and there are big expectations on me but none of them will ever be as important as giving birth. The woman has immediate existential value, but in that, she is predefined. She has an easier time of it because, as with almost all of them, the only mark she'll leave on the world is her children. This is true for men but not true in the same way. It's not our bodies getting pregnant, it's not our certainty of pain and risk of injury and death. It's not that the reason we exist might be exactly what kills us. The angst and the implicit body horror must be profound, especially in this paradox of it being bound with the most wonderful and beautiful thing; the maybe singular yet perfect example of something a person can't understand in theory but only if they face it. The ideal would be that sex could just be for fun, that permanent bonding was voluntary, that pregnancies were always safe and could only occur when they were wanted. The ideal would be liberation--what we've done isn't that. What we've done is pretty God-damned far from liberation.
Rome. I may be overemphasizing in saying it was the singular cause, but I am not wrong that it was a major contributing factor. Between the work of Walter Scheidel, Mary Beard, and Kyle Harper the declining birthrate can be concluded as a ranking culprit. Scheidel has the numbers of how high the mortality rates were and how women had to have a lot of children just to keep the population static. Beard, and what I said above I return to here, talks about what it meant to be a woman in Rome, what it meant to become pregnant. Every time she was risking death, and the risk was high. 1 in 50 births overall, for an individual woman, about a 1 in 10 chance she dies during childbirth. Is there any wonder she would want things different?
Harper talks about birth rates, his work is seminal, all future study should incorporate it, as he considers disease and weather. What happens when a population with underdeveloped immune systems gets hit with plague? They die. What happened in Roman history? Plague at three key junctures, or perhaps plague that made three key junctures. Except we know stable societies not only tolerate plagues, they bounce back and flourish. Assuming it doesn't wipe them out as it did in South America, but it didn't in Rome. Unoccupied land there for the taking, the demand for laborers rising and their pay and treatment improving, the political structures weakened and allowing reforms. Renaissance followed the Black Death. Rome wasn't ended by plagues because they were that bad, Rome was already weak and plagues finished them off. What made them weak? Not enough people. Even the authors who know how many mothers died in childbirth fail to observe "Well they had the choice not to, of course they took it; thus went Rome."
I condemn Weimar Germany for their last depravities. I assign no moral condemnation to Rome. Caprice is a charged word so I can't claim I've spoken on this with clinical detachment, but I've tried, and maybe failed anyway, to use language that indicates my slant. I hate the conditions that cause these choices, not the individuals who make them.
A Roman woman who had just one child and didn't want to risk death by having a second, who could find blame in her? Of the civilizations that allow women to make that choice, yes maybe they fall, but isn't that a worthy reason? Said another way, if I'm right about how societies that don't control women -- that don't force women to have babies over and over until they have enough or die -- will inevitably collapse, those societies would be completely right to refuse that control, and noble if they did so knowing what it would cost. Today, today, what do we do about the pandemic today of bastard and layabout men? Who could say today it's worth forcing women to stay with and give a half-dozen kids to men who treat them right at first only to become monsters 5 or 10 years into marriage? It's important to say this is not the rule, it's important to say this is presented as commonplace in no small reason because fearmongering is politically useful, when most men, most people, are good, or good enough. But America alone has more than 350 million people, and a percent of a percent is an unacceptable number. What do we do? The woman can divorce him, then what? Take her kids and carry on with their life-sized baggage? Does she risk that, or does she live the only way she knows, the way society today encourages, periodically coupling, while hoping to find the love of her life, eventually. Of course she'd choose the second! When those are the choices? Shit sucks, it's that simple, it just sucks.
I want this to be the better way, not being cavalier about sex, but at least not rushing to marriage, having several relationships so you can learn, or nowadays, so men and women have enough time to learn the qualities of their partners and what's best for each before they commit to each other for life so they can make more humans. I want it to be, because for the most part, this is the better way. But I can't disregard the facts in front of me just because they would mean the world is a darker place. Whatever kind of world we live in, that is the world, it doesn't change by how we feel about it, it changes when we know the truth, because it's only from the truth that we can do something about it.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4hr ago
Did Congress declare war on Iran when I wasn't looking?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4hr ago
Yes. Leone literally decided to make the film while discussing Yojimbo with a colleague immediately after seeing it. Kurosawa's inspiration is less clear, but he was known to be a fan of noir and Hammett in particular, with Red Harvest being one of Hammett's best and most famous works. It seems unlikely that he missed it.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
4hr ago
I'm not familiar enough with the US anymore to know if what you say about reds (not) wielding injunctions is accurate, but one could imagine the theoretical possibility playing a role even if reds never did it, if, for example, we posit that blues had a more accurate picture of what the different jurisdictions could do and therefore avoided taking executive steps they know would be stopped by injunction.
A lot of women who are heavily invested in gay M/M content report enjoying it because it feels "safer" and "less complicated" than hetero content. They want to enjoy a romantic relationship in a "voyeuristic" way without having the worry about the imbalanced power dynamics that are intrinsically a part of any relationship between men and women. If the characters in the story are both men, then she can enjoy it without having to worry about the possibility of "self-inserting" as the female character and getting too personally enmeshed in the story, which could dredge up uncomfortable hang-ups about her own real life sexuality. It's not so much about running to the image of an idealized man as it is about running away from the dangers that real men present.
Obviously, it's something that she mostly has to work out for herself. I think the best thing you can do is to just set a good example in your relations with your own family, and if it ever seems appropriate to bring up, be open and honest about your own political views, what you perceive as the deleterious effects of modern wokeness, etc (the danger here isn't so much the porn per se, but rather the fact that the communities for this type of content tend to be filled with radfem and woke types who could reinforce negative beliefs).
More options
Context Copy link