domain:open.substack.com
Botond173
4hr ago
Is your basic argument that there's substantial average human biodiversity between Mexican and Central American natives (mostly) and mestizos on one hand and North African and Middle Eastern natives on the other?
Botond173
4hr ago
"fox guarding the henhouse"
That's sort of the crux of it, I think. What the OP probably meant is that a the son of black ghetto-dwellers who put him up for adoption isn't a case of invasive species in the ghetto where his parents are from. But in an affluent middle-class suburb mostly populated by clueless, low-testosterone White liberal normies, he pretty much is.
georgioz
4hr ago
I mean, this is basically just saying "sometimes lying results in people believing the truth".
No. It says that lies can increase utils. Truth and utility are independent concepts, why do you have it confused?
More generally, you say "I am not sure why rationalists cannot understand this argument". Notice that if you're not sure why somebody doesn't accept something, one of the possible answers is in fact "they understand it just fine, but there's a counterargument that they understand and you don't".
Then demonstrate it. The very first sentence of your reply shows that I was right.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
5hr ago
Presumably this is a pointless post on my part, since you have already "crashed out" and thus, assuming you are a serious person and not some kind of attention whore, you will never read it.
But I'll say it anyways: Your post is in very poor form. If anything, complaining about "tainted by racism" and "could be valuable" smells a lot of you being a culture warrior who came here to do a victory lap around the deplorables rather than to engage with the site's actual purpose. Maybe that's wrong. We'll never know, since you're gone. But it's one more data point, one more anecdote in favor of the narrative that the left runs on purity spirals and echo chambers and cannot tolerate dissenting opinions. Presumably because current-day leftist thinking is built on lies and wishful thinking and cannot stand up to outright disagreement. Maybe that too is wrong, but again we'll never know. Not from you anyways.
Which is, quite honestly, a shame. I don't want The Motte to be an echo chamber, racist or otherwise. I'm racist enough myself, thank you very much. But of course you're right, we live under conditions of culture war, not culture polite exchange, and you presumably want to actually fight that war. You want to punch the nazis, reeducate the stupid masses susceptible to outmoded populism, and live in a world in which everyone is educated and enlightened and on the right side of history, and like all good leftists you are, of course, too good to waste your own time with the enemy.
Right? Wrong? No point in caring, you're gone.
Act utilitarianism is not the only kind of utilitarianism there is. There is also rule utilitarianism and Two-level utilitarianism. Utilitarians can be against believing false things in the same way that they can be against child rape: while it is certainly possible to conjure hypothetical scenarios where the thing they are against has the better outcome, in practice these situations do not seem to appear.
Of course, but in the end they still want to increase utils - be it by acts, rules etc. This does not weaken my arguments - whatever way you calculate utils, the sentence is stupid if destroying a lie decreases utils by that metric.
Hey, I am not the one who claims that there is such a thing as a false belief which improves utility. You seem to claim that such things exist, so you should come up with examples.
Sure, I can use a hypothetical. If utilitarian of any sort - act, rule or two-level - made a calculation and found out that let's say believing in Christianity increases utils, then he would be obliged not to destroy it even if he thought Christian belief was based on a lie. Is it not true statement?
My criticism of your "homeopathy" example was that you actually think that homeopathy decreases utility. Which is not an argument for anything, you just affirm that saying what you think is true increases utility. Which does not tackle my argument at all.
EDIT: you lost me with Pratchett, aliens and peasants. Was is supposed to be some longwinded explanation for why you hold truth as an ultimate good instead of utils?
Botond173
5hr ago
The original comment wasn't about African-Americans in general though but about the African-American criminal underclass.
Right, and the point of a pithy, simplistic mantra like "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be" is to explicitly condemn such behavior of selectively applying and not applying principles based on whims and preferred outcome
But the point is that it is exactly what is expected - utilitarians ought to apply the mantra selectively.
But if it is indeed true that this statement is useful, then it certainly doesn't seem like truth would destroy the statement. Why would it?
Because the sentence is false and thus should be destroyed by its own prescription. Unless you selectively apply it based on your whims and preferences. Exactly what you condemned in paragraph before.
erwgv3g34
5hr ago
It is the fate of every woman to grow old and watch her beauty fade. Would not mind if she spent her youth, beauty, fertility, and purity on me; that is, indeed the greatest gift that a woman can give a man. But the thought that she gave them to another man is unbearable.
From "Fertility" by the Dread Jim:
It would seem that the male belief that fertility and attractiveness decline rapidly once a woman reaches a certain age is phallocentric and oppressive.
Equality means that female ovaries have the same functional lifetime as male testicles, which is logical, and, like equality itself, insane.
So here follows a public service announcement for women:
Ovaries dry up a lot quicker than testicles. At age thirty six two fifths of women are infertile, and most of the women that are theoretically fertile have a hard time getting pregnant, plus there is a substantially higher risk of the pregnancy going wrong. So you should have your babies before thirty six. If planning three babies two years apart, need to get pregnant at thirty one. If pregnant at thirty one, married at thirty. Which is why your prospects for getting married plunge abruptly at thirty, because any potential husbands are doing the same arithmetic. Yes, some woman you know got pregnant and married at forty four – but your chances of being that woman are not good.
And from "Michael's Story":
As a man I am very visual. God made me this way. I cannot help finding a physically beautiful woman attractive. Why did these women not at least give me a few years of their youth so I would have time to fall in love with them and permanently burn their image in my mind’s eye? I need something to remember when we are 50 and married. Yet she spent her 20’s parceling herself out to guys who gave her nothing and offers nothing to the guy who gives her everything. I’m expected to commit hard earned resources to raising children with what is ultimately a suspect woman whose history I know nothing about. A 30+ unmarried women has very high chance of having a questionable past and baggage. I believe the more men a woman has been with the less likely she is to be emotionally committed each subsequent one. When you have handed out little pieces of your heart over years to dozens of different men what is left for the husband you proclaim to truly love? What value do the words “I love you” mean when she has stared into the eyes of 10-100+ different men and said the same thing?
At 30+ women’s physical appearance has nowhere to go but DOWN. Is this what women mean by “saving the best for last”? Marrying at 30+? How can women spend trillions of dollars a year on beauty products yet at the same time claim a women’s age “shouldn’t be important” to a man? And what about children? Did they ever think their husbands might want to have children? What’s more likely to naturally produce a quicker pregnancy and healthy offspring? A fertile 24 year old in her physical prime… or a 35 year old aging womb? What if I want multiple children? At 30+ a women can easily before infertile after her first pregnancy.
As a result of everything I’ve seen and experienced in my life I would like to make an announcement to all the desperate 30+ year old women out there: I would rather suffocate and die then spend my hard earned income, love, trust, and substance on you. Your entitled, ageing, feminist, jaded, baggage laden and brainwashed. And if I cannot marry a women in her 20’s I REFUSE TO EVER GET MARRIED. Given my high income this should not be a problem. However I’m concerned at some point I will have to start looking overseas (Ukraine, Russia, Eastern Europe etc.). I’m not going to marry one of these 30+ ageing entitled females who clearly have an agenda of their own. I intend to get married once. Marriage is meant to be forever. I will not be a starter husband for one of these used up women. I can’t tell you the number of men I’ve known who married late and were rewarded by losing everything they spent their lives building…
It depends on the context.
"I hate black people. Black people suck! We should get rid of them!" would be an obvious violation of the site's ethos of aiming to bring light instead of heat.
"I hate black people. However, I realize that this is an emotional reflex and if I analyze things more objectively, I realize that not all black people fit the stereotype that I have of them." would not be a violation, since it would bring more light than heat.
WhiningCoil's comment is, to me, pretty clearly more like my first example than like the second. But as Amadan pointed out above, WhiningCoil has not been exempt from mod action, so it seems to me that the system is working decently.
Botond173
5hr ago
What do you think it would take for indigenous Europeans to reverse this process, in terms of both will and policy?
Breaking the stranglehold of the GAE / globohomo empire over the UK and the federal German state, which is a US imperialist creation in the first place anyways.
Botond173
5hr ago
I mostly agree with you, but I think that the levels of integration mean that if it comes to it, European countries can simply expel their migrants, while any immigration-caused decline in America will be permanent because the migrants have assimilated.
That's my view as well. I can agree with the argument that the Hispanic minority in the US isn't particularly causing large problems for now but we cannot be sure what the future brings.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
5hr ago
The pioneers of yesteryear most likely would have turned out just like Harold, had they lived in a Schlaraffenland where you get paid for existing and sugar comes in through every pore.
That said, I absolutely understand the nostalgic mewling. Wanting to preserve and contribute to the legacy of one's forbears, in their and one's own country, seems perfectly natural and like a desire that society ought to promote, if not for aesthetics then in its own good interest. And the failure of western societies to square this outlook with immigration is, IMO, a pretty severe one. Widespread national self-hatred leading to and giving space to the exaggerated self-confidence of immigrant ethnicities is a very fine recipe for ethnic tension even in a sometimes-purportedly post-ethnic world. It's hard not to see immigrants as invaders and parasites when your personal ancestors put a lot of work into making a place for themselves, and you yourself put a lot of work into maintaining it, but in comes a foreigner whose allies overty and epxlicitly hate you, and who retains his distinct and foreign culture, who send money back home, and who inhabits not the remnants of the old localized and intergenerational country that you yourself might see yourself in, but its modern, atomized, globalized replacement.
It's not like this is uniquely American.
My German ancestors immigrated to the village I still live in five generations ago, having come from and brought in wives from places as far away as...another village a few hours' walk way. To them, it was perfectly natural that you stay in one place, or very close to it. You maintain your social connections without even thinking about it. You constantly exert yourself to improve the commons. You behave well and work hard and accept that if you deviate from that, you will be shamed into the ground. And so they behaved and worked, for generations, and went out of their way to keep the commons ing ood shape, and here I am in a world of lies and distractions and addictions aplenty, sticking to the straight and narrow, do-the-hard-work-and-obey-the-rules, neither living beyond my means nor resting on welfare, paying taxes on taxes, trying my best to help rather than harm the rotting edifice of "the commons", in no small part because that's what generations before me did and I'll be damned if I'm the one to break with that.
And in come M'beke and Muhammed, rightfully convinced that us Germans are just sheep that need to be fleeced because what else are we, with our own young women telling them that they have a right to be here and everyone has a right to a high standard of living and nobody has a duty to work and white people are evil and then old Germans will remind them that no, actually, it's Germans who are uniquely evil, and M'beke and Muhammed just laugh fly their own flags and loudly blast gangsta rap and muslim music and swagger through the streets while drab little Germans dodge them on their way to work or to, sheepishly rather than triumphantly, to pick up gibs alongside these immigrants. They're parasites and proud of it. They might learn to speak German, but will do so in an ostentatiously ridiculous accent that marks them as separate.
Meanwhile, the other M'beke and Muhammed actually get jobs and become economically productive members of society...but still remain M'beke and Muhammed rather than become Martin and Matthias, and raise their children as lilttle M'beke and Mohammed, because they see the insanity of German ethnic self-hatred, the decrepitude of our culture, and sensibly stick to what they know. They barely speak enough German to make themselves understood. They're here for as long as the money is good, but even then they associate with their co-ethnics and can we rely on them to stick with us whent he going gets tough?
And then of course there's Nguyen and Pajeet, who come into the country, work their asses off, shame us with their immense productivity and modest standard of living, speak German with barely an accent, bring in their whole family form abroad who all do the same. These are the guys we want, right? Not so sure about that, really. If they can move around half the world and seamlessly make a good life for themselves here...then they can probably repeat that trick once this country goes to shit.
Immigration is touchy. The ideal immigrant comes here not because his home country is a shithole, or because life here is easy and you get paid for showing up, or because his co-ethnics invited him to join their enclave, but because he wants to be German. But who would? Germany hates Germans. Germans hate Germans. Germans teach everyone to hate them. And as with all these tendencies towards national suicide, I suppose it's rather similar in America.
Botond173
5hr ago
The difference is with kids is that someone has to raise them. We don't eradicate them like we do knotweed or whatever.
The Khmer Rogue disagree.
Botond173
5hr ago
On my part, I can take anti-racist views seriously as long as they don't include such nonsensical ideas that the Somali minority in the US 'will breed with the whites in two generations and disappear'.
cheesecake_llama
5hr ago
The problem is that the original comment wasn’t even an argument.
There is a fundamental tension with this moderation stance: while “Black people are a violent invasive species” may be ban-able, it’s at least an idea that can be challenged and dissected. However, “I hate black people” cannot, especially if it’s expressed without any surrounding context to challenge.
What is someone supposed to even say to that? There is no idea to respond to, only a person, but we are not allowed to make personal attacks. It’s frustrating to hear the only response to @shoeonfoot — “just debate the hot takes” — completely miss the point.
erwgv3g34
5hr ago
Some people say it’s hardwired in the female psyche, although I don’t know how nature would hardwire a wealth preference into humans in an ancestral environment where wealth was just ‘being fat’, and some sticks and shells. How could Lucy in the savannah have learned to be turned on by zeroes on a bank statement.
Women are not attracted to zeros in a bank account; they are attracted to the things to the things you buy with those zeroes. Which is why rich men go out of their way to signal their wealth with expensive cars, flashy jewelry, bespoke suits, etc. Those things confer status, and status is something which has always existed and which women are definitely hardwired to be attracted to. No woman is going to be attracted to a man who has a million dollars in his bank account but lives like a pauper, at least not for his money.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
6hr ago
Ok, but on an individual level, don’t you want a solution that works for you
Assumes that there is a solution that works for your individual situation. I know that for me, personally, there's no fixing my problems — I'm a defective sub-human with no reason to live, and should probably spare myself the decades of pointless misery that lie ahead and just gas (helium) myself now.
Corvos
6hr ago
This is the kingmaker scenario, right? Gwern talks about it a bit - if you have three friends, and one friend refuses point-blank to eat non-Halal food, then you will find yourself always looking for halal restaurants even though he’s only 25% of the group. In a very real sense that’s on the other three for not kicking him to the curb, but in a practical sense he’s the one controlling where you go.
There’s also just the straight issue of shelling points. The left in the UK has such kingmaker scenarios a lot with local Muslim populations. If they can’t all agree to ignore them at vaguely the same time, the white liberals who do will be steamrollered by the ones who don’t.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
6hr ago
Well since you aren't telling what the tricky way is (the whole exchange is suggestive of paranoia to be honest), I can't reproduce, but
Which are bordering states of Nebraska, their population, vowel count, and vowels in order?
Neighboring states of Nebraska, with 2023 population estimates (rounded), vowel count, and the vowels they contain in order:
- Missouri – 6.17 million – 3 vowels – o, u, i
- Iowa – 3.20 million – 3 vowels – I, o, a
- South Dakota – 0.92 million – 4 vowels – o, u, a, o, a → o, u, a (distinct only: o, u, a)
- Kansas – 2.95 million – 2 vowels – a, a
- Colorado – 5.84 million – 3 vowels – o, o, a
- Wyoming – 0.58 million – 2 vowels – o, i
with the exception of Colorado's vowels it seems correct. I don't get better results from 2.5 Pro or Sonnet, certainly no hallucinated two states.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
6hr ago
One of the many things that young people should have screamed at them and be shamed for ignoring.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
6hr ago
I don't think later-no-harm is a good outcome.
Inherently, no, but later-harm produces tactical voting. Worse, it produces tactical voting in a mass-producible way; political parties will figure out which full ballot by their supporters will be best for them, and push it hard. Full how-to-vote cards are a thing in Australia, but the parties don't push them all that hard due to later-no-harm.
Now, yes, later-no-harm is incompatible with a bunch of other criteria, which is annoying. But, well, impossibility theorem.
IRV among them is particularly bad for counting
I mean, yes, the O(N!) worst-case is a pain. I will say that it's not nearly as bad in practice as the worst-case; a good number of seats in Australia have [#2 > all votes other than for #1 and #2], which simplifies it to 2 buckets (and a lot of the rest have [#3 > all votes other than #1/#2/#3], which simplifies it to 6 buckets). Usually the AEC can predict this ahead of time; they do a full recount if their prediction is wrong, of course, but most seats are known within hours.
(STV absolutely always is a nightmare, though; we use it for our Senate, and it takes over a week to count. AIUI it's worse in terms of tactical voting, too.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
6hr ago
I hate to be pithy, but the problem is that we have forgotten God. I'm serious.
If by "forgotten God" you mean learned he never existed in the first place, then yes.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
6hr ago
Nah the funniest conclusion would be that 2003 Trump didn't actually know Epstein all that much, had met him in passing, but knew he was rich and connected (he's such good friends with Bill Gates AND Bill Clinton!) so he wrote this note off rumors he heard to appear in the know.
First, are there any societies where this happened at all? Secondly, are there ones where it happened with our level of technological sophistication and state capacity?
And third, sure, in the long enough run it probably won't endure — for "in the long run we're all dead" values of long run. There's a lot of ruin in a nation, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
And for the closest examples I can think of, the usual way it was resolved was conquest by higher-fertility (and more patriarchal) "barbarians" with enough military force to impose their social system on (the women of) the newly-conquered people.
But that sort of conquest doesn't look like a thing that's happening much any more — the GAE does a good job of suppressing it. And most of the "barbarians" aren't really doing all that better themselves. Basically, it looks like what a commenter at Jim's said recently:
Expect this situation to last (and get worse) for the rest of our lives, at the minimum.
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