domain:inv.nadeko.net
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
12hr ago
Alternatively you could just not know anything about the region and not understand that dissolving itself as a state is the minimum demand from the other actors you're asking them to be diplomatic with.
Totally wrong. Read my posts above, understand them, then research the 2002 Arab League peace plan, then at least read the wikipedia article on diplomacy and learn that it means give-and-take rather than just accepting people's demands.
I'm not going to lay out a peace plan because that's not my job and you don't understand any of the history, second-order effects or even the simpler points I'm making so it would just be pointless nit-picking. Your own theory is that Israel should intensify its bombing and destruction (with no further details provided, naturally), doubling down on a predictable political failure.
You're not answering the question and I'm not going to address your gish gallop until you do. Who precisely do they do diplomacy with? A PA that they install over Gaza and no one recognizes? Lay out an actual plan instead of using every opportunity to litigate a plainly one sided retelling of history.
edit: my suspicion is that what you actually mean by "diplomacy" and why you're being weaselly around giving it definition is that by "diplomacy" you mean Israel should dissolve itself either by granting an unlimited right of return, essentially becoming an Arab state or by even more extreme means. Alternatively you could just not know anything about the region and not understand that dissolving itself as a state is the minimum demand from the other actors you're asking them to be diplomatic with.
Irrelevant even if true (and I'm not sure a meaningful measurement is possible).
Yeah it does, any individual inefficiency and weakness is a lot less meaningful when the whole thing is made up of inefficiencies and weaknesses. Like let's use top athletes and gamers as an example, they're having to optimize the most niche and unimportant elements of their field in order to gain an advantage while beginners just have to do simple things like practice a few more times or learn the rules more to get significant improvement. One of the things I noticed watching bronze OW players in vod reviews years back is that quite a few of them just needed to learn what each characters ultimate did.
When there's much bigger issues in a less competitive environment, smaller optimizations don't really give that much of an advantage. A player who knows what the characters do and how to hold high ground and hits 54% of shots will almost always do better than the player who doesn't know but hits 58%.
Being a slave owner doesn't make you a personally unproductive leech, any more than being a factory owner does.
The slave owner doesn't provide zero value, they do serve similar to a factory owner in that they're the peak of management. But unlike modern capitalism where people tend to get in that management position because of talent and skill at management, slavery tends to happen because of skill at other things. Especially back when generational wealth and power was even more meaningful, fail child kings and queens would stay in place until a revolution whereas the big rich names of 50-100 years ago are practically meaningless today. No one is talking about the Rothschilds and the Carnegies, we're talking about Bezos and Musk.
In the trial court, he pleaded guilty to the three felonies. The state supreme court now has reversed those convictions and remanded the case back to the trial court. The prosecutors technically are allowed to try prosecuting the three felony charges again, but there wouldn't be much point in doing so with all the evidence of those crimes suppressed, so they probably will just drop the charges. (I assume that, four years after the event, it's too late for the prosecutors to charge him with the misdemeanor of driving while intoxicated, which they previously didn't bother to charge him with.)
TournamentFishing
13hr ago
Those seem like reasonable responses and I'm neither right-wing nor religious.
I feel like I must be missing some context here.
magicalkittycat
13hr ago
not accused of wrongdoing," LOL, when the guy's a f***ing pimp. The Online Right could use this to dunk on the dishonest mainstream media and in defense of high-minded Western ideals like telling the truth and not putting much stock in the testimony of admitted drug-using pimps and hookers.
Or maybe they read it like I do as "not being charged with crime".
Suppose the Clintons, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, Prince Andrew, Jean-Luc Brunel, a few Democratic Senators and governors and a bunch of celebrities go to prison for "pedophilia."(more on that later) Throw in some top FBI/CIA people responsible for the Epstein murder.
Here's what won't happen. They will not go to white separatists, revolutionary communists, trad Catholics, and the Nation of Islam and say "your hands are clean, now it's your turn to exercise power." Governors will appoint replacements for Senators. Minor actors will receive major actors' roles. The bank's vice president will replace the imprisoned CEO. Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg, who were too unimportant at the time to be associated with Epstein, will still be there. It might even benefit the Democrats by clearing out the gerontocrats.
Certainly there's room between "literally nothing changes" and "the white nationalist commie trad NOI extremists take control" right?
Most of the Epstein victims were 16 or 17. "Pedo ring" people don't talk about this fact, gambling that fear of being called a pedophile will dissuade people from bringing it up.
Bruh, people call that pedophilia all the time in other cases too. The "it's actually ephebophilia" statement is practically a meme of its own! And lots of people do get arrested for sexting/banging minors so I don't see why elites should be any different.
Also interesting little hedge in there of "most", ok so what about the ones that were a fair bit younger?
After all, most are "pedophiles" by that definition.
But they weren't just attracted to the teens! They were apparently trafficking them, pimping them out and having sex with them. People already get arrested for that and called pedophiles.
Indeed, the establishment might use the necessity of preventing further pedo rings as justification for Patriot Act-style restrictions on civil liberties. You might not fall for that, but what about the average 55-year-old woman who gets all her news from the MSM?
Doesn't seem like they need it too much, even just the stuff we publically know suggests they have access to a lot of our phone and computer data already.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
13hr ago
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States
It's perfectly legal to have an air force. Surely it would be better to go after all those silly extensions of interstate commerce first.
The real problem is that there are structural reasons why states get bigger, I think it's mostly due to technology. Everything a small community can wield, a state can also command. They have small arms, molotov cocktails and mobile phones but also tanks, satellites, huge offices full of bureaucrats. As technology develops, there are more capital-intensive technologies that only states can manage efficiently. The earliest states formed where there was a need to manage irrigation and agriculture in Mesopotamia and other river delta areas. As tech advances, the power of the individual shrinks in the face of the collective and institution.
Not only "how do you get your policy preferences implemented", but "how do you keep your policy preferences in place forevermore"?
It may be an unsolvable problem but there is still stronger and weaker, just like how some men endure old age well while others are sickly. Liberalism has a weak immune system because it is naturally liberal and open to new ideas, including illiberal ideas (queue tired Popper paradox of intolerance meme).
Liberalism isn't rooted in anything tough and reliable like religion or race or patriotism. We see them in all times and places over the world.
When liberalism gets snuffed out (as in ancient Athens, Rome, early modern Poland) it never re-emerges naturally. It only rarely emerges in the first place. Liberalism today is really an Anglo thing, spread by the British who were the most successful country on the most successful continent. If it weren't for British money and troops, later American money and troops, the world would be ruled by profoundly illiberal forces.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
13hr ago
How is that unrelated? In the absence of PEPFAR, I have good reason to believe we will cure HIV in mere decades. What PEPFAR does is ensure that those who are suffering from it right now live long enough to receive said cure.
Even if the cure doesn't materialize, people are still alive, and longer than they would have been in its absence.
CanofWorms
13hr ago
So did the defendant end up getting all charges dropped?
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
13hr ago
Once again, I will state that I'm not an EA.
That being said:
The core tenet of Effective Altruism is a semi-universalist strain of utilitarianism. They genuinely believe that extending lifespan, particularly healthy lifespan, is good in of itself. In a vacuum, all else being equal, I have no reason to disagree. The real world, unfortunately, has atmosphere.
They tie themselves in knots evaluating the relative impact of charity. They (correctly) claim that donating to that breast cancer charity that hands out pink ribbons is a waste of money compared to distributing malaria nets or antiretrovirals. At least in terms of naive QALYs or DALYs.
An African with HIV, in their eyes, is interchangeable with any other human. I have a far more cynical outlook, but I cannot argue values, I care far more about actual potential. To a first approximation, their approach works. I get off the train because I both, don't really care, and because I think consequentialism demands more thought cycles that consider second order effects.
anti_dan
13hr ago
That is still wholly unrelated to PEPFAR. You aren't alleging that PEPFAR recipients are at the bleeding edge of HIV-cure research are you?
anti_dan
13hr ago
I suppose if you place zero or negative value on the lives saved by PEPFAR, then yeah, obviously. End it yesterday.
Not sure I'd agree with that proposition, however. I'm not much of a Christian, but I do think George W. Bush had his heart in a charitable place when he got the program going.
I mean, the market puts little to no value on their lives. I am simply pointing out that there is nothing different about keeping people alive for the sake of keeping them alive in PEPFAR than any other boring charity like food stamps or Medicaid. I suppose these people kept alive can also threaten to immigrate, which is a bad thing. So yeah. Why is this "effective?"
Congress allocating funds? Is all foreign aid unconstitutional by definition? Generally, the constitution is far more free-wheeling on doing things for foreign policy than it is for domestic policy.
Foreign aid is arguably unconstitutional, but the inception of PEPFAR was not approved by Congress. They may arguably have adopted it later on, but the inception was just GWB going rogue.
And being able to build houses would also be bad? Like what on earth do you think you're arguing by comparison here?
No the point of the comparison is that my house building program IS actually good and effective, so long as you keep it small in scope. You scout 10 potentially talented homebuilders and spend time, money, and resources training them. Then they go out and make their world better by building homes. PEPFAR does nothing of the sort. It just lets anyone who contracted a deadly STD keep on living with no scrutiny as to whether they can or will make the world better by their continued existence, and past performance indicates not so.
You can argue that PEPFAR is not just ineffective, but bad for reasons of sexual deviancy or whatever else without talking about African housebuilding, I think.
I was posing a hypothetical charitable educational program that had the potential for being effective, not just a self licking ice cream cone.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
13hr ago
70 years? 20 at the worst. I would take bets at worse than even odds at a mere ten.
I really don't understand this line of thinking. It's akin to condemning advocating lifestyle 'solutions' for diabetes right before they discovered porcine insulin. After people have been publishing papers saying, hey, this funny little trick seems to work.
anti_dan
13hr ago
That's like saying that medical care is pointless, because even I save a child from dying of anaphylactic shock, they'll grow old and die anyway. Then they might have kids, who will, if they're not prone to atopy, still inevitably die.
That makes little sense. The child has great potential, if saved, to do things that are positive and good, like have children of their own, like start a business or work at a business. If you are talking about old age care, correct. The government should not be in that business, medicare, despite being highly popular is probably the worst program ever implemented by the US Government.
I'm not an EA, and I don't particularly care about people with HIV in Africa, but I still find this a weak criticism at best. They believe that extending/saving lives is good, which I can't disagree with on a general principle. I'm certainly not on the shrimp welfare train, but I must concede that if you care about that inane cause, you might as well make sure your money is as effective as it can be.
But keeping people alive with money is just bog standard charity. If you want a modifier like "effective" you should earn it.
anti_dan
13hr ago
So its just like a normal charity. It keeps people alive who cant keep themselves alive. Its a charity you anticipate will no longer exist in 70 years due to scientific advances wholly unrelated to the charity and the people who benefit from it, other than the fact they will also incidentally benefit from those advances.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
13hr ago
Ah, I remember a period when people in India, overly indexing on the name, thought Chikungunya was spread by poultry.
GoofyGoose
13hr ago
Can someone explain what alienation means? I can’t seem to wrap my head around it. It might be one of those “universal human experiences” I am missing.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
14hr ago
Do you imagine there is some kind of "diplomacy" slider in the Knesset that the Israelis just refuse to toggle?
Yes, obviously. Their whole modus operandi is knocking down Palestinian houses, playing divide and conquer, supporting Hamas to split up the Palestinians (Bibi is on record calling for this as part of the strategy to prevent a Palestinian state, before it backfired massively), progressively annexing more land, conducting the most insanely bad faith negotiations, often bombing the Palestinians to make them break things off. Gunning down hundreds of peaceful protestors in 2019 is not very 'diplomatic'.
And then they whine about even the slightest reverse hysterically.
I can see why Israel doesn't like the Palestinians, they're very irritating. But the cost of being a 10 million size country is that Israel lacks the freedom of action to massacre with impunity like China or Russia could.
maybe they couldn't and then they'd suffer more casualties
There's no 'maybe'. It's physically impossible for Israel to maintain its high-tech industries and tax base if they're sanctioned. They don't produce much steel or oil, they're not sanction proofed, they don't have the necessary resources. They do R&D and some advanced manufacturing, not all the basics and precursors for those weapons. The average Rhodesian or South African soldier was worth 10x or 50x their number in black insurgents. Overwhelming qualitative superiority was totally irrelevant to the outcome of their wars.
Israel is heading towards sanctions today. Intensifying the conflict would only hasten sanctions, which can destroy the country in a way that Palestinians can't.
phailyoor
15hr ago
Acktually the whole Epstein saga isn't related to pedophilia because 16 year old girls are sexually mature so there is nothing wrong with being attracted to them.
You are again purposely ignoring and denying what people mean when they talk about the situation. It's a ring of geriatric men trafficking and abusing a bunch of underage girls. Most people would agree that such a thing can be described as a pedo ring.
Nobody cares that technically, abusing 16 year old girls does not meet the criteria for a DSM-5 diagnosis for the mental disorder. People are still going to call them pedos.
Hieronymus
15hr ago
I think you misunderstood me. Most of the concern in my post is directed at the unimplanted embryos at the end of the process. That is also where polygenic screening becomes a focus of discussion.
I do think that the post-fertilization attrition rate is morally relevant insofar as it compares unfavorably with natural conception, and I said so, but that's not what I meant by destruction.
Magusoflight
15hr ago
That escalated quickly
hydroacetylene
16hr ago
MAGA is pro-positive balance of trade. Not anti-trade.
Quantumfreakonomics
16hr ago
Real civilization has never been tried.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
17hr ago
It's not just grandstanding, the administration has done remarkable things like detaining and attempting to deport students who committed no crimes for simply criticizing Israel.
"Students". A guy who has spent more than 10 years as an undergraduate, mostly stirring up shit on campuses. A better description than "student" might be "foreign agent",
These men aren't being lambasted for being attracted to 16-17 yo girls. Men are being lambasted for fucking them with dubious consent and legality. It's the difference between desiring money and defrauding. Impulse control.
Furthermore, having extremely restrictive rules of engagement for hoi polloi while the billionaire elites get away with it is a cucked attitude.
Elites should not be breaking the law, they are supposed to be exemplars. Higher standing, higher rewards, higher standards. The FBI and CIA especially are not supposed to be breaking the law, they're supposed to be enforcing it.
How are you supposed to have a functioning country if the elites and officials are basically robbers, here for temporary gain, don't believe in anything except personal gratification (financial or sexual), don't care about enforcing rules evenly, take bribes or implicit promises of favours from powerful figures, take revenge on you if you report them? This is third-worldism not in the geopolitical sense but the social sense, third-world values. 'We shouldn't report or rally against the corrupt official because maybe the central government will punish us in retribution' is a supremely servile attitude. The Taliban were formed in large part to massacre child rapists amongst the warlords of Afghanistan. We may not share all their values but at least they believed in something more than short-term political gains, that's surely a large part of why they won the war. Why should those from the richest, strongest, most cultured nations hold lower standards than illiterate Afghans?
The rule of law is usually only brought up to justify judges or international courts nobody's ever heard of issuing strange and bizarre orders but this is a core example of where the rule of law should be invoked. No cover ups.
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