domain:nytimes.com
jkf
3hr ago
The current position is basically that trans-women are not women with all that entails for sports, bathrooms and laws, but also don't be a dick about it, because that is not the done thing and they're still a protected group.
"... oh, and don't forget that we'll arrest you for mean-posting about them on Twitter..."
Seems like a bit of a mixed bag tbh
philosoraptor
3hr ago
Non-wokes successfully built and/or bought their own websites. Wide-spread censorship thus became impossible because the US still has strong free speech norms, so extremely strong tools like direct government censorship / DOS provider bans / payment processor bans are only used in the most exceptional cases.
And as we're seeing in the latter case with the crackdowns in Steam and itch.io, these tools are available to non-wokes too. Hopefully this is making some people - if not wokes themselves, then relatively-neutral bystanders - realize they can be used against them as well as in support of causes they like (or at least don't mind), and people are waking up, no pun intended, to how dangerous some of the authoritarian precedents that have been set in the last few years actually are.
First they came for Kiwifarms, and I did not speak out, because fuck Kiwifarms...
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3hr ago
Good point, I forgot about Isandlwana. I said campaign-ending when I was really thinking 'war-ending' or at least something more decisive, like how the Singapore attack was a decisive blow against Britain in the Far East but not sufficient to knock them out of the war...
yestrusocialist
3hr ago
Ali is not uncommon in the US, and doesn't have any Islamic connotation Every single one I've met is a much less hot version of her:
SubstackNecron
3hr ago
You can only say "I want to reduce people to chattel I can rape at will and kill other people" for so many decades nonstop before I believe you. I am fairly certain he is serious in his political aims and objectives I have no reason to give him any charity at all as he has never given any other group any at all.
do you actually think, prosaically, that's what 1890 was like?
Would you willingly live with the rights of an 1890s woman?
Iamme
3hr ago
I’m playing and enjoying. My experience so far is that the game is hard, but not much harder than I remember HK being at first. I’m taking things slow, not letting myself get too worked up about setbacks (like repeatedly dying because of combat or platforming mistakes), and having a great time.
The most notable thing about him when the shock value wears off is the depth and breadth of his hatred. The man has been railing nonstop about how women should be reduced to sexual chattel and raped by their husbands, along with how all non-white people in the west should be slaughtered for the better part of 30 years now
Eh. There's a reactionary idiom that is the reverse of political language everywhere else. Where most people use euphemisms ("I'm pro-life"), and a stalwart minority of fair-minded folks speak prosaically ("I'm anti-abortion"), reactionaries actively and intentionally use dysphemisms ("I'm pro-Men-Controlling-Women's-Bodies"). They take speaking blunt and coarse to its extreme, to the point of not even being accurate.
Having read a few reactionaries a lot, I am 100% confident they don't literally mean what they say. Why are they speaking like this then? I think this strange affectation is (a) a reflexive emotional rebellion of what they call 'the longhouse', which gags everyone's language and thinking in daily life, (b) a gatekeeping mechanism to keep out "containment conservatives" in the brand of James Lindsay, who operate the modern political ratchet by policing discourse to their right.
Yes, Dread Jim clearly believes in returning race and gender norms waaaaaaay back. Leftists would certainly describe the world of the late 1800s as "reducing women to sexual chattel" and "genociding browns", which is why he delights in calling his politics that. But, really, do you actually think, prosaically, that's what 1890 was like?
TitaniumButterfly
3hr ago
Seems like a question of enforcement. How would they know I died?
Now I'm imagining my kids having to deal with this when my putative lifespan is getting so high, including future medical advancement, that it's no longer plausible. And I think, if I could take that deal I would, because it implies an acceptable future. Wonder how the monkey's paw would take effect though.
Also presumably at that point no one would care if they're pirating a 70 year old game anyway.
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
3hr ago
I have read that Claude and/or Claude Code has gotten dumber lately, due to "quantization", which I think makes a lower resolution model that is cheaper to operate. So that may be why I feel like Sonnet has a case of the dumbs. I rarely interact with Opus or Gemini Pro these days, on the CLI.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3hr ago
History is long, but is it really that long yet? We might need more sample sizes of one racial group trying to war against another racial group.
OK but part of this is that most of the white-black wars never even make it into history since it's so quick and one-sided. If you're well-educated, you might know about the Italians losing in Abyssinia, Isandlwana and Haiti's war of independence. They're the interesting exceptions. Usually whites showed up with Maxim guns and dominated so effectively that there wasn't even a war. Thus all of Africa was colonized between about 1850 and 1936.
Consider the two biggest wars in this period. The most stubborn resistance was put up by the Boers (white but outnumbered 5:1), fighting for three years against the British Empire. Whereas the Italians (in their full-scale invasion in 1935) mauled Ethiopia in seven months, despite the latter having rough numerical parity. The British suffered much higher casualties than Italy did too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War
After decolonization, no black African state ever became a major technological/military power like India, South Korea, Japan or China. Or even a middle power like Saudi Arabia or Iran. The strongest black African state is South Africa, which is also the only black state with a significant white population. There's been noticeable deterioration in quality of infrastructure, medical excellence (the country went from pioneering heart surgery to HIV denialism) and crime under black rule.
And we see the same pattern in so much else: STEM Nobels and heavy industry, chess, esports, founding unicorn companies, invention generally, like I mentioned. Not a single STEM Nobel has ever been awarded to a black person.
If you look at the leading companies in the world of high technology, it's disproportionately whites and East Asians that run them.
These are of course legitimate objections, it is indeed hard to define racial groups and thoroughly test such a broad-spanning topic. But the trend is both important and large in magnitude. A simple, imperfect model with some limitations is still an advance on pure blankslatism or question-begging 'oh sub-Saharan Africa is struggling due to lacking the necessary infrastructure'. Why don't they build the infrastructure? They lack the capital? Well why don't they acquire the capital? Bad institutions? Well why are the institutions bad? Other countries manage these issues too.
It all requires a root cause, which is either colonialism (dubious, many countries were colonized, brutalized and exploited for much longer periods of time: Poland, Ireland, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Greece, whereas Ethiopia was occupied for only a few years, Liberia never colonized at all) or fundamental inequality of ability, which would explain a lot more.
SubstackNecron
3hr ago
explaining in ten words what others do in ten thousand
I'm actually laughing out loud at this. He is famous for spending well over one hundred thousand words and over 30 years of blog posts to express the idea. "Women and minorities are inferior to me, and I want to rape and kill them."
gattsuru
3hr ago
Trump will have one of his more shameless toadies in Congress (looking especially at Andy Ogles, who’s already happily floating this) propose some kind of legislation to allow Trump specifically to serve additional terms. If the GOP manages to retain any kind of majority, I expect that legislation to get put to a vote, and ultimately pass along party lines despite initial token unease from more ‘moderate’ Republicans.
I'm curious what you'd be willing to bet on the condition that such a bill never makes it to the House and Senate floor for a final vote, conditional on Trump surviving (and not being comatose, Biden-esque, yada) to January 2029? Because at 80% confidence... well, I won't call it free money, but I'd be willing to bet at greater odds the opposite direction.
SubstackNecron
3hr ago
It is a very good idea to roll back feminism and "women's rights" generally. As with LGBT, what this looks like is establishing common knowledge of how these movements have catastrophically overstepped, the concrete harms they've caused, and the ways we were better off before them
How do you convince people that life was better when they were really "people" in the same way men are without a jackboot? This went away for a reason in the wast, all the religious and mythological reasons were shown to be "fake" (as far as society is concerned, I dont want to engage in a theological debate) how do you put the gene back in the bottle?
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
3hr ago
This is my throwaway comment that isn't an answer to your question, sorry.
I bought an air purifier and an air quality monitor for my house. So much insight! It makes me constantly worry about the air quality in rooms that aren't in my house now.
In the future we'll look back on this time in history and think it's insane that people used to walk into rooms and breathe even though they had no idea what was in the air.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
3hr ago
Kulak is more of a grifter than Jim. It cannot be denied that Jim is consistent and has written his views for a very long time. Kulak only recently took on his revolutionary genocidal catgirl persona, and I think it's very questionable whether he's actually got skin in the game or is just engagement-farming for Twitter bucks.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
3hr ago
I have what I think is a very good relationship with my parents. They currently live with my wife and I through the working week, and help care for and teach our children. We attend church together. My father and I take walks in the evening where either he listens to me lecture about the news, or I listen to him lecture about theology and church history. It's a really good way to live.
You are truly blessed to have them in your lives like this.
SSCReader
3hr ago
Is something actually changing?
The UK Supreme Court ruling and the NHS roll back of gender identity treatment are concrete changes.
"NHS England no longer routinely prescribes puberty blockers for people under 18 and has halted access to them outside of specific clinical trials, following a review by Dr. Hilary Cass, due to a lack of evidence for their safety and efficacy in this age group"
"In an “interim update” on how the ruling should be interpreted, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said on Friday that in workplaces and services open to the public, such as hospitals or cafes, “trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities.”"
The current position is basically that trans-women are not women with all that entails for sports, bathrooms and laws, but also don't be a dick about it, because that is not the done thing and they're still a protected group.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
4hr ago
OK but Shaka Zulu was using iron-age tactics in the 19th century. When the British showed up, it was over for the Zulus.
The Rwandans are quite good at fighting... by African standards. If they were in Ukraine, they'd be slaughtered with contemptuous ease by either side. Ukraine had integrated air defences, S-300s, Buks, Strelas, Tunguskas... they were coordinated and capable, loyal response forces would show up to counter a breakthrough. You can't just fly into a Ukrainian airbase with civilian aircraft, land and storm it. That's not how it works.
On the morning of August 4, the two 727s landed first, using their airstairs to discharge the HCU commandos as the aircraft were still taxiing.[3] The Kitona Air Base's airfield and main facilities were captured within 30 minutes,[8] and the remaining two 707s then landed and offloaded their troops and supplies. The four aircraft continued to fly between Kitona and Rwanda, and by August 5 over 3,000 Rwandan and Ugandan troops had been airlifted into Kitona. After the airfield was secured, Kabarebe convinced and bribed local Congolese army units to join his invasion force. These new recruits added over 2,000 Congolese Rebels, as well as Type 59 and Type 62 tanks and ZU-23 anti-aircraft cannons.[3]
4 civilian aircraft continued to fly back and forth? They just bribed the Congolese army to join their cause? They grabbed some crap tanks from the 1950s and 1960s? That's African warfare, whites are on another level entirely.
SubstackNecron
4hr ago
erwgv3g34 thers nothing I think I could say to you that wouldn't violate TOS other than "May your blade chip and shatter"
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
4hr ago
As I recall Steam officially does not let anyone inherit your account. But if you actually own your games because you bought them on GOG, that's what offline drm free installers are for.
I mean my nuclear hellfile in this case is a metaphor for an artificial pathogen engineered to inflict maximum casualties on red tribers, but I get your meaning, retreat is probably a better option than mutual annihilation. I would need a way to make sure the red tribe wouldn't be able to complete an AGI for that to be reasonable, but on the whole, I would agree.
Dirty_DemSoc
Registered Demoncrat
4hr ago
Alright, since you seem to be asking in earnest, I’ll attempt to give you my earnest expectations (assuming this damn phone doesn’t eat my reply halfway through and I promptly give up trying to reply out of frustration):
Bottom line is, I am 99.99%+ sure that Trump will not leave the office of the Presidency except in either a coffin or a body bag unless he is absolutely, 110% certain that, for the rest of however many years he still has left to live, there will never be a leftist administration in power capable of prosecuting him for his countless misdeeds committed during (and almost certainly after) his time in office.
That would require either (a) Trump himself to stay in office until he drops dead, or (b) he feels that he can safely hand off the Presidency to a hand-picked successor who has both the personal loyalty AND unbreakable political backing to continue protecting Trump from ALL possible criminal investigations, whether state or federal, for the next 4-20 years, no matter how the political winds may blow in the future.
Even if we assume such a capable successor exists, I’d still estimate at least 55/45 odds in favor of (a) rather than (b), on the grounds that Trump is a vain, entitled person uninclined to give up power unless he absolutely has to… and also that he has specifically floated the idea of serving at least a third term (if not more) multiple times- and that, more generally, Trump seems to view the Constitution as just a piece of parchment that exists as an inconvenient speedbump for his desires, 22nd Amendment included.
Given the fact that Trump can’t be certain such a successor will exist (and that, in the face of possible political blowback driven by the likely-disastrous long-term outcomes of his boneheaded policies, such a successor would be able to guarantee his immunity), I expect the odds of scenario (a) versus (b) to be higher than 55/45, especially if the midterms and the end period of his current term start to cause visible cracks in his base.
Thus, I’m expecting probably ~80% odds that Trump will attempt to stay in office by any means necessary, unless he has to cede power.
The most likely scenario I see playing out is that, after trying to ‘rig’ the midterms via redistricting, every conceivable procedural trick in the book, and (especially in the unlikely scenario that the midterms looks to be a blowout loss for the GOP), claiming massive election fraud and ordering recounts until a more acceptable outcome is reached, Trump will have one of his more shameless toadies in Congress (looking especially at Andy Ogles, who’s already happily floating this) propose some kind of legislation to allow Trump specifically to serve additional terms. If the GOP manages to retain any kind of majority, I expect that legislation to get put to a vote, and ultimately pass along party lines despite initial token unease from more ‘moderate’ Republicans. SCOTUS will either rule in favor of the legislation once it’s inevitably challenged, or more likely just refuse to hear any challenges to it while striking down attempts to void the legislation, or some other similar method to punt the decision. Trump will promptly run for a third term, and stands a good chance to win due to a combination of polarization and using the federal government to try and secure his odds of victory.
If the above legislative gambit proves unsuccessful, I expect Trump to instead lean on the conservative SCOTUS majority to just find some excuse to suddenly decide that the 22nd Amendment has actually been unconstitutional all along- at which point, he’ll run again, and refer back to my previous remarks about his odds of winning.
If that doesn’t work, I expect him to instead claim that since the 2020 election was “stolen” from him, that he deserves a third term as compensation.
If that doesn’t work, I expect him to either run again, damn what the 22nd says, using some flimsy, nonsensical legal argument. This includes hairbrained schemes like having Vance run for President with Trump as VP, and then making him immediately cede the office.
If Trump tries the above strategies and none of them work and he can’t run again (or if he is able to run again but loses), I am completely, 100% certain he will then immediately call fraud, and then most likely (80%+ odds) that he’ll do everything possible to avoid having to cede power unless he’s compelled to do…
…And yes, if all other alternatives fail, include him doing (another, less half-assed this time) coup, and either unofficially or officially declaring himself President for the rest of his life, if he thinks he can get away with it.
Cards laid, I suppose.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4hr ago
Nobody is evil in their own mind. Of course Jim has rationalizations for why beating and raping women is good and why genocide is virtuous. You only buy these rationalizations if you agree with him in the first place. The same is true for people like KulakRevolt, agitating daily for race war and genocide, and our resident Jew-haters. No one says "Yeah, I just hate these people and want to kill them." They construct elaborate rationalizations for why the people they hate deserve it and they are acting morally --in self defense, even.
NYTReader
4hr ago
Similarly, in his earlier "How to Genocide Inferior Kinds in a Properly Christian Manner", he argues that you cannot just kill savages and take their stuff, because that undermines the high trust equilibrium of strong property rights that makes civilization great. Instead, he recommends legitimately purchasing the land and tempting them into committing unspeakable crimes, and then killing them and taking their stuff.
The beauty of this approach is that it will only work if the savages are genuinely inferior;
Like the Irish and Polish. In fact, quite a few European peoples could have been genocided under this framework.
Sure. Obviously in this scenario I'm transformed fully into a woman (mentally and physically, with no one including myself remembering my being a man), and all other women would have to have the same rights.
I think the sexual revolution was terrible for society. It was also pretty bad for women themselves.
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