domain:acoup.blog
Throwaway05
1d ago
The UK was doing well, or at least okay, until the middle 2000s.
Auspicious timing, I just started watching Top Gear from the beginning and early in the second series (which would be 2003?) they have a bit on the Humber Bridge and the decline of British efficacy, engineering, and manufacturing.
It sounded like the kinda thing you'd see in the news in the US or Uk today but over 20 years ago.
I think someone on the left might point to that and indicate that the fears are overblown but I'm more concerned about how far we've fallen and how much further we may yet fall.
FtttG
1d ago
The OP uses the Hannibal directive as an example of how Jews are very unsafe
Even saying "very unsafe" is an example of exactly the kind of thing I'm complaining about. In an actuarial table of how Israelis met their ends since the founding of the state, would "being intentionally killed by the IDF to prevent them from being taken hostage by groups hostile to Israel" even crack the top hundred most common causes of death? The top five hundred? The top thousand? No, obviously not. And yet critics of Israel have this obsessive fixation on the Hannibal directive as evidence of how uniquely barbarous the nation is - when in reality, a counterfactual world in which the Hannibal directive didn't exist would only mean a tiny handful of Israelis would still be alive.
Let me put this in terms that you might find more agreeable: being shot dead by a police officer is a live possibility for black Americans in a way it isn't for black Britons, or indeed black citizens of just about any European country. But if you were investigating the causes of the reduced life expectancy among black Americans relative to other ethnic groups, "risk of being shot dead by police officers" shouldn't even enter into the equation. It's evidence of a mindset warped by political partisanship.
Throwaway05
1d ago
Would mod notes allow this, wouldn't otherwise need anything technical?
"Informed user they were on thin ice and needed to stay out of the culture war thread until 9/1, if caught posting in CW thread give a 6 month ban."
Person would need to remember not to post, but if they do and it leads to mod action....off with their head. If they forget and post in the CW thread and nobody notices, well not the end of the world anyway.
Corvos
1d ago
It's not something I make a habit of. I felt the information was broadly public knowledge.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
Jeffrey Epstein
I am of the opinion that as far as securing the US support for Israel, Epstein is not even in the top ten, and possibly not in the top 100.
Most politicians have a thing were they accept campaign donations from special interest groups in exchange of political consideration. Some US Jews are very rich. At the risk of sounding like an antisemitic conspiracy nut, I think political donations are the main way that the US position towards Israel is influenced. (For the record, there is also Christian Zionism to consider, as well as the fact that Israel sometimes just is a good ally to the US.)
Nor is it only Jews who can lobby. United Fruits certainly influenced US policy, for example.
By contrast, blackmailing politicians with videos of them fucking underage girls is much riskier. If such an operation was traced back to Mossad, it would create an existential threat for Israel. And even then, a politician bound to your will through blackmail will likely resent you and try to undermine your cause, while a politician who sees you as a big donor will proactively try to keep you happy.
When Epstein was active, few people cared really about Palestinians. "No political donation could convince me to send bombs to Israel, but faced with the threat of the blackmail material being revealed, I am willing to kill a few Palestinian kids" was very much not the stance.
And even if Mossad had wanted to blackmail senators, having a single "Pedophile (sic!) Island" seems a strange way to go about it. Once you reveal the first bit of footage and the first senator 'fesses up, the cat is out of the bag and Epstein is implicated. What you would want to do instead is to target the politicians independently, so you can reveal any slice of evidence without compromising your whole operation.
but marrying the rich guy is generally how we define winning for a woman.
I think the "peasant girl catches the princes' eye" has been a fairy tale for eons... for a reason. So yes.
But the 'winning' move that is more attainable is generally to pick a guy early who becomes rich and successful, thanks to concerted efforts between the two of you. The blatant stereotype is that women don't chase guys, they wait at the finish line to bang the winner, of course.
But for women who have good guidance and play their cards right they can get that guy locked down before he hits his jackpot.
The problems that arise from that came up in last week's discussion on divorce laws.
That said, when you talk about "soft harems" I think we're mixing up what the data here is about.
I mean, when I say "soft" harem, I usually mean girls who are willing to be on 'rotation' as a booty call, maybe they occasionally get a ride in the sports car or boat, or a nice dinner, but they're really just occupying the spot in the vain hope that he DOES settle for them.
So the physical capital outlay is minimal, he's not keeping her in a fancy apartment or buying her lavish gifts regularly, that'd defeat the point.
I strongly suspect even the ultra wealthy would rather not spring for a real harem, its a more complex operation that you can really justify. Its like, why pay for a personal motor pool when Uber provides approximately the same level of service for 1/3 the price.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1d ago
That’s a lot of words for saying “I don’t like the people who mention bad thing so I will make up an imaginary argument in my head and win it”. Congratulations I guess.
The OP uses the Hannibal directive as an example of how Jews are very unsafe in modern Israel in a way they aren’t in pretty much any other modern country. This is trivially true no matter how much you foam about the true intentions of the people who mention this uncomfortable fact.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1d ago
Indeed. I suppose I'm just averse to talking behind backs, as it were. A lesson learned the hard way, along with "do what you say you're going to do." (Which is irrelevant here but a lesson I learned nonetheless.)
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I don't disagree, but at some level...call me old fashioned, but marrying the rich guy is generally how we define winning for a woman. No one is disputing that rich men can find poor women attractive, but if they aren't marrying them, then it's sort of irrelevant to the outcome of the match.
Saying that rich men are really attracted to something other than what they're marrying is just kind of a misunderstanding of terms in my mind. Like saying that the team that is losing baseball games is better at baseball than the team that is winning baseball games. Or, to mix sports metaphors, it brings to mind the classic Sampaoli quote on possession in soccer:
“One night, I went to a bar; I was with a woman. We talked all night. We laughed, we flirted, I paid for several drinks of hers. At around 5 am, a guy came in, grabbed her by the arm and took her to the bathroom. He made love to her and she left with him. That doesn’t matter, because I had most of the possession on that night.”
For a woman trying to net a rich husband, it doesn't really matter if he stares at the big-titted waitress at the bar, it barely matters if he bangs her on occasion. It matters who he marries, who he supports financially, who has the children he raises and supports. Those are the goals, the sex is just passing the ball(s) around.
((That said, when you talk about "soft harems" I think we're mixing up what the data here is about. The granularity on income stops at percentile. The top 1% of income is "only" about $400k/yr. While I suppose, with some cleverness, you could manage to squirrel enough away to spend enough to keep a glamour girl on the side off that, you're not keeping a harem. DiCaprio or Trump, ultra wealthy celebrities, are in another stratosphere from the data on record here.))
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
1d ago
Manner Wafferl are dangerous indeed. Im not sure the average cops waistline can take it.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
1d ago
Beats me. I have no real sense of how far away more remote locations that are reachable by subway are.
Maybe ten handegg fields per minute?
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
Israel's relationship to the West Bank is that of a military occupier. Gaza is largely occupied now, but from 2005 until 10/7 was not occupied. A blockade is not occupation.
srid
1d ago
Is anyone familiar with Rands Leadership Slack? Is there a better community that this, for tech leadership discussions? Preferably not political (Rands is still kinda woke).
birb_cromble
1d ago
They want peers who can fit in with their social and work circle and who will advance alongside them.
Don't marry her unless she can secure an alliance with the Burgundians.
"What fraction of men would dick another guy if there was a non-gay way of doing it?" I would bet that the real number is in the 3-10% range.
Well, "date" is different from "dick", and the chief complaint from trans women is that men are willing to have sex with them but not be seen in public.
I recall there was a survey (probably not a great one, but whatever) that something like 1/3 of men had had a sexual fantasy about a transgender partner. There's also a stat that the "trans" section of PornHub is one of the top categories. So you're correct that the level of sexual interest in trans women is higher than is accounted for in the 3%.
But the fact remains that we're still talking about less than one percent of the population, which already regards men being interested in them as highly suspect precisely because of the gulf between that 33% and the 3%. Statistically, any given man that expresses interest in them is around ten times more likely to be looking for an exotic sexual experience than a relationship, and the majority are uninterested in that -- not least because being transgender implies a certain discomfort with one's genitals, around which the sex fantasies often orbit. The minority that is interested in being an exotic sex fantasy is highly likely to be swamped by offers and choosy the same way cis women are.
But also, "having a sexual experience" is only one of the many reasons a man might desire the companionship of a woman. "Being seen as a man who has been chosen by a woman" is also a huge factor -- and it's one that the hypothetical about AI girlfriends doesn't take into account.
I don't disagree that some men on the margins are exploring alternative sexual experiences with gay men or trans women or whatever, but this just isn't a big enough segment of the population to have much of an effect on what straight people are doing.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
By 1945, about any land suitable for human settlement had a local population, including Madagascar. British Palestine still had a rather low population density (1922: 30/km^2, contrast with Germany 1925 @ 133/km^2). Seasteading just was not an option.
The area around Jerusalem was an obvious Schelling point. Picking another place would have meant splitting the project of a Jewish state into two, because some were likely determined to settle in their ancestral homelands or die trying.
The other alternative would have been North America, but I do not think that a truly sovereign state would have been in the cards there. Even if they had convinced the USG to sell them land, they would still have depended on having good relations with them because the US could have invaded them at leisure at any time.
I think the actual best option, with the benefit of hindsight, would have been to carve out a New Israel US state somewhere around Nevada (1920 population density: 0.27/km^2) or New Mexico. I think the only point where a Jewish state would really require sovereignty by design would be to allow Jewish immigrants from all over the world in, which in the US would be a federal matter. Something along the lines of "Jewish migration is unrestricted, but the migrants will not become full US citizens and are restricted to their state (with birthright citizenship still in effect)", would alleviate most of the concerns the rest of the US might have with allowing immigrants in while also being sufficient to allow refugees shelter.
In short, some similar deal to what the Mormons have in the form of Utah.
Sure, New Israel would have had to keep on the good side of the US for survival. But this is not very different from present day Israel. Only that it is much more popular for the US to leave a desert state like New Israel or Utah to its own devices and rather unpopular to send Israel tons of military aid.
odd_primes
1d ago
But they exercise a great deal of authority over Gaza and the West Bank, and treat those people far worse. Israel exercises all the power over Palestinians that a national government would, but denies them any representation in that government.
Just off the top of my head, they perform law enforcement, control trade and the flow of goods (including a naval blockade of the Gaza strip), control the movement of people, collect taxes... All the traditional responsibilities of a state.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
1d ago
Its a cute picture, but I suspect it was true of old people when you where young, more so than it is now. Im from a relatively well-off family, and the only part of this that seems true to live for them and their friends is the last sentence.
NunoSempere
1d ago
Here is how the weekly review ended:
- Geopolitical risks: Thailand and Cambodia exchanged fire, and Thailand sent some F-16s into Cambodia, but a ceasefire has already been reached. Israel is being accused of causing mass starvation in Gaza by the WHO and others. Zelensky faced his first large-scale domestic protests over a law weakening the independence of anti-corruption bodies.
- Economy and trade: The US and the EU reached a trade deal that would tariff EU goods coming into America at 15%. A similar agreement was reached between the US and Japan, which will now also face 15% tariffs on its goods exported to the US.
- Biorisks: A paper reports a method for genetically editing mosquitoes to make them resistant to malaria in a way that can be transmitted to subsequent generations, and a method for driving such mutations into mosquito populations. H5N1 continues to pose an ongoing risk.
- AI: The White House published an extensive AI Action Plan, which seeks to accelerate investment and buildout and espouses a framework of a race against China, while also recognizing some potential dangers from AI and including some recommendations for research on controllability and safety. Anthropic is embroiled in a new trial over pirating IP; forecasters assign a 68% chance that the case will reach a jury trial, and a 56% chance that $1.5B damages will be awarded conditional on losing a trial, but only a 1.1% chance that Anthropic will be out of business by the end of 2026 as a result of the trial.
- Gray swans: None detected this week.
Corvos
1d ago
The first he will gladly tell you about at length and the second is not something he cares to hide.
hydroacetylene
1d ago
Boston and South Carolina have entirely different types of game fish.
You can get decent gear for a very reasonable price point. You will want a hat, sunglasses, longsleeves, cooler with water, etc. Just go fishing more than worrying about specific setups and reels and whatever. Follow state game laws.
For cleaning your fish you will need one filleting knife and a surface to clean it on. A board with a clamp definitely makes it easier but you don’t need one. Wash your filets thoroughly and then use or freeze within a day or so.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1d ago
Sure, I think prison is quite unpleasant. The nitpick here was strictly about the specific number, not the general claim.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
I don’t think that fixes anything.
Well. Maybe it pushes the nonviolent homeless out of the choicest spots on the West Coast. But the fent users go through worse. Public mockery ain’t shit compared to whatever they’re already doing to their bodies. Opioids mean the normal rules of shame and discomfort just…get washed away.
This probably also increases the number of shootings of police. A medieval peasant had zero chance against one or two men-at-arms. A crackhead with access to Austria’s finest export? You never know. Police are already on edge when they confront these guys. There’s no way that raising the prospect of a beating makes them safer.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1d ago
My assumption. Bad form to hit at someone not present to defend himself.
To tug on this particular culture war thread, I also don't understand why anyone would agree to this. Even if your only allegiance were to the asylum seekers, you could house more asylum seekers with the same funding in cheaper real-estate on the outskirts of the city. See also: homeless shelters, rehab centers, halfway houses, etc.
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