domain:papyrusrampant.substack.com
The main complaint is that while a good electorate is possible, perverse incentives ensure that it will gradually be watered down. Not sure whether the Founders saw that coming or not but there is some ancient precedent and they'd surely have been aware of it. Would like to know more.
Anyway I don't really think our problems are solvable. We're so far unlike anything that's come before on so many levels. "We are trapped in the belly of the machine, and the machine is bleeding to death." Something will come after this but I don't think we'd recognize it as continuous.
To your point, many people do seem keen on comparing our current situation to that of the late Roman Republic (and the 'No Kings' protesting sure does help carry the vibe) but it's not clear to me that Caesarism is a viable option for us. The analogy only goes so far, and like I said so much is so different now.
It has been a really wild and wonderful time to be alive. As I enter middle life I wonder more and more how much I'll get to see of what happens next.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
3hr ago
Show me an angel, so to speak.
Fun fact: when I was a teenager, I wanted to be a priest. It's just, I'd need a religious experience to tell me what to be a priest of, and I haven't had one.
Mantergeistmann
3hr ago
I'm reminded of a very pro-immigrant friend who was absolutely indignant at the Free State Project and people moving to New Hampshire to vote their values...
Zephyr
3hr ago
As far as I can tell, he barely spoke with her - it is possible he heavily flirted with her when I excused myself to the washroom, but it seems unlikely with his partner there.
Zephyr
3hr ago
Okay, just because everyone is focusing on this part - I have a girlfriend now, who I love very much. At the time I knew this person (we’ve fallen out of contact), I did not.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
3hr ago
I can thank Neal for the blessing and the curse of knowing about Van Eck phreaking.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
3hr ago
they believe that Jesus and the archangel Michael are the same thing
This is actually common in old school Protestantism; if I recall correctly, both Luther and Calvin flirted with the idea. The concept is that “Who is like God” indicates that Michael is like God, I.e. consubstantial with God, I.e. Jesus. It’s also true that the “angel of the Lord” in the OT is often identified with Christ in most Christian traditions, so the idea of “Jesus is an angel and God” isn’t that far fetched.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
3hr ago
Just finished Stormlight and really enjoyed it. Yes, people will point out stylistic/prose issues, and they'll be absolutely right. But Wind and Truth succeeded as the plate-spinning, world-expanding, every-new-detail-an-entire-sequel-hook kind of book I was looking for.
For something completely different, I'm alternating back to Annals of the Former World, a set of geology essays. I mentioned the first one last year, but apparently never commented on the next two, so here we go:
In Suspect Terrain was a hit piece on plate tectonics. Great premise, slightly confusing execution, because it was really more like a series of reasonable objections to people in the "new theory" hype cycle. I can't tell if that means the main character was stating the obvious, or if she really was a visionary who was vindicated in the next 40 years of textbooks. The coolest part was that, yes, plate tectonics was new in the 50s and 60s. I always kind of assumed it was settled in the 1800s like so much fossil and timeline stuff.
Rising from the Plains, though, was amazing. It's a history of one family stretching back to the westward expansion into Wyoming. At the same time, it's a narrative of how the Laramie and Medicine Bow mountains got where they are today. Outrageous cowboy anecdotes share pages with the solemn march of Deep Time. Part of the charm was having to keep a map open to cross-reference. I highly recommend this one.
Anyway, the next essay up is Assembling California. So far he seems to be coming at the region from both the western fault lines and the eastern Sierra Nevada. As always, the prose has been delightful. Here's hoping it keeps up.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
3hr ago
tindr
A nitpick, but it’s tinder, with an e. Grindr dropped the e — I guess because “grinder” sounds more like a meat processing tool than a dating app. (Not that dating apps don’t grind people up inside!)
srf0638
3hr ago
quitting to pick pineapples isn't going to make you any happier until you find something larger than your own ego and physical pleasure to live for.
I dunno, one can be noticeably happier on the pineapple plantations while still suffering from a lack of larger meaning, and indeed that's a pretty fair description of how it worked out for me.
There's also some ambiguity here (and in the original pineapples post)--is "picking pineapples" meant to denote physical work in the outdoors, maybe somewhere exotic, maybe seasonal, maybe paired with travel during the offseason? (Planting trees in Canada, fishing in Alaska, wildland fire, etc. etc.). Or is it merely supposed to be any kind of low-wage minimum viable employment? In the former case in particular, I can see it being quite a bit better than Office Spaceing and swiping harder, while still being ultimately meaningless. In the latter case, maybe less so (though even then, "work a mcjob and spend half the year training muay thai in rural Thailand and living like a local" might fall into the same bucket as the first class of jobs.).
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
3hr ago
He absolutely could. They could also just actually make people use e-verify, which already works and exists
I don't like POSIWID but in this case... They could solve it and they don't, it's because they don't want to
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
3hr ago
I strongly believe the “gung ho liturgy go hard fasting is hard everyone must follow rules originally followed by monks” energy of Orthodoxy, which attracts the competitive male converts to it, is also the greatest problem for the Orthodox Church. The “standard” practice is incredibly high — and in service of an incredibly high goal, total union with God. Literally to “have everything that God has.”
I often feel like the Orthodox Church sets up people to fail. All the models of faith that the Orthodox Church offers in modern times are very hard to approach, and many are claimed to literally work miracles. The impression I get is that the goal for the laity is to be a monk. Even the supposed basics involve going vegan for half the year.
And yes, I know the objection: ask your priest! The rules can be changed! Economia!
Gee, thanks. I always wanted to be a charity case, a special exception, because I don’t want to be moaning on the floor of the parish hall on Easter Sunday because I was finally able to eat a cheeseburger. This also understandably raises questions of moral inconsistency and clerical power.
My earlier post about the Orthodox Church, the AAQC one — I guess what I was trying to get across in that rambling diversion was that it’s really hard for me, and people I love, to imagine actually living an Orthodox lifestyle.
Every ex-orthodox rant post I’ve ever read boils down to that — the demands of the Orthodox faith are incredibly high. Perhaps that’s what God asks of people. But perhaps not.
I believe the Western approach, of mandating a low minimum and permitting more intense asceticism as spiritual directors and the Spirit himself guides, is a more human and fruitful approach. It sets up people to succeed, not to fail. And it remains open to sanctity in lay life, in a way I think E. Orthodoxy struggles to do.
Just some disorganized thoughts. But my general posture towards Orthodoxy is this — they can have all the theological points they want, but I have to find the way where I can actually follow Christ. And I’m not convinced the Eastern Orthodox Church is that place.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
4hr ago
I’ve never seen an “average” man have issues with dating
This has always been amusing to me. Online discourse is profoundly rife with "alpha fux, beta bucks" and "no man can get dates finder is a hellhole" but all my male friends seem to have as much sex and dates as they want.
Admittedly, my social sphere leans towards white collar yuppies downtown, so there's lots of fish and no one is answering "flip burgers" to the "what do you do" question.
But even my childhood friends, who are not yuppies, still pull?
One guy works like 2 days a week (smokes weed the other 5) and lives in a shitty apartment but always has a new girl, and they're bartenders/bottle girls/etc (one time a stripper lmao) so they're attractive, if messy.
Another is decidedly not conventionally attractive, works a non status job, and churns first dates enough he had to stop posting Instagram stories of sunsets because he was getting worried someone would notice (it's his first date move).
Im not sure how to reconcile these two realities.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
4hr ago
VSCode is just the spiritual successor to emacs: it's an operating system in search of a good text editor.
Gaashk
4hr ago
They can certainly start exploring it. But that's different from "just go be Catholic." They can, of course, go to Catholic services and festivals, read Catholic books, talk to people, attend classes, and so on without believing. In historically Catholic regions they very often do, in fact.
LazyLongposter
4hr ago
A quick response, as I'm mostly on board with your response (and I'm burning my night!):
The United States and its allies did enter Iraq, but it never got within 100 miles of Baghdad. If Iraq had had a credible WMD program, it would not have been sufficient to neutralize it.
This was because Iraq capitulated. The regular army had surrendered by the tens of thousands and only the Republican Guard remained. I don't mean they would walk right up or go unopposed - but had they chosen to do so, they could have. It was a common criticism of the war at the time that we did not go far enough (not even Saddam, just allowing the Republican Guard to escape/continue).
But the US doctrine is to fight with air support
In this case, as we've agreed, the Israelis are doing quite alright in that regard (RIP F-14s). Not that I think we'd need no air support - despite anti-Israel concerns, neither the US or Israel is at the other's beck and call, and only a fool would assume there is no situation where US forces would need support - but the cost would be greatly diminished due to Israel's exceptionally successful air campaign.
On the other hand, I think that the nuclear asymmetry arguably makes the world more unstable and more prone to violence.
I actually somewhat agree with your overall assessment. Rational actors will likely never use them unless pushed to the brink. And they contribute to a lasting peace. But my worry is that an increasing number of countries with nuclear arsenals greatly increases the odds that an irrational actor gets into power, or that poor safeguards are implemented. To separate my feelings from my (theoretical) policy suggestions: I am against any country nuclearizing. I am not in favor of world policing literally any country nuclearizing. But Iran, or as worse hypotheticals, Syria, or Sudan - those are problems. With the African continent in mind, I am counting my lucky stars that South Africa denuclearized before going through its current continually corrupt and often hostile decline. That would be another situation where the world (i.e. the US because no one else has power projection) would need to step in and make sure nothing went missing. That is my concern.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
4hr ago
I do actually hope to double my salary in the next ~5 years. I'm currently in PE-adjacent consulting and plan to move into actual PE once I get bored where I am.
Even without a doubling, I'm pretty confident we'll be able to buy in Toronto in the next 5-8 years, I mean hell, prices are so good right now we've been debating going all-in and being house-poor. It seems quite miserable though, I have worked extremely hard to not be paycheck to paycheck, so going back to that level of penny-pinching... Ugh
You make a fair point, I'm sure the O&G gang need people to do modelling, etc. I was interviewing at a mining company way back when and they were just so boring and dry. Maybe O&G attracts more charismatic people.
I know I know, Toronto governance is absurdly bad. I think what differentiates it is that Toronto is run poorly because no one does anything, Danielle Smith and her merry gang seem to be actively trying to break everything. Which feels worse I guess?
It's not so much "city fun kid boring", I fucking loved growing up in Toronto. I want my kid to experience that. And Toronto is so much better now than when I was a kid.
The Toronto escape plan is probably Hamilton, which I actually think is super under-rated. Although with Metrolinx shitting the bed on electrification that plan just got less attractive.
Sorry I was being snarky, I actually quite like what you wrote and I agree with it.
I just keep seeing the same "democracy doesn't work because voters are dumb and unbridled capitalism has hollowed out the country. Therefore we need a strong and decisive government to use industrial policy to bring the heavy industry back!" train of thought and it's pretty adjacent to many of the thoughts you expressed there
It's easier for straight cis guys (or even people like myself who are bi), but I think you overestimate how easy it is to walk into a relationship, depending on social class and work/life balance. This is an older poll, but you still end up with sizable percentages of unmarried adults having never had a date, and a much bigger group struggling to try to get a relationship; it's only gotten worse since.
Straight men can ask out anyone... kinda, and there's pretty strict social norms against doing so anywhere near work and several different classes of enthusiast hobbies. People try to set up straight men with friends and coworkers... if you're already the sort of person who has. You can hook up with random strangers... if you're in the tiny percentage of straight guys that can get a tindr date. There's a lot of ways for straight guys to set themselves apart to women... in the negative sense as easily as the positive: (het, cis) women are far more likely to get the ick for single 'red flags' that can end up being. Straight guys don't have anywhere near the expectations of attractiveness... but they're also dancing a very narrow line between coming across as too aggressive or not forward enough.
((and... straight guys are picky in a different way. The expectations are lower, but anything under them is far more strict limitation, in extreme cases to the point where even a guy that wanted to muscle through it in the interest of an orgasm or a relationship would find themselves 'pushing rope'.))
If you're able to make the first move, a lot of those problems disappear, but in turn a lot of the ways (straight, cis) men were allowed to make the first move have disappeared too. Of my social environments, there's maybe one in which asking someone out on a date would be accepted (and, uh, coincidentally this is also the gayest one, thanks FFXIV), and maybe three where it's not explicitly ban-worthy. I can't speak on straight guys getting set up by friends or family from personal experience, given the bi bit, but from what I've seen second-hand there's a lot of people where that either doesn't happen, or it only happens in situations that have developed the various taboos.
Some of that's downstream of selection effects as I've aged and been in a relationship for a while, but it's very different from the gay world or from what I can see of most of the trans-friendly dating world. A number of gay writers are pretty strong advocates of that model replacing the classical one for hets, but I'm not sure it's working out great for the gays: I have a hell of a time when quite a lot of my options are split between bars or dances, down2succ-level 'casual', or online stuff that's never going to graduate beyond RP and hard to even keep time synced. Where these options are unpleasant in a gay context, they seem unsolvable in a het one.
((And the dodges are so common that Scott Alexander had a post on how "you can tell why from like a 5 min conversation" explanations radicalize a lot of people who are very far from the central example of what I'm hoping are your actual focus, over a decade ago.))
Again, I'm not saying that het (cis) guys have it worse or even anywhere near as rough as you do, but I think you're running into a version of the lemon market problem in things like comp sci hiring; it's really easy for the absolute worst to get vastly over-represented, while a lot of those who are either slightly under-par or who are not as assertive won't show up much on your radar.
hydroacetylene
4hr ago
Everyone understands Jesus is God. The people who think the immaculate conception is the annunciation(this group includes lots of Protestants confused why they don’t celebrate it in addition to normie Catholics who are very confused as to why it is in December) understand Jesus is God. The median normie churchgoer would be more likely to deny the different natures- God the father as the Old Testament who became Jesus God the son who then became God the Holy Spirit after the ascension.
Arianism specifically thinks that Jesus was some sort of super-Angel; Jehovah’s Witnesses are the only notable group of arians around today(they believe that Jesus and the archangel Michael are the same thing).
You’d get all sorts of interesting answers from normie churchgoers on the question of the relationship between Jesus and the father. Few of them would describe Him, explicitly, as a created being- which is the definition of Arianism. Lots of tritheism, modalism, nestorianism, hindu-style avatars, etc.
BahRamYou
4hr ago
Anecdotally, my college friend group includes a guy who dropped out to live with his parents and do gig work and a high-powered lawyer who inherited a few million, and despite their significantly different socioeconomic classes still live materially similar lives and are still good friends. Sure, the lawyer can afford to live in a massive house, fly business and collect a bunch of expensive trinkets, but when it comes down to it neither of them worry about their basic needs, and spend most of their leisure time doing the same things; working out, playing the same video games, watching the same tv/movies/anime, scrolling too much on social media and going traveling to similar places from time from time.
One big difference is that a rich guy can throw cool parties and have lots of people come to hang out at his house. A middle class person can't do that, but can at least invite a few friends or a date to come over and watch TV. The dropout living with his parents has a hard time even doing that, he's pretty much forced to always go to other people's houses for social interaction. So there's a real power dynamic at play.
clo
4hr ago
I'm going to second playing the games because the sound design in Higurashi/Umineko in particular is 100% a part of the experience. It's probably the best use of sound I've seen in any VN.
stuckinbathroom
4hr ago
and Indian guys and Asian girls independent of assimilation
don't I fucking know it ...
Possibly. Patriot, Arrow and THAAD all have limited interceptor capacity and once those run out lots of targets become sitting ducks. I’ve also seen video footage that show signs that Iran isn’t just yeeting missiles at apartment blocks, there is definitely counter-battery fire in an attempt to take out the missile defense systems. This is the same thing that happened in Ukraine, but it could happen a lot faster here because Iran has spent 20 years stockpiling missiles for this one job.
What I don’t know is how badly Iran is getting diced up right now. They are definitely getting hit but I don’t know what the state of their missile launch capability is. If it’s still in good shape then Israel could end up in a pretty bad situation pretty fast. @coffee_enjoyer might be right about imminent US intervention but it remains to be seen. And of course there’s always nukes.
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