Friday
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
2yr ago
· Edited 2yr ago
I see that you make valid points, but I'm personally fond of the CW thread myself.
It acts as a lighting rod for discussion, a schelling point that everyone knows and anticipates. Have a good idea you want to effort post on? Save it up and you know exactly where to put it to get eyeballs.
I do agree with the slowdown at the end of the week, and while I'm (atm) unemployed and bored so have plenty of time to read with and engage with everything regardless of the date, it might not be a bad idea to simply shift the start date of the thread to Friday or Saturday. It can't really hurt can it?
plural
2yr ago
The extra click is crucial for participation and being exposed to ideas you would normally avoid. In threads the title so important and half the time that title seems either like clickbait or something I'm not interested in or indecipherable without clicking to clarify. Going in and out of threads I may be interested in seems just like a worse version of what's done now. As someone else said when this was brought up before you end up reading things you never would before because they're all in one thread as top level comments. And I also think it promotes participation because it ends up taking the heat off of a top-level comment rather than a top level thread there might not be any real distinction but being buried in a 1000 other comments when people tear your ideas apart is a lot more comfortable than that failure existing on its own. I think burying old ideas weekly helps everyone, the deeper comments go the more angry and snipey they get and forcing a new topic is a great cooling method for that, I think the weekend and switching off to the friday fun thread then small scale questions thread helps with that as well.
The idea also segregates all topics. Some people might see that as a good thing but it's just an exercise in people radicalizing themselves. I can see dissenters becoming fewer and fewer as each separate single-interest topic is dominated by those that have a lot of interest in something. People will start avoiding threads started by users they don't like and it'll become even more about people who just agree with each other. And you lose that "there's someone wrong on the internet! this won't stand." drive where you see something that you think or know is wrong and feel compelled to correct them. A top level thread usually presents no facts or real ideas in its title and you lose that possible drive. Every new topic about people's specific bugbears will just be dominated by those people and become a "HBD general" or "AI threat general" or "Immigration general" if people think that the majority opinion dominates and destroys minority opinions now then it would only get worse.
It also creates an idea of staying-on-topic that limits conversation. You can go into a top level comment about the economy and then have people start talking about AI safety two comments deep and it feels normal and fine to switch to that and even if it would be alright otherwise you limit how many people are going to participate in that topic-switch or even know its there.
I do agree that it sucks if you want to post and respond to serious topics on the weekend but that could be fixed by staggering the thread's replacement every few weeks or so but otherwise I think thread level topics will just end up in worse quality probably worse engagement and more personally it would "fuck my shit up" with regard to how I consume what's on this site with all the extra navigation and clicking that it would require.
Ninety-Three
2yr ago
Nate Silver left FiveThirtyEight amid layoffs and Elliott Morris, ABC's new hire immediately set about ruining it. A threat he sent to conservative polling company Rasmussen Reports:
As Nate Silver puts it, Why, unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool left-leaning partisan, would having a “relationship with several right-leaning blogs and online media outlets” lead one to “doubt the ethical operation of the polling firm”?. I agree with Silver's overall attitude on the new direction of his company: hope ABC will stop use of 538 brand so it isn't associated with me.
Some people are probably mad at ABC for being partisan hacks but frankly that's business as usual. I'm mad because FiveThirtyEight was one of the only good analysis sites out there and these vandals are going to turn it into another factory pumping out generic progressive sludge. God damnit! 538 was the best in the business, where am I supposed to go for election forecasts now?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2yr ago
If it’s not CW, wouldn’t that be fair game for Fridays?
If it is, how odd or quirky can it be?
I’d also expect some people to abuse this. Even if the single-issue posters don’t, it kind of legitimizes substack spam.
ZorbaTHut
2yr ago
Yeah, I'm kinda brainstorming ways to have semisticky threads, so there's still the main threads on the top but maybe some condensed block for long-term threads right below that. If done properly, this could make it a lot easier to find stuff like the Friday Fun thread even if it's Wednesday (my dudes), while no longer cluttering up the post list with old recurring threads.
I think hamburger menu/sidebar threads would mostly just not be seen.
Primaprimaprima
I am trying so hard not to say the MBTI type of everyone I reply to
2yr ago
· Edited 2yr ago
Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan:
The Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, denying tens of millions of Americans the chance to get up to $20,000 of their debt erased.
The ruling, which matched expert predictions given the justices’ conservative majority, is a massive blow to borrowers who were promised loan forgiveness by the Biden administration last summer.
The 6-3 majority ruled that at least one of the six states that challenged the loan relief program had the proper legal footing, known as standing, to do so.
The high court said the president didn’t have the authority to cancel such a large amount of consumer debt without authorization from Congress and agreed the program would cause harm to the plaintiffs.
The amusing thing here to me is that we got two major SCOTUS rulings in two days that are, on the face of it, not directly related to each other in any obvious way (besides the fact that they both deal with the university system). One could conceivably support one ruling and oppose the other. The types of legal arguments used in both cases are certainly different. And yet we all know that the degree of correlation among the two issues is very high. If you support one of the rulings, you're very likely to support the other, and vice versa.
The question for the floor is: why the high degree of correlation? Is there an underlying principle at work here that explains both positions (opposition to AA plus opposition to debt relief) that doesn't just reduce to bare economic or racial interest? The group identity angle is obvious. AA tends to benefit blacks and Hispanics at the expense of whites and Asians. Student debt relief benefits the poorer half of the social ladder at the expense of the richer half of the social ladder. Whites and Asians tend to be richer than blacks and Hispanics. So, given a choice of "do you want a better chance of your kids getting into college, and do you also not want your tax dollars going to people who couldn't pay off their student loans", people would understandably answer "yes" to both - assuming you’re in the appropriate group and that is indeed the bargain that’s being offered to you. But perhaps that's uncharitable. Which is why I'm asking for alternative models.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2yr ago
Thanks. I might do just that next Friday fun thread.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2yr ago
Today on the morning train nothing of import happened. This is not unusual. I should say nothing happened that would make me want to write a haiku, or villanelle, or sestina, or whatever. It was a usual day. The usual day is as follows:
Wake: 4 a.m. Yes, 4 a.m. This is 5 days a week. You get used to it, even at my age. Do the usual hygiene things. Suit or whatever has been laid out by me the night previously, so insert myself into whatever getup I imagined.
Walk: To the train. I used to bicycle, but my bicycle of ten years eventually turned into a pile of moving junk and was a deathtrap with capricious gears and dubious brakes, so when the recycle truck guy came by chanting his chant for computers, bicycles, old fridges, I flagged him down, scraped off my ID sticker, and threw my bike in the back of his truck. Now I walk. This only sucks if it is raining. The walk at that hour is dark as a motherfuck in the winter, but this time of year is almost bright, and I find my best clear thinking happens at this time. All the rebuttals I might have made. all the best arguments I might make, every clear thought and esprit d'escalier I might have had in the previous week or day or two crystallizes at this time, on this walk. I see no one and say nothing and walk the whole length in silence. Sometimes I quietly sing Billy Joel's My Life and think of the proper piano chords I might play and that will get me a third of the way.
Arrive: At the station around 4:45. Yeah I get ready fast. It takes about 20 minutes to walk. Train leaves at 5:03. On the train is a bald construction worker guy who is always on the platform with me. He always squats on the platform, and plays apparently some inane mobile game on his phone--I heard the wakawaka sound this morning as he was playing it. One asshole old man who wears a bucket hat and button-down shirts with a suit. One woman with long, perfect legs down the end whose face I have never seen but who looks vaguely, from a distance, like a Japanese Ingrid Bergman to my Humphrey Bogart. I'll never speak to her. I love my wife, after all.
Ride: The train. The first of three. The first is the longest, a local, lasts around 40-ish minutes. I typically read a book, browse The Motte (TM), or do something like DuoLingo so I don't lose my place in the Diamond League.
Ride again: The next train This one is more of a subway and lasts about 10 minutes. For some reason this one is always overly cold. In the afternoon on the return version of this same commute you can sometimes see the prostitutes from Tobita shinchi heading home. That's a whole other post.
Eat: I have a coffee, usually from the McDonald's. Sometimes there is an old woman there who reminds me of Bathilda Bagshot from the Harry Potter movies--if you don't know what that means I guess you don't have kids the age of my sons, which is fine. Bathilda Bagshot in the films is actually a serpent, and there is a scene where she transmogrifies into said serpent (we later learn its name is Nagini, and even later learn this serpent is actually not Bathilda nor a serpent but originally a fairly hot Asian woman). Anyway that scene where the old woman reverts into a giant Anaconda-like magic snake thing is disturbing as hell, as far as disturbing CGI snake images in fantasy films go--and this woman at the McDonald's, I am not saying she is a magic evil snake Horcrux, but if somehow it turned out that she were let me say I would not be surprised, not in the slightest. Her voice is too deep. She possesses a dark look in her eyes; her irises and pupils are the same oily black. Not cool, is what I'm saying. Her sclera appears to be dun-colored. Something seems really really wrong. It's probably in my head.
Ride again: The final train. This train arrives 6:21. On it one finds those youthful souls returning from nights out. Girls in immodest dress, once two guys in tightish jeans holding hands as they slept on the bench with their mouths lolling open. Once a girl with raven hair and sneakers, looking like what I would imagine a girl who had spent some time in LA might look, lay half fallen over on the bench, drowsing off a drunk or a really good time, and whatever Bluetooth or other technical function allowed her Iphone to play music out of something besides its speakers had come undone, and her phone lay splat on the floor blurting out Hip Hop. Big no-no here.
Ever the hero, I walked over and sat beside her, knowing enough that I couldn't touch her even to wake her. I nevertheless tried to accomplish this by speaking to her with authority, lowering my voice intentionally, but keeping a kind tone. They say if you hear your own name when you are asleep you will wake--this is probably bullshit. Nevertheless I tried Yuki, and Misato, and Moe and similar, but nothing worked. She kept sleeping, her phone kept blatting out its insufferable American hiphop.
Eventually I get to my final stop and ride the bus to work, which as it happens is a hospital. There is a a cardiologist who rides the same bus as I do, but I never speak to him and he never speaks to me. I think we both realize that if we ever did speak we would have to then speak every day for eternity, and who wants that? Or maybe I'm just a rude shit.
This started out with me imagining it would be more interesting than it actually is. If you got this far, thank you. Happy Friday, all. I really enjoy this place, as crazy as some of you drive me with your bullshit.
Transnational Thursdays 6
I generally won’t cover Europe here, mostly because I don’t follow it that closely, so input from our European/Europe-follower user base would definitely add value.
Guatemala
Guatemalan elections will be going to a runoff between the establishment center left and the progressive left. Former First Lady Sandra Torres has come in second place in the previous two elections and will be squaring up against the anti-corruption progressive Bernardo Arevalo, son of the famous Juan Jose Arevalo, the first democratically elected leader of Guatemala. Their parties only received respectively 15% and 12.2% among the 20+ other contenders, so it’s hard to predict how the final tallies will shake out, though polls favor Arevalo (Torres is unpopular in the populous Guatemala City) which would be a major upset. Notably, Zury Ríos, daughter of the former dictator Efrían Ríos Montt and previous frontrunner, did not make it to the runoff. Corruption and fraud accusations have abounded, as well as frustration with the government’s decision to bar popular anti-establishment candidates in the lead up to the election:
with nearly one in four ballots either spoiled or left blank, Guatemalans expressed discontent at the electoral process and the decision to bar early front-runner, businessman Carlos Pineda. Pineda urged supporters to spoil their ballots after he was ruled ineligible.
Interestingly, his exclusion (he was previously the frontrunner) will likely mean that Guatemala will have some flavor of left leaning government no matter who wins, which is probably not what the current conservative ruling party was hoping for.
El Salvador
Bukele is officially running for reelection, against the law of El Salvadoran constitution. This is not much of a surprise from a leader who sent the military into the legislature after they voted against him and has frequently ignored his own Supreme Court. A court packed with his allies has ruled that it’s cool though, and his substantial popularity renders the legal technicalities kind of irrelevant. He will be going against a big tent coalition of the former mainstream right and left wing parties.
Honduras
Related, Bukele’s crackdown on the gangs has attracted supporters across Central America (the now failed Zury Ríos in Guatemala ran on copying his security approach) and Honduras is one glimpse at what that looks like. They have declared a state of Emergency which suspends some constitutional rights and deployed the military in their war against the gangs. Escalating violence in the conflict has also led to curfews being declared in two cities. Left wing President Xiomara Castro originally actually ran on a policy of demilitarizing the police, but following a deadly gang-driven prison riot she has officially handed over control of the prison system to the military.
Sierra Leone
The reigning President Maada Bio won another term with 56%, narrowly passing the 55% threshold needed to avoid a runoff election. Watchdogs have called the count out for fraudulence and the “US, UK, Ireland, Germany France and EU Delegation” have acknowledged irregularities but seem to be tacitly supporting the outcome. Violence has been scattered but not severe.
Mali
Mali’s military junta held a referendum for a new constitution, supposedly to restore the democratic process. The referendum passed with 97% in favor; Observers are unimpressed:
The election observer group MODELE said that participation at midday had only been about 21% of eligible voters. The mission also cited dozens of polling stations that were closed due to security problems, disenfranchising people. The referendum also did not include Mali’s entire northern Kidal region.
Also, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) is one of the longest standing and most dangerous UN Missions. Originally deployed in 2013 to help the government with the Taureg rebels in the northeast, relationships have deteriorated with the government following the 2020 military coup. The junta government famously forced France to leave last year and earlier this month demanded that MINUSMA leave as well. However, the sudden departure has now been delayed. While I can’t find anyone saying it specifically, I feel like the government has to be hedging their bets till they see how the situation falls out with the Wagner Group, who have largely come to supplant France and even now control many of the Uranium mines the French previously guarded so closely. Following the events of Saturday every host country is curious to see if Wagner will remain a stable partner, (you know, stable-ish), especially in the Central African Republic where the ruling regime largely owes their survival to Wagner.
Pakistan
Pakistan draws nearer to securing a $6 billion bailout from the IMF after passing a budget mostly in accordance with IMF recommendations. They have been in economic turmoil since the coup, of course worsened by the floods, and have been kept afloat by assistance from “ China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates”.
The crackdown on Imran Khan’s party, PTI, continues, with many arrested or driven to switch sides. You can hear him speak about it if you want.
Japan
Japan has reestablished Korea as a most favored nation trading partner, hopefully finally ending their last four years of tension. The source is Japanese reparations for Korean workers and particularly for Korean comfort women during the Empire. Japan’s position is that they already paid reparations during the Park Chung-Hee era; Korea’s position is the money went to the ruling class rather than the victims (though supposedly a lot was invested into the economy); Japan’s counter-position is, well, you shouldn’t have done that. The current nationalist party in Korea is ironically more pro-Japan and has worked towards reestablishing their relationships; security collaboration will increase as well.
Japan is famous for dropping Prime Ministers at the drop of a hat, making the Italian government look like a beacon of stability in comparison (in fairness, in Japan it’s mostly the same party), but astoundingly PM Fumio Kishida has survived both the assassination of Abe and the attempt on his own life, and looks poised to become one of the more important post-war leaders for his security policy. Kishida in his role of Foreign Minister and Defense Minister was known as a dove, but has ironically presided over the largest military buildup in post war history, with a projected 67% increase by 2027. His ability to push this through is of course shaped by general rising fear of China, but imo is also partially because his historical aversion to conflict has left normal critics reassured he won’t abuse a larger military. He has also strengthened ties with the QUAD and as mentioned, is heading towards security reconciliation with Korea as well.
Saudi Arabia
The Yemeni War is not yet over, but both Saudi Arabia and the Houthis have largely honored their ceasefire, and for the first time in seven years Saudi Arabia partially relaxed its blockade to allow a few Yemenis to make the Hajj. The Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran also met again recently and affirmed their desire to continue diplomatic relations. China brokered the deal and Saudi Arabia also recently completed a“$5.6bn deal with a Chinese company to manufacture electric vehicles” and is trying to boost Chinese tourism, along with its larger push to become a sports hub. Relations with other countries seem mostly positive-ish lately, as these things go for the House of Al-Saud, with Riyadh even reversing its previous stance and allowing the ascension of Syria back to the Arab League.
There’s plenty of room for straight women to support, condone, tolerate, or turn a blind-eye to big P Pedophilia while playing the bootlegger when it comes to older-man younger-woman relationships, especially when there are LGBTQIA+ or other ipdol considerations in play. Hence why online discussions of Henry Caville, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Elon Musk often feature female seething, but it was crickets from the women when it came to discussions on Rotherham. Always funny when the guy who literally plays Superman, a generation-defining actor known for smashing supermodels like clockwork, and the richest man on the planet and father of ten get accused of being creepy de facto incels for dating younger women.
Targeting pre-pubescent children is the central example of pedophilia and the actual dictionary definition. However, pre-pubescent children are not a source of sexual competitive threat and anxiety for 30-year-old women like 21-year-old women are.
Just-so arguments can easily be made on a Who? Whom? basis. Drag queens wanting to mix with preschoolers is Stunning and Brave, because drag queens are valid and beautiful and children (especially those of other people) should learn as such. Thirty-year-old men wanting to mix with 21-year-old women is Gross and Problematic; such men are pathetic losers who can’t handle a woman their own age so they just want someone easy to manipulate (but at the same time, young women are totally Strong and Independent #GirlBosses). After all, everyone who’s not a creepy incel knows that 30-year-old women are just as beautiful and fertile as 21-year-old women, plus their additional education and experiences only make them more desirable partners.
Update to the Juan De Oñate Statue shooting (as requested by @FCfromSSC):
A man charged in connection with a shooting that took place during a volatile protest in Old Town in the summer of 2020 pleaded guilty to several charges and is facing up to two years in prison. Steven Ray Baca, 34, on Friday pleaded no contest to aggravated battery and guilty to battery and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon. He was originally charged with aggravated battery great bodily harm, two counts of battery and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon. He is facing up to two years in prison or could be sentenced to probation, according to the plea agreement. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for September in front of District Judge Brett Loveless...
On Friday, Baca pleaded guilty to battery charges against Julie Harris and Vivian Norman. Both women said that Baca flung them hard to the ground during the protest. Baca's attorney, Deigo Esquibel, could not be reached for comment on Monday. Special Prosecutor David Foster also couldn't be reached for comment.
I've not been able to find any copies of the plea deal document itself, but the case lookup site points to 30-3-5, 30-3-4, and 30-7-2 & 31-19-1. The max estimated jail sentence looks like it's produced by throwing together all of the normal max sentences together, which isn't likely since the man's previous offenses seem limited to some minor traffic stuff, but that’s media coverage. Some of the plea may not be factually possible -- in particular, where New Mexico draws the line from concealed to open carry leaves 30-7-2 as less a slam dunk that it might seem at first glance -- but it's unlikely anyone's going to try to argue the matter.
Separately, the "New Mexico Civil Guard" group has had interesting legal battle charging them as impersonating peace officers](https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/2018/chapter-30/article-27/section-30-27-2.1/), filled with increasingly harebrained legal tactics and having been targeted by an early injunction prohibiting the group from being a civil guard. Some of this has been reported as ‘disbanding’ the group, though the final consent decrees and judgements are hard to access to find out how literal that was. On the other hand, in case the behavior seemed particularly doomed or quixotic, six members (somehow!) were awarded a collective 300k payout from the state to settle likely public records request delays, which doesn't necessarily indicate specifically bad behavior or hilariously explosive text messages being covered up (or even if the money actually got to them; the org was severely sanctioned over the deposition misconduct), but must have been a very interesting meeting when deciding if dealing with these guys were worth 300k of other people's money. Baca is largely described as 'not apparently a member'.
I've not been able to find any assault or battery charges placed against any of the protestors opposed to the De Oñate statue, though the records are a bit of a pain to search.
The Albuquerque Oñate statue was removed in June 2020; the last mainstream reporting I've been able to find was limbo in 2021, shortly followed by an op-ed proposed splitting the baby by putting the statute in a museum and establishing a Truth and Reconciliation committee, which afaict has gone nowhere.
How much should I work out then. I am aiming for an upper lower split, working out on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Is this too much? I like HIT because it's better for my joints and takes little to no time. I workout at home using basic equipments and a forearm forklift for timed static contractions.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
None of these one-liners, if posted individually, would come even close to meeting the thread's quality standards. I don't think combining them into one huge (and very unwieldy) post makes up for it. It's the same as posting them one by one sequentially, except the format makes it even harder to discuss. (After writing this, I saw that @iprayiam3 said basically the same thing.) If you didn't want any discussion here and this was just an invitation to chat with you, that belongs in the Sunday or Friday thread, not here.
Another problem with your list:
\28. “It is not possible to be a good criminal defense lawyer AND a good person.” Pro
This is just asking how you personally should feel about the lawyers. It doesn't result in any policy prescriptions. Weird to include it together with the much more concrete questions like 7 and 19.
In general, you mix strictly normative questions (28, 39, 40, 48), strictly positive, empirical questions (6, 7, 11, 19, 22) and questions that are a complicated mix of both:
-
9 requires you to define "feminist" (there are many very different definitions and settling on one, even just for the purpose of a single discussion, may not be easy) and "bad" (which requires an entire moral theory), followed by a complicated discussion of empirical questions
-
30, again, requires a moral theory to define what it means to "deserve" something and what is "fair", followed by a complicated discussion of empirical questions; for example, two people may agree that the poor deserve to be poor if equality of opportunity exists and the poor are just lazy, but they may disagree on the empirical question of whether equality of opportunity does in fact exist; or they may simply believe, as you apparently do (per 51), that equality of opportunity is morally undesirable
naraburns
nihil supernum
2yr ago
Ted Kaczynski's reign of terror is not commonly fodder for jokes.
Er... it really is, though. It really, truly is. Though I suppose even in 1996 some people wondered about the propriety of such things.
Humor is often off the table here at the Motte because so many standard approaches to humor violate our discussion standards in one way or another. But particularly in the Friday Fun thread, I think the principle of charity is especially important in connection with attempts at humor.
naraburns
nihil supernum
2yr ago
This is the Friday Fun thread. This degree of aggressiveness would be out of place even in the CW thread. Knock it off.
Felagund
2yr ago
It would have to be pretty seriously restricted, if it existed at all, I think. Having one megathread in which most things are happening helps with engagement, and separating things out would dilute attention and decrease activity, at least under my current mental model.
If you allowed this at all, I think you'd need to restrict the ability to do so pretty heavily, and it would have to be kept to being fairly separate domains (the modding a game example is probably a good example of something disparate enough not to cause things to fall apart). To keep the community functioning the way it has been, you'd also want to try to make sure that what's currently going on (or rather, an idealized version of what's currently going on) would remain the central thing, with the others more fun side things—the Sunday, Wednesday, Friday etc. weekly kilothreads are probably a good example of that happening currently. That leads me to the question, how do you think subreddit-equivalents would work versus a megathread?
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
2yr ago
Great burger advice from @yofuckreddit in this comment.
On grilling specifically, you're going to need to just spend some quality time with your grill and be kind of picky about things to sort out the right flame level and timing. The biggest thing I can recommend there is going fairly hot (generally around 475 grill temp for me) so you get that fantastic sear and crust while still keeping the burger moist. I would also strongly suggest starting at a third of a pound or higher on the grill because quarter pounders tend to get overcooked pretty easily.
Felagund
2yr ago
I'd mentioned over in the Friday Fun Thread that it might make sense to attempt to attract users here, if done judiciously so as to attract the right users, as this could be an unusually good opportunity to do that.
Would it make sense for anyone with a reddit account, if they have any communities that they think would contribute beneficial users, to advertise The Motte in those?
FarNearEverywhere
2yr ago
Yet another "bake the cake, bigot!" case in favour of the Real Genuine Totally A Lady, this time a spa owned by a Korean and wanting to restrict attendance to women-only because the clients will be naked in the pool. Trans ladies can attend but they must be post-surgery. Twist to it is that the owner is not alone conservative but Christian.
"Women with dicks are valid too!" says activist, who then sues the spa and wins the case based on a phone call and not even turning up to attend and being refused.
Seattle District Court Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein on Monday upheld a discrimination ruling against Olympus Spa filed by local trans activist Haven Wilvich, who gloats about being “more woman” than many feminists who’re “only incidental.”
The traditional Korean Spa had maintained that its “women-only rule … is essential for the safety, legal protection, and well-being of our customers.”
It willingly accepted transgender women — but “only if they have ‘gone through post-operative sex confirmation surgery,'” the ruling noted.
Wilvich, however, “‘identifies as a woman’ but ‘is biologically male and has not undergone sex reassignment surgery,’” the court papers said, noting that the activist never actually went to the spa.
Wilvich told The Post on Friday that the complaint came after a phone call to the spa — not a visit — and being told that “pre-op trans women were not allowed.”
“They were breaking Washington state law and I reported that violation,” the activist said.
...Spa owner Myoon Woon Lee sued to reverse the decision, saying it defied his “traditional, theologically conservative” Christian values and put his clientele at risk.
Lee — who has owned the spa for 20 years — also “conveyed his fear that exposing female customers (especially minors) to male genitalia could subject Olympus Spa to criminal penalties.”
There had been “several” incidents where customers “noticed male genitals exposed ” in the spa — creating “humiliation, trauma, and rage,” a complaint by the owner said.
“Those patrons apparently demanded refunds and never returned.”
Lee claimed that the discrimination policy “requires them to service nude males and females in the same rooms,” forcing them to “choose between violating the law or their religious convictions,” his complaint said.
The cherry on top, if I may use that phrase, for me is this:
Meanwhile, Wilvich said she regrets that she was identified in the complaint, insisting that “my name never should have been part of the public record.”
She claims that the identification in the court documents is a “dangerous precedent to be set for minority people.”
So it's okay for Ms. Genuine Even Realer Woman Than Cis Women Haven Wilvich to remain anonymous while dragging the name of the spa and its owner into public view, which might get him into trouble, but I'm A Real Lady is endangered merely by being identified as the face-ache looking for cases to be offended by and go to court to force businesses to change their policies.
So much for downstream of "gay marriage will never affect you", eh? Trans rights activists took the game plan and ran with it.
Gosh, however can a reputation for "fighting wokeness" advantage DeSantis, you wonder?
f3zinker
Its A/B testing all the way down
2yr ago
Yeah dawg, I'm not reading all this on a Friday Fun Thread.
hydroacetylene
2yr ago
Your first mistake is assuming that pride is mostly a form of activism. It’s a holiday. It happens to be a holiday celebrating something I don’t like very much, but whatever, it’s still a holiday.
I suspect the answer to ‘why do gays get a whole month’ is that if it’s a whole month of celebrations you don’t have to give any of it off from work(compared to Easter where most white collar workers expect to be off on Good Friday or Christmas where they’re off for a week).
yofuckreddit
2yr ago
Right after I posted I thought the same thing. The next travel I try and organize I'll be begging for guides in the Friday thread
FarNearEverywhere
2yr ago
They can afford to (defund the police), because they already live in safe, often gated communities. And they can afford to hire private security
Speaking of this, recent allegations around Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, who is said to have both donated to 'defund the police' groups and also invested in a private security firm. Not a whisper of this on his Wikipedia article, but it is doing the rounds on, for lack of a better term, right-wing media sourced to "an independent journalist" Lee Fang. Fuller version of the story here:
Pierre Omidyar, whose wealth is valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $8.91 billion as of Friday, reportedly forked over $500,000 to organizations that protested the police-involved killing of George Floyd in 2020 through his charitable group, the Omidyar Network.
Two other organizations tied to the Omidyar Network — PolicyLink and Democracy Fund — received $1.3 million to sponsor a website called DefundPolice.org, a tool used by advocates to call for cuts to police budgets, according to independent journalist Lee Fang.
The Omidyar Network donated $300,000 to The Movement for Black Lives, an organization that describes itself as an “abolitionist” coalition, reported Fang, who prior to becoming an independent journalist worked for years as a reporter for The Intercept, a news site founded by Omidyar.
“When we say ‘defund and abolish the police,’ we mean exactly that,” the Movement for Black Lives wrote in a recent statement.
Fang cited tax records showing that Omidyar Network gave another $100,000 to a Chicago-based group called Equity and Transformation, which flies the banner of “defund[ing] police.”
But as a private investor, Omidyar has poured his considerable wealth into start-ups such as Bond, a New York-based company that allows people to order a bodyguard on demand, Fang wrote.
The Post has sought comment from the Omidyar Network.
Founded in 2017, the company raised $72 million in funding, including investments from Omidyar. Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly is an advisor to the Bond board.
“With the Bond platform, bodyguards are no longer just for celebrities and executives,” according to the company’s website.
“Now you can reserve affordable, highly-trained, and professional bodyguards whenever you need them, on-demand via the Bond platform and app.”
Omidyar’s investment portfolio also includes a stake in Deep Sentinel, an AI-powered security camera system that is used to identify intruders, according to Fang.
Both the Bond app and Deep Sentinel have used the nationwide surge in crime — much of it attributed to the Defund the Police movement — to offer their products as alternatives.
Kelly told Fox News that “the police unfortunately have taken a step back” in recent years and that Bond “fills in the gap when you feel somewhat uncomfortable.”
Deep Sentinel recently told Fox News that its business has “tripled” in the last year due to concerns over rising crime.
How to eat your cake and have it? Social progressive cred on one hand, return on investment on the other.
How much of that is that most of the interesting content is relegated to the CW thread though? Most of the thought out content is there, and thus if you want to read something substantial on this forum you go there.
My issue is that because of the burial of good topics, a lot of good content never gets the engagement it deserves and even on the top posts, it’s really not nearly as well written or sourced as it might be as a stand-alone thread in which everything will be seen, read and digested and counter sourced as people debate the topic in full without having to scroll past other discussions.
The other issue is the dead front page. There are two culture war threads, a Wednesday wellness thread and a Friday fun thread. Not much else is posted here outside of those particular threads. No philosophy or science stuff, no weird topics that don’t fit the other threads. If you locked everything but those three threads, it wouldn’t affect the site because there aren’t a lot of other discussions to be had. Which I think is a problem simply because it gives newcomers no idea what this place is or why they’d bother.
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