domain:experimental-history.com
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
2hr ago
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Transfiguration
See the section on Human Transfiguration. Even if no spell lasts permanently, what's stopping you from re-casting it regularly? That's about as onerous as doing makeup or getting a haircut.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
2hr ago
It is well-established in Potterverse that magic, evidently, doesn't allow you to modify yourself long-term. Otherwise there would be no ugly wizards. A lifetime supply of Polyjuice sounds like something pretty much no one could afford.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
2hr ago
Read old stuff. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote Tarzan, but also John Carter of Mars. The latter is out of copyright and cheap as shit. Disney made a movie of it and unintentionally made one of the greatest literature to movie conversions of all time (in the same league as the Lord of the Rings and Watership Down.
I bought all the John Carter books in their hardcover format with the Frank Frazetta artwork on the dust jackets, because I am a man of culture.
They are ok. I've read up to The Chessmen of Mars, and each novel seems to have the same strengths and weaknesses. I find the characters profoundly boring, with almost no life or dynamism to their actions. They won't surprise you in anything they do even once. However, each novel tends to have at least two or three interesting hooks or twist in the overall texture of the world building.
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
2hr ago
See the relatively new Harry Potter game, where they had a trans woman in 19th century Hogwarts, in the same universe where polyjuice exists, and presumably other forms of body-modification.
zeke5123a
2hr ago
To me, there is a difference between pecuniary and the common good. I can imagine some communities that are slightly poorer compared to other communities but better places to live due to non pecuniary reasons. Of course, the larger the pecuniary gap the more difficult it is for the non pecuniary benefits to outweigh the pecuniary ones.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Yes, but that’s not ‘thé Amish’. What we think of as ‘the Amish’ depend on antibiotics, solar panels, air compressors, credit card processors that they buy from the secular world. You’re describing little house on the prairie.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
3hr ago
Again, I'm not disagreeing with you on the efficacy of what you say if it was aggressively and correctly implemented. I'm saying none of this is "trivial" or "easy". Human culture is notoriously fickle, and governments can waste tons of effort trying to change it without having much of an impact. If any large nation would be able to do it I think China would be one of them, but that said it's not like China is run by some ultra-competent entity. The CCP has made tons of buffoonish errors, and it's very plausible that they end up spinning their wheels on this problem.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3hr ago
The appeals panel's opinion on remand was issued just two days ago, so DNA testing probably has not yet been performed.
This is a family case, so the docket is sealed, and we probably never will know who the father is.
No_one
3hr ago
You could make so many fun films based around the idea, yet they make crap.
E.g. imagine velociraptors escaping confinement and breeding freely in the continental Americas and being as smart as parrots -smart enough to have theory of mind and to bury evidence, avoid people who may have guns and leaving tracks in the mud.
Government dismisses it (dinosaurs? On our federal land? You've gotta be joking!), nothing much happens except feral hog populations mysteriously start diminishing. Blurry photographs dismissed as photoshops and reptilian conspiracy theories. Missing people cases not much impacted yet.
What's going to happen?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
3hr ago
Their lifestyle would change, they would face the 50% child mortality that plagued humanity most of its existence, but within a generation they would adjust to the new normal. They wouldn't die out entirely.
Tenaz
3hr ago
If regular stories gave me what I wanted (fast pace, well-written, very high stakes, characters developing morally and in power) then I would eagerly read them. There's something deeply wrong about the publishing industry that these books are so few and far between.
The Rage of Dragons is the best "traditional" book I've read in a while and it was originally self-published.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
4hr ago
I’m familiar with the social ecosystem of the Haredim. It’s super interesting. The women are not involved in religious learning, they are raised to support their husband. Because the Rabbi credential is socially important, the women work to support their husband pursue it. But just as important to this is that the women have children. This is going to be the first question asked to married Haredi women. This is why they have a lot of children. What the men learn in their Yeshiva is that having children is a mitzvah, and so they fulfill their nocturnal obligations. This is an easy ask because all childcare duties fall on the women. The Rabbi credential system is not as competitive as, like, getting into a PhD program, because the big Rabbi positions are handed down via nepotism; my understanding is that it’s often a factor of showing up.
The desire to be mothers comes from exposure to babies and small children
Lol no
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10680-019-09525-0
”The difference between a firstborn and fourth-born woman (0.09 fewer children) is equivalent to a change in 0.04 standard deviations in fertility for our outcome variable. (For birth order 6, the effect is 0.13 fewer children.) Thus, the results suggest that birth order shows a negative relationship for women, with more children amongst early-born sisters than later-born sisters, though the effects are not very large in substantive terms.”
Firstborn women with one additional sibling show an increase in own fertility by 0.12 children, two additional siblings increases their own fertility by 0.22 children, and three younger siblings increases their own fertility by 0.30 children
Do you really think that a Haredi woman who happens (due to some cosmic accident) to be an only child herself, will not go on to have many children? My intuition tells me she will have a lot; perhaps not as many as her many-sibling peers, but still way more than an American with four siblings
For tradcaths grandmotherhood is higher status than having single adult children, but not as high status as having nun/priest children
I would consider this a perversion of the religion. The Epistle to Timothy is clear that women “will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.” These are bad Christians if they are giving a woman status for raising a priest instead of a dozen kids. I actually find Catholicism horrifically anti-natal because the most devout are pressured into producing impotent clerical heirs. It made sense in Malthusian times for the youngest male without property to join the church. It doesn’t make sense now. In more traditional, medieval Catholicism, even these priests had concubines
aaa
4hr ago
In any with strong religious norms, a childless woman was seen as beneath a woman who had many kids. Religious communities do a good job at redirecting social status
In any place with strong religious norms children were also very cheap, nearly free, or possibly even negative cost. The two things correlate that one wonders if it isn't religion that produces high fertility but the reverse: high fertility produces a religion that promotes high fertility. If you look really hard at christianity, for example, there's a lot of antinatalist messaging in there that almost nobody uses: yes be fruitful, yes onan but also "For there are some eunuchs who were so born from their mother’s womb, and there are some eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it".
Are religious communities redirecting social status or getting bent around by what people consider social status anyway? Look at how many churches display pride flags despited that being a far more clearly condemned practice than just not having children.
In America you have the enormous problem of capitalism / consumerism which will need to be fixed for any national solution to occur, because you have some of the smartest people continually telling women that their social value is determined by buying and experiences things
Yes, but surely we can agree that buying and experiencing things, and that having lots of free time, is something that is pleasurable in itself, that it isn't all just a big psyop.
with universities (effectively all of them behaving as businesses) telling them they need to be educated
But do they go to university because they are told to do so or do they go because it's not their money (either it's coming from mom and dad or from a loan) and they get to party for 5 years? Are they doing it for the status or are they doing it because they expect to be fun and they are correct?
If you’re at a party and there’s a poor artist, a prestigious academic, and then a plumbing company owner who makes $400k yearly
Being a rich owner of a plumbing company is not so much a job as it is a wish. It doesn't matter if you think something is beneath you if it's also unavailable to you. What's available to you is being an employee of a plumbing company and that makes little money and is phisically draining on top, hence nobody wants to do it.
Their leaders are engaged in a holy war but the average member is just a normal person doing what their culture says to do, and in this culture the number of children is prized over everything. Both men and women are judged harshly or celebrated strongly based on their fertility. It’s seen as both a commandment and a blessing. The average member isn’t having kids for a nefarious reason, they are just taught through custom that it’s prized.
I think the Haredi are in a position similar to the lifelong Seaorgers: the community is so closed and dependent upon itself that leaving is not just discouraged socially but it's also economically very difficult. Nevertheless the percentage of people that leave that lifestyle is growing.
Unlikely now that Gypsies are forced into schools in Europe.
You're overestimating the mighty power of europe here.
And look at historical figures: Ben Franklin’s father made candles, was his 17 children necessary for the candle business in an era with slaves and indentured servants? Of course not. Albrecht Dürer‘s parents were goldsmiths, did they need to have 18 children?
Some people are just weirdos.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
4hr ago
The reason I call it “trivial” is because it is easy to change behaviors and values when you have complete control over education and media. As I mention, China can do this while America will be unable to do it. Education and media are antecedent to social values which are antecedent to behaviors. You can train a woman to crave settling down to have children young through exposing them exclusively to media where women receive respect and esteem and attention for doing so, where the women doing this are shown as beautiful and alluring, where it is depicted as a satisfying and an all-moral purpose, where “maternal moments” are artfully selected in media to only show its positives, and where everything which opposes this is shown as psychologically disastrous / ugly / low-status / shameful / selfish. At a more sophisticated level, you apply all of this to prenatal behaviors beginning at the doll-carrying age, eg the traditionally feminine qualities of being meek, caring, loving, and docile, which makes a woman more likely to have children later on for a variety of reasons. A girl who grows up attached to the idea of loving and caring for a doll becomes a woman who wants to do this to a child; a girl who grows up with a modest sense of worth is a woman who does not fantasize about marrying a werewolf pirate billionaire. This is all easy, it is trivial. Two weeks of cognitive labor by a CCP-appointed team of 140iq social psychologists will be able to fix their fertility eternally.
Dean
Flairless
4hr ago
I've a similar feeling when the word 'must' appears in journalism.
In other fields, 'must' is an obligation, or a consequence of a previously established condition. An apple must fall when subject to the law of gravity. A spouse must maintain a certain level of relations lest they be divorced into an exspouse. A racer must move faster than the competition to win.
In journo-speak, 'must' is much more likely to mean 'something the writer wants the subject to do, but they don't actually have to do.' The politician must take a certain position. The government must take a certain policy. In such cases, though, the consequences of not abiding the 'must' are, well, that they clearly did not have to do what they must have done.
To me it's a red flag of advocacy journalism, outside of specifically technical/consequential framings of the earlier sense.
hydroacetylene
4hr ago
I believe the theory that Gypsy kids are an economic resource to their parents is due to their utility for typical Ziganeur activities like welfare exploitation, petty crime(which can combine with schooling pretty well), and charity scams.
And I'm going to talk a bit about ultra-religious communities, because I can tell you don't actually live in one- the highest status thing in an ultra-religious community is to become a member of the structure of the religion. This is why Haredi families gamble on their boys becoming rabbis even though the supply exceeds the demand and yeshivas provide no secular education whatsoever(and ultra-islamic families do the same thing with madrassas). For tradcaths grandmotherhood is higher status than having single adult children, but not as high status as having nun/priest children. The desire to be mothers comes from exposure to babies and small children, not from social status(which pushes young women towards the convent). You could not replicate this effect in a society where people don't already have 5+ children. Now of course there is no option for tradcaths to drop out of education at the age of 7 or 8 and enter full-time preparation for the cloister, so it kinda comes out in the wash(and haredi women seem like an afterthought/ultra-islamic women like property).
hydroacetylene
4hr ago
Amish civilization is dependent on trade with their technologically advanced neighbors, though. You can have premodern subsistence farmers at shockingly small scale, that's just not what the Amish are.
Forty-Bot
4hr ago
Well, it would be more like
Having hefted his mace, he swung at her as hard as he could
but I don't think that sounds any better
hydroacetylene
5hr ago
I have to admit, this is a bit like kneecap getting accused of terrorism. AFAICT, there is no positive- literally none whatsoever- to children's screentime, and videogames don't have great social effects either. But government overreach is also bad.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
5hr ago
My unhealthy obsession with designing houses continues unabated.
One somewhat strange aspect of the IPMC (International Property Maintenance Code) is table 404.5, which lays out the minimum areas of living rooms and dining rooms based on occupant count.
| Occupants | Living (ft2) | Dining (ft2) | Total (ft2) | ⌈Total per occupant⌉ (ft2) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 120 | 0 | 120 | 120 |
| 2 | 120 | 0 | 120 | 60 |
| 3 | 120 | 80 | 200 | 67 |
| 4 | 120 | 80 | 200 | 50 |
| 5 | 120 | 80 | 200 | 40 |
| 6–∞ | 150 | 100 | 250 | 42–1 |
Obviously, it is nonsensical for the total required assembly area per occupant to bounce around like this.
IBC (International Building Code) table 1004.5 states that a dining/living room with tables and chairs should have 15 ft2 per occupant. Therefore, I am inclined to think that it would make sense to superimpose on IRC table 404.5 a failsafe minimum of 45 ft2 per occupant.
AfterEpictetus
5hr ago
You have statistics on overturning custody agreements to back that up?
yofuckreddit
5hr ago
I realized I didn't see your first paragraph. If you are interested in bikepacking I highly recommend taking the plunge on a 3-night route or something. It is still very hard - I would train at least a month or two beforehand - but a route that's rated a 5 or so on that site is doable with grit. Finding even a single friend to join you will make it a lot more fun.
Anything in particular blocking you or giving you second thoughts?
From the descriptions, fine changes appear to be less like doing makeup and more like plastic surgery, in terms of the skill required and the danger. (Most examples deal with transforming a human into an animal, presumably with stock spells). And then you're one antimagic spell or environmental effect (such as one installed in the bank) away from the glamour washing off, or worse.
Thus, even if some rare talented Transfigurationists or those able to secure the services of one practiced it, it would not be widespread or practical in daily social life. And that's just when we talk about external appearance. Transfiguration evidently does not solve aging, and it's debatable whether it can impart complex function the body didn't have, such as switching out your reproductive system. (What happens if you try to get pregnant on Polyjuice?)
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