domain:mgautreau.substack.com
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
3hr ago
Ooh, the unpleasantness jittery fuzz of felt versus the soothingly orderly corrugation of corduroy. Tags have never bothered me, but I used to have to cover my ears at basketball games. (To be fair, UNM’s B-ball arena “The Pit” is famously loud.)
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3hr ago
What makes something mechanistic isn't a label of "mechanistic" slapped on it, it's that you can actually demonstrate the gears by doing gear things with them: turn gear A, which turns gear B, and so C, and so D, and so E. Stop gear A, and gear E also stops. People can and have slapped a "mechanistic" label on the conscious human mind. That doesn't change the fact that they can't actually point to gears or do gear things with them when it comes to those minds. The distinction is crucial, and the blind spot created by ignoring it is considerable.
I feel like you are conflating neccesary and sufficient conditions. A non-materialist model of the universe can readily accommodate physical elements. But a materialist model can not readily accommodate the non-physical.
The strong arguments for heritability being purely genetic are premised on the assumption of a deterministic universe. The existence of non-material causes would cast doubt upon this premise, and by extension the conclusion.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
3hr ago
I actually think Olive will find their experience of puberty is more common around here than not. Guys for whom testosterone is overwhelming get driven to different interests than mostly polite arguments with strangers about ephemera.
Throwaway05
3hr ago
Thank you for sharing this!
I enjoyed that in a large part he seems to be sunk by the fact that he can't name his blood pressure medication.
This is vindicating to me, given the number of times I have asked a patient what life saving medicine they are on and gotten the response of "dunno."
erwgv3g34
3hr ago
Counterpoint: being attracted to women for stereotypically-masculine traits is childish and gay.
But then how do you explain tomboys, who are obviously the patrician choice for any straight man?
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
3hr ago
Ah, that makes sense. I have never suspected autism in myself — not least because my development showed the exact opposite of the typical pattern for autism, where non-verbal development outpaces verbal development. But the sensory issues are similar: certain soft fabrics (velvety fabrics? I don’t actually know) are uncomfortable for me. My parents and I started calling it “the fuzzies” when I was a kid, which I admit does sound like an autism origin story.
Ecgtheow
3hr ago
I'm a trans-woman and I think this is pretty accurate. I started hormones and then spent 9 months presenting as male 'closing out' my old life and wasn't part of any sort of trans community except some peer support groups that were kinda trite. When I'd go hiking in the Sierra's though I'd get emotionally overwhelmed and end up crying because I was flooded with this feeling of intense meaning I didn't really have any way to structure. I went back to church because I feel a really intense gratitude and God felt like a good place to put it, though I can't say I truly believe. I have a number of friends who became religious shortly after transitioning, though they tend to end up Catholic and I'm the lone prot.
The strong natural resistance to depression is also something I really resonate with. It's easier to be satisfied by and engaged with my own life on E. I feel less drawn to escapism or hyper stimulation and better able to enjoy pleasant steady states like walking in the park with a friend, or cooking a nice meal.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
3hr ago
Given how jhanas and tulpas get far more rat/postrat attention, the wiccan-coding acting as preventative strikes me as particularly accurate.
mr_bailey
3hr ago
It's another step removed from that, most of these studies are looking at Educational Attainment (e.g. highest degree received) which itself is a (highly) imperfect measure of IQ (which itself is an imperfect measure of General Intelligence 'g' which is the name given to the statistical observation that many different measures of what we consider intelligence correlate pretty tightly). The Genome Association studies are further largely using SNP databases which themselves more often only correlations to whatever loci are actually impacting things rather then directly impactful themselves.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3hr ago
The fundemental problem the hereditarians face is that thier entire edifice rests on an assumption that biology, psychology, and anthropology are not only rigourous and mechanisistic, but sufficiently understood that outcomes can be manipulated in a near deterministic manner. This is manifestly not the case.
It's also not required. No manipulation is necessary to observe heritability.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
4hr ago
less data on more boring and commonplace topics
Aella is an outrage baiter extraordinaire, yes.
those don't seem to inspire this sort of permanent rent-free mental residency that compels people to start raging about her in a thread about someone else whose only commonalities are blogging and being on Onlyfans
Is there really that much overlap between Substack and Onlyfans? The two nickels connections shouldn't be that surprising.
07mk
4hr ago
I always found it strange for activists to complain about emotional labour (rather than simply describing it neutrally).
Is it ever strange for activists to complain about anything? That seems to be a fundamental part of the job description.
Less pithily and more specifically to your point, the types of activists you're talking about, i.e. feminists of a certain stripe, tend to buy into the idea of the patriarchy which has literal brainwashing powers that falsify preferences, and they tend to genuinely believe that but for the patriarchy, women would have exactly the same set of interests as men. As such, women being more into jobs like nursing because they like the "caring for people" aspect of the job is considered merely yet another way in which women are victimized by the patriarchy.
faceh
4hr ago
Agreed, although its frustrating to do all that prep work and then have some random outside circumstances occur that sours her again.
Building anticipation over text all day then letting her know you're 15 minutes from home and she better be ready is a great way to confirm that it is or isn't happening so as to avoid last second dissappointment.
As with many projects, the last mile is usually the hardest one.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4hr ago
A culture-war-adjacent court opinion that @The_Nybbler may find entertaining:
-
An 80-year-old man applies for a permit to buy a rifle. The permit is denied, solely because he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital for four days forty years ago. He applies for expungement of the records of that commitment, so that he can get the permit.
-
The judge denies the application for expungement.
T.B.'s problematic interaction with LifeStream staff raised questions in the court's mind about T.B.'s "candor to the [c]ourt and fundamental issues that are here."
[T.B.] told the people [at LifeStream] that he was suffering from anxiety and depression. And he said he did that because that’s what he thought he had to say in order to get this appointment so that he could get the evaluation. And a concern to me is that he was not particularly honest with these folks about why he wanted this evaluation.
In that vein, the judge took issue with T.B.'s dismissive characterization of the nature of his hospitalization at Ancora versus the hospital record—namely, that after questioning the staff released him.
In the report it says, "unable to contain on open unit; violent outbursts; threatening; severely agitated; threatening others; yelling; demanding; attempted to strangle his wife at home; violent outbursts; tried to tear side rails off of the [bed]". So, this is not a man who showed up at Ancora mildly agitated or upset, but was described by the doctors down there as threatening behavior, so agitated they couldn't talk to him and violent outbursts towards the people on the staff there.
Regarding his present condition, the court noted that despite the medical reports stating he was stable, T.B. exhibited signs of memory problems and a lack of awareness regarding his own medication regimen.
[T.B.] doesn’t even know what medication he’s taking for his [d]iabetes or for his high cholesterol situation or his [h]yperlipidemia. And that, to me, speaks volumes about not that he’s dangerous to the public safety, but why would we give an 80-year-old man, who can’t even be responsible for his own health, access to a firearm that he wants to use for target practice with his friends. You know, is he going to forget to put the safety on the firearm when he isn’t at the range doing target practice? Is he going to forget to secure it in his home so that people who come to visit don’t have access to it? That’s what’s really of concern to this court.
- The appeals panel affirms. "The trial court reasonably determined that defendant failed to meet his burden to demonstrate the expungement was in the public interest." No second amendment for him!
sun_the_second
4hr ago
To give without restraint does not warrant taking without restraint; that should be obvious to anyone without terminal legalism of the brain. Retvrnist rightwingers don't get this when they harp on about marital rights this and women are property that. You sound like women who think that just because their husband has pledged his provision and protection, they can drain his savings on stupid shit or pick a fight with 15 thugs on his behalf just so she can feel protected. Now, you haven't said you want to fuck your wife literally whenever, regardless of sickness/pain/sleep/unwashedness of dick, and maybe you don't. The hyperfocus on muh marital rights certainly gives that impression off.
If you want to be Muslims then I don't see any difference between being replaced by Muslims and becoming like them. I prefer us being better or perish trying.
whatihear
4hr ago
It’s not though. A universe containing non physical things could very easily contain organisms with wholly genetically determined intelligence. They just don’t have anything to do with one another.
Imagine a purely material universe with species A that is intelligent and has its intelligence completely determined by genetics. Now imagine that one day in that universe species B evolves and has souls (just an example of non physical things, it could be anything you like that is non physical). Nothing has changed for species A, they are still genetically determined.
gattsuru
4hr ago
Yeah, there's seems a pretty weird mix of 'awkward substitutions that probably should just wait for an Amazon delivery instead' (worchestershire sauce), 'not exactly traditional but workable' (fresh chili, green onions, arguably ginger), 'could work as a stir fry, but stretching the limit from americanizing to just bastardizing' (ketchup, that much sugar) and 'what the actual fuck' (breaking the noodles, olive oil, boiling them before pan cooking).
To be fair, he doesn't seem to promoting it as a traditional pad thai and a few other recipes include pretty bastardized versions, too (cacio e pepe e boullion?).
kky
4hr ago
Practically speaking, what I’ve found works is pretty simple: make sure she gets enough rest, provide ordinary and regular affection, and (this is the big one) start warming her up WELL in advance. Get a little more touchy, flirty, make it obvious what you want, and that it’s her, but don’t demand it right then.
Later on, when it’s a better time, she’ll remember.
non_radical_centrist
4hr ago
So... even though the twin studies can't really be proven, despite two decades of intensive, worldwide research focus and ungodly amounts of funding, he still argues they are "mostly right."
Because he goes through the potential mistakes twin studies could be making and convincingly dismisses them all. The only likely source of error would be assortive mating, which would be under estimating genetic impact. If you have an alternative explanation of what mistake the twin studies could be making and how they could correct for it, I'd love to hear
That was part of the religious rules, yes. Before the modern concept of martial "rape", a man was entitled to take his marital rights from his wife. Consent didn't enter into it; she gave consent when she agreed to marry him, and such was irrevocable.
This is an absolutely essential part of the marriage bargain. Sex is the payment that a man receives for providing and protecting his wife. Saying that a wife has the right to, at any time, stop providing that payment because she does not feel like it, is ridiculous. Doubly so because the typical man disgusts the typical woman, which means any society where the majority of men get married is a society where the wives are laying back and thinking of England, and will stop performing this unpleasant chore at the first opportunity.
To help conceptualize the absurdity, imagine a pro-worker's rights party in government passing a law that an employee is at any time entitled to stop doing useful tasks for a company, but that the company is legally obligated to continue paying that employee his full salary. Oh, and at any time the employee can decide to quit and receive half of the company's assets. What happens to the employment market in such an scenario? Solve for the equilibrium.
Societies which abide by the zeroth commandment cannot survive. Either we get our heads out of our asses about this, or, more likely, we get replaced by a culture that still understands how marriage works, like Muslims (or, more likely still, AI makes all of this relevant, but I have never liked "run for the singularity" as an exit strategy).
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
4hr ago
Okay, mea culpa!
And is really really really well written! I read last week the easthunter substack about this topic (which is also linked by Scott in his post) and I got totally lost halfway through. But Scotts strength is to communicate complicated topics clearly. And he makes his opinion visible but still gives room for the other side without snark.
Exceptional blog post! Must have been a ton of work and I was not suprised that at the end he thanked a few other (presumably very smart) people who helped.
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