domain:archive.ph
hydroacetylene
21hr ago
Trump is just generally going after elite universities to try to force them into being... well 'allied' is probably not in the cards, but at least 'not aligned with his enemies'. It's just Harvard's turn.
gattsuru
21hr ago
I read this three times and I am still not quite sure what you are trying to say here.
You asked me, to quote you, "What, specifically, would you like me to have done about the attempted Trump assassination?"
I gave you a list, of :
- The week of July 13th 2023, write a significant post in the Butler shooting thread here, criticizing the progressive mainstreaming of eliminationist and violent rhetoric.
- This week, resting your argument on whether something happened, instead of covering your ass with whether you remembered something happening.
- Or, if not that, at least not move the goalposts from "When that happens, the Blues are not going to want to tolerate it, and the Reds are not going to accept an abrupt demand for a return to order and decorum." and "Someone comes in here and says The Culture War has Gone Too Far, we have to get a handle on the violence guys, sure things happened in the past, but now it's serious, it's time to crack down on the hate and radicalism!" to "no one [here] thought it was no big deal or worse, something to be encouraged" (and now "I think political violence is bad all around and I think most sane (not-on-the-Internet) people agree.")
This is why I often find the barrage of accusations you throw at me disingenuous. This is why I often find the barrage of accusations you throw at me disingenuous. I do not claim history started yesterday or claim things "shouldn't matter."
No, you just complain every single time I highlight past events or failures of past predictions. That's why I didn't say you'd claimed history started yesterday or things "shouldn't matter" ; it's why I asked whether we're "supposed to pretend history started yesterday" or "why it shouldn't matter". What reason does it not count that the subreddit that promoted itself on the importance of appealing to anti-violence blue tribers both couldn't find more than a dozen such posters and can't spare comment on one of several political assassination attempts? Are you ever going to explain why "harping on a dead subreddit" is wrong, or even engage with the matter, or is this yet another dodge?
I disagree with @FCfromSCC that we are at a point where there is no longer a norm against political violence, that this norm was destroyed by Blues, or that Blues in general are pro-assassination. I believe him that he encounters Blues on the regular who say things like this. If you say you do, I will take your word for it. While I probably am in a much more Blue bubble than him, I don't encounter them that often but it does happen. I think political violence is bad all around and I think most sane (not-on-the-Internet) people agree.
And you're still not engaging with FcFromSSC's literal words, instead of throwing the goalposts out a third story window. "[A] precedent is being set here for the level of background violence "we" are supposed to tolerate, but that standard is being set largely by social institutions that are predominantly Blue and are sympathetic to Blue violence. At some point in the not-to-distant future, I think it is likely that it will be Reds committing the sporadic violence. When that happens, the Blues are not going to want to tolerate it, and the Reds are not going to accept an abrupt demand for a return to order and decorum."
Speaking of hard to parse, I don't know what "recent old" argument means; you could be talking about something I posted last week or something I posted back on reddit.
I am specifically trying to avoid linking to one of the many, many previous arguments that we've had, since you've complained about three-year-old and three-month-old ones. If you really want me to select the most prominent and relevant one, I can, but my point here is that this is a broader problem than just you dodging any deeper criticism than "it's fucked", sometimes.
I am sure you know I did not literally mean that zero Blues in the entire world have ever expressed sympathy with the would-be Trump assassin except on TikTok. So when I mention yes, I have encountered a few elsewhere, you act like this is a gotcha. Come on.
Which is why I didn't accuse you of literally meaning zero Blues in the entire world ever did that (contrast "like this was only a problem in one website that doesn't really count"). It's a gotcha that you constantly use this sort of phrasing to minimize bad behaviors by Blues, even if it would have been more serious engagement with the actual post to admit it happens but you challenge it.
I don't really think you want to go Kulak either, you just seem pretty sympathetic to the argument that Blues have it coming.
No. My claim -- and I think FCfromSSC's -- is that enough Blues have completely abandoned any serious attempt at establishing neutral, consistent rules of behavior that are enforced consistently against even their own that any appeal to such rules is completely laughable to Reds, but being a hypocrite isn't a capital crime. The problem is that deserve has nothing to do with it; Reds are, with reason, going to laugh at any Blue overtures toward past norms, and they're going to have absolutely no trust that any newly-created rules will hold more than immediate scenario in question.
It doesn't matter if the Blue in question genuinely was really principled in the past, or even if they personally have records of it -- although I'll point out again we don't here for anyone but ChrisPratt. It may well be very unfair, in those circumstances. It's still going to happen.
If Trace has failed to condemn the Trump assassination with sufficient vigor or you think he and Matt Yglesias and the SPLC only condemn rightist violence, fair enough, you can hold that against them, but I don't think it's remotely the same as actively advocating for violence.
Did I say "remotely the same"? No, I said they're both bad. For clarity, in words you might prefer, that "both advocating violence and refusing to condemn violence are bad".
This is why I keep nailing down your 'hyperbole' or rephrasings or turns of phrase; because we quite rapidly get into these debates where you try to swap my positions into something randomly and unbelievably -- literally that you "cannot believe you're serious" -- instead of what my literal words were, right above you, in your own blockquotes.
I don't think it's an indictment of society that a fairly milquetoast centrist like Trace has attracted a modest following and your feeling so seems to be purely based on your long-standing grudge.
You're the one that highlighted his "modest following" on Twitter, but besides that, try reading that whole sentence, not just the part you like. "I think it's actually a pretty serious indictment of society in general that they are getting anywhere near the coverage that they are, while anyone that really cares at best gets shoved into some third-rate Red Tribe rag." I would really like deradicalizing and deescalating efforts to exist! I would like them to be recognized, and popular, and available and appealing to both sides of the political aisle. In a world where they did... well, I'd still be disappointed, but I can live with disappointment.
But the Litany of Tarsi wins.
We don't have those things. I'll point out that you could counter this whole argument by highlighting a mere handful of such groups -- that "Do you have some better example?" wasn't sarcastic -- and you haven't, and I don't think you can. We just have people deluding others and maybe themselves.
Joyful
21hr ago
I'd dare call myself a 7/10 on a genuine gaussian curve, i.e 70th percentile for Indian men.
Are you only competing with other indian men? I thought you were in the UK for some reason.
Joyful
21hr ago
I see a dozen woman a day on the streets who I can tell have had work done. I struggle to name a single non-celebrity man.
Yes, its unusual for regular people in most of the west. Are you sure you want to be vain enough to buck the trend?
Joyful
22hr ago
I'd also add that this kind of surgery flags you as super vain to most western women. If its not making a huge difference it might be signaling you don't want to take on.
This has to be viewed generationally, though. It wasn't simply the nations that were in power, but it was the people and society of that generation that gained and wielded the power. However, people individually are not very powerful, so the institutions are established that convey the justification for the power held by various monarchs, emperors, aristocrats and increasingly, representative Heads of State. The law was established to keep power in place and in the right hands as well as impart and protect the rights of the "citizens" (i.e. people whose worth is recognized by the State) over outsiders. It has always felt a bit like a Mafia hierarchy and protection racket only on a massive omni-social scale.
Over time, though, the inheritors of the power come to equate the laws and rules with the power itself. In the modern era, where the government ideally represents and acts as stewards of the democratic, collective power of the citizen's consent, the formality of rules and laws grows to byzantine proportions and most often, it is used by internal factions of the government to stymie the use (or what some consider abuse) of executive power by their opponents. People that never really had to obtain or use real power are more concerned that it may used against them and the formal systems of a "rules-based" society are emphasized to prevent any quick or decisive action or overt use of overwhelming power on anyone's part.
It may not necessarily be so much that formerly powerful nations or empires become more concerned with legality, propriety and formal procedure, but instead, maybe that by becoming more diplomatic and bureaucratic, a nation also loses power as they are bound more by their own rules than supported by them.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
22hr ago
Fact is, the right has tried that, most recently with SFFA v Harvard, which Harvard essentially thumbed its nose at. And Pinker himself, by his own testimony in this article, has tried that. It did diddlysquat; Harvard doubled down on the bad behavior. So either those opposed to what Harvard is doing must back down, or they must escalate.
If you want to govern, you're going to deal with problems that transcend politics. There are potholes in the road, Democrats and Republicans both want them fixed. You might need to work with the guy who fixes them even if he's an a**hole.
The "friend-enemy distinction" people lack a theory of politics for that. Harvard is the enemy, Carl Schmitt, blah blah blah. Never occurs to them that their job fight involve literal or figurative pothole-filling rather than zero-sum political warfare. As Pinker said:
Just as clear is what won’t work: the Trump administration’s punitive defunding of science at Harvard. Contrary to a widespread misunderstanding, a federal grant is not alms to the university, nor may the executive branch dangle it to force grantees to do whatever it wants. It is a fee for a service — namely, a research project that the government decides (after fierce competitive review) would benefit the country. The grant pays for the people and equipment needed to carry out that research, which would not be done otherwise.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
22hr ago
My point is that far-right people once looked up to them. Particularly Spencer, the original king of the Alt-Right. If you can't get on in mainstream society and then join a fringe political movement whose leaders wind up thinking you're stupid and crazy, maybe you're the problem.
ABigGuy4U
22hr ago
The limits of protest conduct are:
-
Protest for causes the establishment likes (unlimited violence allowed)
-
Don’t protest for causes the establishment dislikes (seriously, don’t even bother leaving the house)
Dean
Flairless
22hr ago
Additionally, if Israel were actually trying to genocide the Palestinians in the motte version of the word- deaths or preventing reproduction- they've been doing a profoundly bad job of it given their available resources and means to do such. They would literally create more casualties if they were less accurate.
It's one of the reasons is why the 'Israel has dropped X bombs!' propaganda line was quietly retired into the first year. The numbers and amounts of bombs dropped versus the number of claimed civilian casualties- even before the UN does things like drastically reduce the estimate of women and children killed to under 5k and 8k respectively- was wildly out of whack. Especially for a 'priority' genocide demographic- if you're out to do genocide the children and women are the most important- the casualties were...
...well, pretty consistent of urban fighting against an urban insurgency that actively uses human shield strategies and casualty reports as a primary media weapon. The Gaza conflict is notable for its duration and international pressure on one of the combatants to not take full direct control of the terrain, but not really total casualties. In the 2017, something like 10,000 civilians were estimated to have died during the battle for Mosul against ISIS. That was less than a year, and against a roughly analogous population size (2 million).
The gazan conflict is tragic, but it's not really exceptional in terms of casualties. Only in terms of global attention. Even when Hamas claims north of 50,000 casualties since the war started, the Sudanese civil war is estimated to seen three times that number die, and that's only about 2,000km from gaza.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
22hr ago
This leads to worse mentorship and the situation we have now where the us tax payers is funding efforts to educate a bunch of foreign nationals who then leave.
Universities already charge foreigners far more than natives for tuition.
As I said in my comment above, I believe that academics should be incentivized to support a smaller number of students who they actually mentor and otherwise invest in.
What if the academics don't agree that some people are entitled to their attention because they were born on one side of an arbitrary line? You can say "well I don't want to subsidize them" which I would agree with. But Trump's actions go far beyond that.
sockpuppet2
23hr ago
Four weeks ago, I praised the TV show "The Good Wife", but forgot to mention that its creators followed it with a great black comedy mini-series called "BrainDead," whose premise can't really be explained without spoilers. I recommend it.
sockpuppet2
23hr ago
What did the surgeon say the downsides would be? My understanding is that plastic surgeons had collectively cooled on it, due to problems like proximity to nerves and difficulty in achieving symmetry (especially if done under local anesthesia), in addition to possible long term appearance problems or unrealistic expectations about short term appearances.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
23hr ago
Even with AI aid, I dont think anyone would bother with this. You know something about biochem, and I know something about numerics. By the time you have the compute to simulate without any experiment all considered molecules reliably enough to not have a catastrophic error in one of them, you have long ago cracked all encryptions ever made, found the vaccum instabilites if there are any, etc. Why bother with even grey goo at that point?
Bartender_Venator
23hr ago
Two ex-wignats, one guy mindbroken by Russia's failed blitzkrieg, and a former holocaust revisionist who changed his mind after seeing a gas chamber (apparently he just... hadn't thought about that?) are not exactly the cast of the Level Headed Good Judgement Hall of Fame. A casual browse of David Cole's spittle-flecked twitter feed may help to confirm that impression.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
23hr ago
These kinds of goals are special cases that we wouldnt expect to arise consistenly without a reason. Not touching the universe outside [radius] is a constraint, by default you can achieve a goal better by not being so constrained. Even your examples dont really work; a conservationist might still need to expand to protect empty space from other, non-conservationist expanders. The paperclip simulator might still get more data centers to simulate even more, etc. Its possible to construct an example that works on purpose, but its not the general case, and even if it were, its would have to be overwhelmingly likely, because it only takes one to become visible.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
23hr ago
Quote from the opinion:
Cannabis, like alcohol, prescription medications, and certain over-the-counter drugs, can affect a lawyer’s ability to provide competent representation of clients. Lawyers may not use regulated cannabis in a manner that would impair the lawyer in the provision of legal services. It is also possible, depending on the specific nature of the representation, that personal cannabis use might create a personal interest that materially limits the lawyer’s representation of a client under Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7(a)(2), or the ability to provide independent professional judgment and render candid advice under Rule of Professional Conduct 2.1, but these would be fact-specific determinations and not per se ethical proscriptions.
Corvos
23hr ago
This chagos episode recontextualises the tariff deal with britain for me. I did not understand why britain would agree to such terrible terms, maybe it meant britain was weaker than I thought, but now I realize it‘s just starmer being happy to always give in at whatever terms the other side offers.
Hypothesis: Like America, Britain has a constant war between the isolationists and the anti-isolationists. Labour under Starmer are anti-isolationist and so enjoy collaborating with other countries as much as possible, mostly regardless of the actual cost-benefit to the UK.
Lots of people will ban commenters that are too critical. Scott is like top 1% in terms of letting people he doesn't like comment on his articles. If you're used to his comment sections then everything else will look like, “gee, our benevolent leadership really is doing a great job today, aren’t they?"
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