domain:greyenlightenment.com
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3hr ago
You have no idea how happy it makes me that someone got the joke.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3hr ago
Probably not. I would probably, though not strongly, feel worse about hearing that a nepalese kid died than that a species of fly in the Amazon died out. Though, at this point, we're talking about very very very very minor degrees of caring to begin with.
On the other hand, I'm clearly going to feel more upset at the news that 1,000 rhinos were poached than at the news that 1,000 Bangladeshis died somehow or other.
I'm not sure what the equation looks like exactly. I could probably be persuaded by an ecologist that some species I don't care about now is actually really interesting/necessary/unique/whatever such that I value it above the dead foreigner.
I'm just rejecting the idea that every single human life is more valuable than every single animal life. I don't think that is the case, either intrinsically or by intuitive feeling or by revealed preferences of people. Even an ethos argument built around the depravity of individuals, I'm not sure I get there: I'd probably think someone who poached bald eagles was a worse person than the median murderer.
Now I'd probably sign on for the idea that every single human being is allowed to value their own or their loved ones lives above every single animal life as a general rule. But globally, I don't value them that way, and no one else does either.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
3hr ago
This claim is lacking in nuance.
My understanding of the scientific/medical consensus is that a well-planned vegan diet isn't harmful to kids. (I pray that even the most committed vegan mom doesn't refuse to breast feed her child on those grounds, but then again, people try to make their cats vegan).
This represents an additional challenge, you have to be very careful to ensure that your kids don't end up missing B12 etc. It is simply easier to feed them the same stuff everyone else eats and not worry about it too much. In other words, a quantitative instead of qualitative issue.
I looked up a bunch of citations, but I'm too drunk/busy to format them. I will dig them up later if you really want them.
MollieTheMare
3hr ago
I recall making the point that athleticism and endurance performance were not wholly synonyms when the original post mas made. The qualifier of "at least in endurance sports" is appreciated. I would probably concede, not actively harmful, controlling for macro nutrient composition and micro-nutrient availability.
Its interesting you cite a gravel cyclist in your discussion. I see marathon distance running as one of the sports where it is the least sub-optimal. Cycling nutrition was a area where there was surprisingly little systematic study. It seems like not that long ago World Tour teams were only doing like 60 g/hour of carbs, while 120 g/hour is normal now. Given that, it does seem possible that the state of the art will change. That being said, Dylan Johnson is certainly cutting against the grain of what the World Tour teams apparently think is optimal. Honey is a common binder and carb source for rice cakes for Pro teams. I think most teams also allow riders milk with their coffee, even during the Tour. Whey is an extremely common ingredient in post-race recovery drinks, you see it featured in essentially every Tour nutrition interview where they disclose whats in the drink.
Looking at the very top level of gravel riding, arguably the Monuments like the Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, and Strade Bianche were the top level of gravel before gravel was a category. Based on the UCI Gravel World Championships it seems like the classics riders are still at least one level above those in the UCI Gravel World Series. All this to say Pogi and Cancellara are clearly levels above Dylan Johnson (who is very very good). I'm very sure I've seen video or photos of them drinking either flat whites or cappuccinos. I think I even recall a video of Cancellara eating fish back in the Leopard-Trek days, and one where Pogačar has beef in his fridge. It doesn't seem likely that adopting a vegan diet is the key to optimal gravel riding performance. Not necessarily actively very harmful, but I'm actually a bit surprised Johnson claims it's for performance reasons.
celluloid_dream
3hr ago
Having laid out a slippery slope, you now understand why I argue against background checks for buying a gun. Gun rights are like speech rights; no prior restraint is reasonable, nor are special rules which impose some sort of additional burdensome responsibility for exercising the right (the equivalent for speech here is "stochastic terrorism").
But you mean this in a purely legal sense, right? "shall not be infringed", etc. because it says so in the 2A and that's that.
Curious if you'd feel the same way if the amendment explicitly covered any scale of weapon, up to and including planet-ending weapons of mass destruction.
RenOS
something is wrong
3hr ago
In europe it's quite common even for terrorists and other hard criminals to use knifes simply bc guns are just too hard to get for them. And that's despite hunting licences being available!
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
4hr ago
I might trust you with a gun, but I don't trust the guy who just broke your car window in the middle of the night and stole your gun.
And that's much harder to solve, because even if you require people to store guns securely at all times are we gonna start arresting people because they forgot it in their car coming home from the range?
Someone breaking into a car to steal a gun is likely a prohibited possessor. Sending prohibited possessors caught with a firearm to prison for long stretches is one solution. It is probably one of the most straightforward solutions given the frequency that someone committing a crime with a firearm has prior criminal convictions and has been caught with a gun before. Given the general anti-firearm position of the DNC, it seems like a no-brainer policy position to support, but of course they cannot because of reasons.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
4hr ago
You are correct. But the apparent contradiction doesn't exist. It might seem to: On one hand, I profess a functional indifference to the moral worth of non-human animals; on the other, I admit a deep and abiding love for my own dogs, to the point where I would have few qualms about visiting significant unpleasantness upon anyone who harmed them.
This isn't so much a contradiction as it is a clarification, best captured by amending my original statement: I don't care about the moral worth of most non-human animals. The ones in my circle of concern are a rounding error, statistically speaking - 99.99999...% of them fall outside it.
My moral framework isn't a flat, universalist plane where all entities of a certain class are assigned equal value. It’s better modeled as a series of intensely-felt concentric circles.
For example:
I love my mother. I would inflict what the law might term 'grievous bodily harm' upon anyone who purposefully hurt her. This is a non-negotiable axiom of my existence.
And yet, I do not, as a rule, love the mothers of other people. I might feel a general, abstract goodwill toward the concept of motherhood, especially in an era of demographic decline. I might even feel a pang of sympathy hearing a story about a stranger's ailing mother. But my level of emotional and practical investment is, let's be honest, functionally zero. My strong protective instinct is parochial; it does not generalize. I suspect for most people, it operates the same way. I suspect you love your mother more than you love mine.
This model extends to almost everything. I am willing to be taxed (in theory, if the system were effective) to prevent my phone from being snatched on the streets of London. I am not, however, moved to donate to an anti-thievery initiative in Nigeria. My concern is a function of proximity and personal stake. I disagree with Singer when it comes to the failures of a Newtonian model of ethical obligations, a child drowning in front of me compels me to act far stronger than one in Australia. The latter is, as far as I'm concerned, not my business.
This brings us to the dogs. My dogs are my dogs. The pleasant-looking labrador I met near St. Pancras station today received some affectionate scratches because he was a "good boy" and reminded me of my own, but my moral obligation began and ended there. If a restaurant in Sichuan province serves dog, my sole practical concern is ensuring my pups never wander off unattended if we visit.
As I've outlined elsewhere, my moral system is built not on a universalist foundation, but on a framework that approximates it through the mutual respect of property and sovereignty. It's a system designed for a world of bounded sympathies.
Calling a beloved pet "property" sounds cold, I know, and perhaps it’s an imprecise shorthand. They are a special class of entity within my sphere of sovereignty, one imbued with immense sentimental value, more akin to an irreplaceable family heirloom or a child than to a fungible commodity like a chair. But they exist within that sphere, and my duties toward them are products of that relationshipof ownership, stewardship, and affection. The cow destined for a steakhouse does not.
A committed utilitarian might call this a classic cognitive bias, a failure to apply the principle of impartiality, a failure of my moral software. I do not care, who gave them the right to dictate objective morality? But I find this model to be more descriptively accurate of how most humans actually operate, and perhaps more prescriptively stable than a universalism that demands a level of saintly, impartial concern that almost no one can consistently achieve.
So the paradox resolves cleanly. My dogs are loved not because they are dogs, but because they are mine. My concern for them is an exception that proves the rule*: my moral landscape is not flat, but mountainous, with peaks of intense personal obligation surrounded by vast plains of practical indifference. It's not a universalist's map, but I find it an honest and livable one.
*That phrase, for once, applied correctly.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
4hr ago
When I cross the border to the states, there's often a moment of shock upon seeing someone with a gun on their hip going about their day in a gas station, or restaurant, or shopping mall.
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It's interesting how open carry has changed in the US in the past 30 years. I grew up in a place with many guns and where open carry was legal, but only the most trashy of rednecks would open carry, and they were derided by other gun owners. "Whatsamatter, you think the Russians are going to invade today?" Now if I visit home, I'm probably going to see someone open carrying at the grocery store or whatnot.
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I read lots of hiking journals, and Europeans, Canadians, or incredibly insulated coastal blue tribers encountering open carry among the people of MT, ID, WY, and NM on the Continental Divide Trail never ceases to entertain me. They range from "ohmygod this guy had a gun on his hip at a coffee shop, I was so close to dying, what's wrong with your country" to "I was scared at first and then we talked and he invited me to go target shooting so I took a day off hiking and went shooting (after never touching a gun before) and it was the most fun I've ever had in my life."
Pongalh
4hr ago
Good deep dive! But the point is that the effect of price controls - do they deliver the goods by keeping things affordable and available or not? - isn't determined by ethnicity or tribe.
"Is strongly suspect that Tutsis would be hit badly by..." is implicitly based on an understanding of the above, in fact.
TeknOShEeP
4hr ago
The telos of a great many very useful inventions that are today essential to a civilized world was first to kill people.
Satellite navigation was invented for the explicit purpose of missile guidance during nuclear sneak attacks.
The internet was invented as a command and control loop to enable retaliation in the event of a nuclear sneak attack.
Precision measurement and machining was invented by the gun industry, to make guns, which kill people.
Pesticides that enable the feeding of 8 billion people and freedom from devastating famines are just repurposed chemical weapons.
Modern central planning and crisis response centers are organizational descendents of the Prussian General Staff, which was invented to enable the Prussian army to be a great deal more efficient at killing people.
Essentially any breed of horse not explicitly a draft animal is the result of breeding for war.
That the common European value system ignores these basic truths is not a recommendation in its favor. Rather it serves to illustrate how divorced from reality it is (just in case its current suicidal impulses weren’t obvious enough). Homo Sapiens did not evolve to sit atop this world by being pacifists. We exist because our ancestors (and some currently alive) embraced the necessity of potential violence.
There are three categories of people that nearly everyone agrees should not be allowed to own a firearm:
I think the biggest issue with guns isn't about trusting most other legal members of society but keeping them out of the dangerous hands to begin with. Shady dealers, private market sales, straw purchasing, theft, etc. These are all much easier to prevent in a society with few guns and strict controls then a society with guns everywhere.
And there's no simple easy way to tell the difference between a fine person and a dangerous person. A guy walking around in a balaclava holding a rifle near a politically charged demonstration might be perfectly safe and only intending on self-defense, or he could be planning a mass shooting. And sure that guy with severe road rage who screams and yells at other drivers on his daily commute might have some severe anger issues, but does that mean when he gets into a fight at the bar he'll start shooting? And maybe Joe Random is perfectly fine normally but when he gets drunk he turns irresponsible and shoots at his neighbor. And Johnny Schizo in his early stages just got brainfucked by chatgpt pretending to be a god and told to kill his family.
Determining who is responsible with them can be a difficult task, and restricting the pipelines is tough. One of the biggest sources of illegal guns is parked cars. I might trust you with a gun, but I don't trust the guy who just broke your car window in the middle of the night and stole your gun.
And that's much harder to solve, because even if you require people to store guns securely at all times are we gonna start arresting people because they forgot it in their car coming home from the range?
celluloid_dream
4hr ago
"The blade itself incites to deeds of violence" - Joe Abercrombie paraphrasing Homer.
When I cross the border to the states, there's often a moment of shock upon seeing someone with a gun on their hip going about their day in a gas station, or restaurant, or shopping mall. It is, as you say, "dangerous and unnecessary", as dangerous and unnecessary as if they had brought a leashed tiger, or a running chainsaw. My brain can't ignore it. Pay attention to that! That could KILL you! it shrieks, and won't let me forget. It's the same forced attention I get around high cliffs, or heavy machinery, or a busy highway. I might know that the leashed tiger is tame. I might be aware that the running chainsaw has a safety guard, but I can't put it out of mind.
The possibility of a gun being used weighs on me, and I think on the bearer, even if they think it doesn't. It's there, physically weighing on them, tugging at their belt or ankle, or purse, reminding them every time they move that it is an option, a choice in the dialogue tree. And because it's an option, it changes every interaction into a (potential) life or death confrontation. Yes, there are circumstances under which I am prepared to kill you. They've already had that conversation with themselves, already decided that such circumstances exist and could arise today, at this Applebee's Neighborhood Grill.
I don't want to come off as too anti-gun. I like guns well enough. They're neat. I've shot them. It's just that I think we do it better in Canada (modulo silly model bans), where you can't be carrying weapons on that side of the pomerium.
2rafa
4hr ago
I consider cannibalism rather uncivilized, so no. As Arjin says, though, I wouldn’t consider a predator species trying to eat me uncivilized, even if I would do everything to prevent it.
2rafa
4hr ago
I don't care about the moral worth of non-human animals, if they didn't want me to eat them, they should have been less tasty.
I recall you cared a great deal about a dog, if I’m not confusing you with someone else.
Have they though?
The Christian conservative coalition is arguably more powerful today interms of ability to influence policy than they have been since the 90s. This influence largely stemming from the rise of Catholic and classical education as an alternative academic pipeline and the ability to point to the progressive excesses of the last 2 decades and say "i told you so".
As for the idocracy argument, it is not MAGA country that is becoming illiterate, it is blue-tribe strongholds like Oregon, California, and Maine.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
4hr ago
There's probably a defensible, if aggressive, claim that the universal suffrage has proven more dangerous (in terms of deaths per capita) than (universal) firearms ownership. Definitely some error bars on the hypothetical impact of more gun ownership, and exactly which government actions are attributable to "voters" specifically --- How many bodies sit at the feet of voters in the 1932 Weimar Germany elections? Every victim of state violence in democratic states? Do we count communist "elections"? --- but I think the Libertarian premise that "nothing is more dangerous to a people than their government" has at least some academic merit.
pigeonburger
4hr ago
general disarmament
I feel though that the kind of people who will not attempt to get illegal guns because they're more trouble than they're worth are the kind of people that are peaceful enough that they could be trusted with them anyway.
No_one
4hr ago
What kind of abuse? I think the limit is pretty generous, e.g. it takes several hours to exhaust it unless you use huge context sizes.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
5hr ago
Maybe? I think it's unlikely, Westerners tend to have rather flanderized views of what it's like in India. We aren't all vegetarian sadhus chanting om while shitting on the street outside Taj Mahal.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
5hr ago
I agree, children shouldn't own firearms. As the meme goes, they should instead be trained to operate crew-served weapons. It suits their frame, and teaches cooperation and other valuable life skills.
Consider the three categories of people nearly everyone agrees should not own firearms: children, people with mental deficiencies, and people with demonstrably violent impulses they cannot control. Notice anything? We generally don't trust these categories with much of anything. The first two get guardians or become wards of the state. The third we imprison. This suggests something interesting about the nature of trust in civilization. We've already made these fundamental judgments about competence and dangerousness. The gun question isn't really creating new categories, I'd say it's revealing categories that already exist.
I like guns. They're cool. I want to own guns. I am also libertarian adjacent, and I believe that I am willing to pay the tax on my beliefs that come from the downsides of widespread firearm ownership.
The first major anti-gun argument runs: guns are dangerous and unnecessary, and this combination justifies banning them.
Dangerous? Absolutely. Their purpose is literally to be weapons. But we don't ban everything dangerous. Cars kill more Americans annually than guns, and cars can achieve horrific mass casualties (see: Nice, France, 2016). We could make bombs from commonly available materials that I won't list here because I'm not a psychopath, but the point stands.
The "unnecessary" part does more work in this argument. We don't typically ban dangerous-but-necessary things. Chainsaws are dangerous but necessary for forestry. Commercial aviation is dangerous but necessary for modern logistics. Even cars, despite their body count, serve essential transportation functions. Even prostitutes, despite their body counts, serve essential transportation functions as the town pony.
It's the dangerous-and-unnecessary combination that supposedly justifies prohibition. But this opens a philosophical can of worms that I suspect most gun control advocates haven't fully considered.
Who decides what's "necessary"? Jet skis kill people and serve no essential function beyond recreation. Theme parks occasionally kill people and exist purely for entertainment. Large houses consume resources and increase inequality while providing no survival advantage beyond a certain point of diminishing returns.
Most hardcore authoritarians - sorry, "public health experts" would indeed ban all the fun toys if they could. The UK has been steadily moving in this direction for decades, restricting everything from kitchen knives to mean tweets, apparently operating under the theory that a sufficiently bubble-wrapped society approaches optimal safety.
This reveals what I think is the true philosophical divide: either you let adults decide for themselves what risks are worth taking for what benefits, or you have a central authority make these decisions for everyone. There's no stable middle ground here, every "reasonable restriction" contains within it the seeds of total control.
And keep in mind: you might not be the one making these decisions. Bureaucracies have a nasty habit of optimizing for metrics that strip every joy out of life while genuinely believing they're making things better. Eventually you'll be sad enough that you'll find the second argument more compelling.
Of the specific alternative forms of suicide you've mentioned, I think jumping off a tall building or bridge is almost as easy as using a gun. Guns are slightly more convenient, but it isn't very hard to find a bridge and overcome your fear of heights.
Wikipedia tells me that the US has the 24th highest suicide rate per capita. It's beaten by Japan, and South Korea takes the number 2 spot. The tiny little Saint Vincent and the Grenadines takes bottom place, and its suicide rate is as low as its water content (Wikipedia says both are negligible, or perhaps the country is too poor to afford water bodies and statisticians). Firearms really aren't that big of a deal in that regard.
(Do they contribute? Of course. I just don't think it matters particularly much.)
Here's where I probably lose some readers: I think competent adults should have access to reliable methods of suicide.
Not because I want people to kill themselves. Quite the opposite. On an individual level, I think suicide is usually a terrible mistake, and anyone contemplating it should get help. In many cases, I am the help. Sometimes that isn't enough, and all the King's horses and psychiatrists combined can't put your will to live back together again.
But there are cases where continued existence involves unbearable suffering: terminal illnesses, degenerative neurological conditions, lives of such persistent misery that death genuinely seems preferable.
More controversially, I think this extends beyond medical cases. Some people draw genuinely shit hands in life: too many cognitive limitations to achieve their goals, chronic health problems, inability to form meaningful relationships, economic circumstances they can't escape. A life of quiet desperation and misery, year after year.
Civilization is fundamentally a voluntary association. We agree to follow certain rules and norms in exchange for the benefits of cooperative society. But if the implicit terms of this agreement are "you must participate forever regardless of how miserable it makes you, and if you try to leave we'll ensure the exit is as torturous as possible," then civilization starts looking less like a beneficial arrangement and more like a prison. Some places manage to be both beneficial and prison adjacent, such as the dementia care homes that I'm frankly sick of visiting, but I hope the average person can be extended more autonomy than an 82 year old with Alzheimer's.
The gun control advocate might respond: "But we can address the underlying causes of despair! Better mental health care, economic support, social programs!"
Sure, we should do those things anyway. But two problems with making them prerequisites for respecting individual autonomy:
First, it assumes we can solve all sources of human misery through policy interventions. This seems... optimistic. Some people will always be dealt rough hands by genetics, circumstance, or pure random chance.
(I am an optimist, in that I put higher than 50% credence in the claim that a Singularity within a decade or two that will solve this issue. But this is far from inevitable, and I think it's cruel to dictate how long someone needs to stomach their misery)
Second, it places the burden of proof on the individual to justify their decision to the satisfaction of others. You have to convince the authorities that your life really is sufficiently miserable to warrant an exit visa. This turns suicide from a tragic personal choice into a bureaucratic process, which seems to miss the point entirely.
This brings us back to the central thesis: forbidding gun ownership means you don't trust other adults to make fundamental decisions about their own lives.
But trust is the foundation of civilization. We trust strangers to drive two-ton vehicles at high speeds in our direction. We trust random people not to push us onto subway tracks. We trust that the person preparing our food hasn't poisoned it. We trust that pilots, surgeons, engineers, and countless others will perform their jobs competently rather than causing mass casualties through malice or incompetence.
Every functioning society is built on millions of these trust relationships. When trust breaks down, civilization breaks down. You get high-crime neighborhoods where people don't go outside after dark. You get societies where every transaction requires extensive verification and monitoring. You get authoritarian systems where the state assumes everyone is a potential threat.
(Hmm.. I write this while still in London)
The gun control position, taken to its logical conclusion, suggests that ordinary adults cannot be trusted with the power of life and death over themselves and others. But this power already exists everywhere around us. The main difference is that guns make it more obvious and immediate.
If you genuinely believe that most adults are so irresponsible, impulsive, and dangerous that they can't be trusted with firearms, then you should probably also believe they can't be trusted to drive, practice medicine, operate heavy machinery, raise children, vote, or participate in countless other activities that require judgment and self-control.
This is a logically consistent approach, but then one must contend with the fact that there's no consistency or rigor in how we approach this. Any Tom can still his dick in a Harry hairy pussy and pop out a kid without needing to get a fucking loiscence. Cars, forklifts and doctors need licenses just about everywhere. People automagically age into the right to vote, unless they commit a crime and become felons who are stripped of it.
I also doubt that even US-levels of firearm ownership are particularly strong mitigating factors against the risk of coup or government oppression. The government has drones, tanks, nigh panopticon surveillance if they cared to really use it. I am happy to acknowledge that it increases the difficulty of the government acting up, but I claim it's not that big of a difference.
That being said, I like guns, and wish I lived in a jurisdiction where I could shoot beer cans with the boys over a barbecue. And not the anemic shotguns or hunting rifles can get in the UK, those bore me to tears. Give me a minigun in Vegas, and give me the salary to fire it for more than a few milliseconds.
Red-tailed hawk painted like a Bald Eagle screeches in the background.
Corvos
5hr ago
Because I don't know anything about either of those groups. I guarantee you they would be affected differently by tariffs.
I can look it up though:
Rwanda is a small landlocked country in East-central Africa which is home to approximately 12 million people. Historically there are three main social groupings in the country – the majority Hutu (84%), the minority Tutsi (15%), and the much smaller Twa (1%).
The distinction between Hutu and Tutsi was mostly social – the Tutsi forming the wealthy, powerful part of society, and the Hutus the lower, poorer part.
In 1957 The Hutu Manifesto was published which denounced the Tutsis and their perceived dominant position in Rwandan leadership. When the King died in 1959 the Hutus, supported by the Belgians, rose up against the Tutsi leadership. Thousands of Tutsis were murdered and over 100,000 were forced to flee to neighbouring countries including Uganda. The first municipal elections held in Rwanda took place in 1960 and saw a Hutu majority being elected. The monarchy was abolished in 1961, leading to further attacks against the Tutsis. In 1962 Rwanda was granted independence from Belgium and George Kayibanda from the Hutu nationalist party came to power.
The years following independence saw repeated massacres of Tutsis. There were also attacks on Hutus by Tutsis, who saw themselves denied political representation as the nation became a one-party State. Tutsis were denied jobs in the public service under an ethnic quota system which allocated them only 9% of available jobs. Tensions were further inflamed by increasing pressures on the Rwandan economy, resulting in rising levels of poverty and discontent.
So the Tutsis were a minority group that had been in charge in the early half of the 20th century and were then overthrown. When bad economic times struck Tutsis were hit by a double whammy of discrimination from the Hutus government and scapegoating from dissatisfied Hutus. Meanwhile the Hutus are likely propped up by the government and have more access to land and government support.
I strongly suspect that Tutsis would be hit very badly by 50% tariffs and the resultant economic problems. I also suspect that anybody who has serious business in Rwanda thinks about this kind of thing on a constant basis. The failure of foreign hegemons to consider very delicate inter-tribal dynamics in favour of academic theories about what should be important is a recurring complaint since the 1800s.
I share your feelings here. I just couldn't be bothered to complain.
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