domain:city-journal.org
thejdizzler
15hr ago
So does NoFap/Semen Retention actually do anything? Or is it all a bunch of bullshit?
Tollund_Man4
15hr ago
Define large. Bordeaux and it's surrounding towns (more like suburbs but the French are strict about keeping them separate) has some roads like that. They work pretty well but for reasons of space it's mostly mixed cycle and bus lanes, cycle lanes next to cars, cycle lanes on wide footpaths and mixed pedestrian/cycling areas.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
15hr ago
Didn’t complete college and can’t do manual labor. Unless the good doctor is rubber-stamping disability for healthy young farm boys?
What work are they able to do?
Drinniol
15hr ago
Let me argue for the other side: Disability assistance is providing money to those with the inability to financially support themselves. Stephen Hawking did not require disability assistance, despite being significantly disabled, because his intellect provided him the ability to provide for himself. It makes perfect sense to account for intellectual ability if making the holistic judgment on whether someone's net ability makes them employable. Just consider them to be suffering from a mild intellectual disability on top of their physical one.
But, I largely agree that it reaches a degree of ridiculousness. Where does it end? If someone can't hold down a job due being totally lazy and refusing to arrive on time, I guess they're temporally disabled and we owe them our money.
But wait, let me change the above scenario: the person in question has severe fetal alcohol syndrome. Do they deserve disability now? How about a severe head injury yielding the same result? How about they have absolutely no diagnosable issue but just have 1/10,000,000 shit genes for intellect and conscientiousness?
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
15hr ago
Lmao I am stealing this framing. And yeah, I remember seeing on the ABC a study showed that in Australia 70% of people are unlikely to ever drive above 120 km/h, let alone miles. My perception of speed is poor in the opposite direction - as a kid I couldn't really believe the speeds in Australia - we have to do 50km/h in suburbs? Why not just walk?
BurdensomeCount
—Your em dash is showing...
15hr ago
Nah, the R factor Rolexes have a free sprung balance wheel which is a lot more complex than the regulated balance wheels used in the replicas. The cheapest free sprung movements out of China are still around $1,500 or so. I think the genuine production cost for a Rolex for one of their subs is somewhere around $3,000-$4,000.
They haven't replicated the free sprung balance wheel for rolexes because of the closed caseback which means it isn't important but the ACE replica 324 movement (used in the open caseback Patek 5711) costs around $2k, is free sprung and generally keeps worse time than the cheap regulated 3KF replica 324 movement (costs around $150).
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
15hr ago
This isn't "twisted" logic. If the lane is too narrow to pass legally in, then cars have to merge to the other lane (or wait) anyways. Riding in the centre makes the cyclist more visible, and ends up being safer, while not disrupting traffic more than they otherwise would by being on the right.
None of that changes the meaning of "as far to the right as practicable".
Tollund_Man4
15hr ago
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
15hr ago
· Edited 15hr ago
when I see a bicycle I take care to slow down well behind him and wait for a LARGE open space in traffic to pass him in the opposing lane.
Why? Bicycles are typically considerably slower than slow motor vehicle traffic, they're shorter, and they're narrower. You can pass them with much less space than you could pass a typical car. (The people demanding 1m of passing room should be laughed at; if your ass is that wide you shouldn't be on the road. Just don't hit me or push me over with the airstream)
oats_son
15hr ago
You make some great points, but not any that I don't already agree with. I fully admit that greater wellbeing and protection against addiction are great things and can reasonably be attributed to belief in God, prayer and everything else that goes with it.
Critically, @Tenaz's posts are going outside the scope of this and claiming that prayer can positively affect factors outside of your control, as long as you're praying for things that God wants. If he kept inside the scope you and FCfromSSC typically stay within when you talk about prayers being more about relationship with God, I would never have posted what I did.
I wish more people mentioned the tower of Siloam as you have. The Christians I have talked to have not noted its significance, and they don't usually have very well reasoned responses to my problems of evil, which goes against what @AnonymousActuary says when he writes
though it seems like you are just hoping bringing up the problem of evil will somehow magically turn someone atheist again like they've never thought about it in their life?
Many of them have not thought about it.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
15hr ago
Most of Manhattan has no "side streets" in the long uptown/downtown direction.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
15hr ago
Disclosure after slop is barely better than none; before should be required if this is to be allowed at all.
oats_son
15hr ago
Are you sure? If somebody prays and becomes a better person, father, wife, child, boss - it is only a selfish benefit or does it have a wider effect?
Of course that's a good thing, and if prayer gets you there, that's great. But it is no magic bullet. I don't really like your magic serum analogy for the same reason. While there are a lot of addicts who find salvation to be the way out, I have to imagine there are many pounds of dead bodies who tried it and found it lacking. And, furthermore, Tenaz's post goes outside of the scope you're setting. He tested more than just addictions, and presumably, material outcomes that didn't depend on himself.
What if the serum only worked for gay people? You should just go gay, right? That's impossible for a lot of people. What if it required you to believe in astrology?
You are assuming winning studies is the only goal anybody could reasonably pursue. For some people, it could be true. But it's certainly not true for all people. There's a lot to life beyond winning studies.
Tell that to the Creation Research Society, bashing their heads against an Old Earth over and over again, presumably for preaching the faith to skeptics who have heard the evolution lie. If they throw themselves at that complicated problem of radiometric dating and rock layers over and over again, they really ought to be throwing themselves at the much easier problem of verifying prayer. It would be super cheap and testable anywhere, compared to copious use of labs for dating of various samples. If it was verifiable, anyway.
Obviously some winning studies would be exceptionally helpful to the faith. Most Christians are tired of losing the battle against science by now.
If people claim there's a thing that works for them, you certainly can disbelieve them and think they are just stupid. But at some point you'd have to ask yourself - what exactly you're getting from believing so many people are stupid? Is that working well for you?
I can't say I get anything out of knowing that prayer has no material effect on outcomes outside of yourself. But sometimes, the truth hurts.
I'm not going to say anyone's stupid for believing it. Many very smart people believe much more plainly false things. I'm probably going to say something if I know it's plainly false, especially on a forum dedicated to searching for the truth. Or as close as you can get to anything called truth.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
15hr ago
There are benefits, but the harm is "now 100% of the time you are second-guessing whether you're reading an LLM". That's the death knell for serious engagement, because there is no point engaging with an LLM. There are plenty of not-theMotte places to make this point.
gattsuru
15hr ago
I'll caveat that tumblr has picked a 'third way' -- if you can't depend on finding the flaws in the machines or smashing the machines, you can start looking at and promoting artists with their art. Yes, an AIgenner could theoretically 'put their steps in', having a long history of progressing art skills and process work for a given piece, maybe not even fraudulent at that, but it's not really what almost any will.
((With the advances we're seeing, I'd expect this to go the way of Amish furniture -- great technical skill and often unusual approaches to a work and usually better when available, but not always able to do those things.))
... though I'm not sure that will matter. People want to make principled stands over copyright or intellectual property, even if they're sometimes a little Janus-faced. But the Luddites cared about their work, and their pay, and not without reason; modern AIgen concerns much more heavily revolve around these matters than tracing II: trace harder. A thousand galleries and retweets and reblogs do not cash make; as an artist, Attention Is <Not> All You Need. A lot of mainstream artists historically depended, both for cash and for opportunity to develop their skills, on make-day work that is completely separate from other reputation and reliability trends pointed to direct sales to their audiences. You can't break the machines for this, you aren't involved in deciding to buy or not, and you can't judge the artist because they might never be named.
Tumblr and a lot of fandom spaces have moved to merch or patreon funding, and that's kinda worked on the edges for the most successful or the most second-job strivery. But I don't think it scales.
sun_the_second
16hr ago
I think I'm getting decent at spotting translated Chinese idioms, and I'm pretty sure most of what I'm talking about are not that.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
16hr ago
My view is opposing AI art is anti-humanist.
I oppose AI art because AI art (usually) gives money to AI companies (who are trying to end the world) and will at some (unknown) point become a memetic hazard to anyone who sees it. I think this is plenty humanist.
I agree with you about the "oh noes the artists" people, though.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
16hr ago
From a non-Mormon perspective, the sophisticated argument for prayer is that it changes a person’s disposition or spirit, and that this is what it means to receive something from God. This would have especially strong results where the desired object is itself a change of disposition, eg the addiction OP mentions. How could prayer help or cure addiction? Addiction entails the pursuit of pleasure where pleasure goes against one’s own social, prosocial, identity-determined goals. God solidifies a person’s social identity in ways impossible to accomplish with secular language or materialist understanding alone, for a variety of psychological reasons. Prayer works to recollect and elaborate upon social identity. It makes prosocial decisions salient and forefront, and even existentially significant. It involves an omnipresent social superior, social confident, and social lover. Many more things can be said about this. But there’s a reason even Huberman the neuroscientist prays every day.
The statistical evidence that prayer works is that religious people, especially those who pray to a loving God, have greater wellbeing and are protected against addiction. Really, all that we want at the end of the day is greater wellbeing. So it works in toto. If establishing prayer in your life is more conducive to your happiness than otherwise, then it is established that prayer works and ought to be done, as any reasonable organism seeks greater wellbeing.
Regarding disasters —
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
Unsophisticated shepherds dealing with unsophisticated dangerous feral sheep have often claimed that natural disasters are allowed by God or are the punishment of God. This is to promote society-wide prosocial behavior in an efficient way. But it is not the case.
How many people are mired in addiction that try everything, including prayer, and never make it out
Many, but they die in hope and conversation with their perfect Love One. The alternative is less prayer is unlikely to be more conducive to success and wellbeing. But the advice should never be “only pray” — of course you do everything else, but you also pray.
tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks ford a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
sun_the_second
16hr ago
Chapter 642: "...four to five light barriers covered his body"
Chapter 310: "In the blink of an eye, three to four days passed."
Chapter 242: "They had already bought [this and that] from three to four <...> clansmen."
I tried to only count instances where something discrete is being counted in a specific occasion. It's fine to say that a Gu refinement or something usually takes "three to four days", but there's no way "three to four" days passed between one specific event and another specific event. It might not be terribly important how many, but pick one number, damn it! You can't buy supplies from 3.5 traders, and there can't be 2.76 spectators at a specific arena fight!
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
16hr ago
Just to get the convo started... wow. I'm reading this NPR article on disability and this is a direct quote:
"We talk about the pain and what it’s like," he says. "I always ask them, 'What grade did you finish?'"
What grade did you finish, of course, is not really a medical question. But Dr. Timberlake believes he needs this information in disability cases because people who have only a high school education aren't going to be able to get a sit-down job.
Dr. Timberlake is making a judgment call that if you have a particular back problem and a college degree, you're not disabled. Without the degree, you are.
Ok great, so disability is basically just handouts for people who didn't have the intelligence or wherewhithal to complete college. Got it.
On the one hand I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to help low IQ folks or those who made poor life choices to some degree - but lets at least make it clear. Hiding it behind this medical idea that they are unable to work is wrong.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
16hr ago
Copying over a post from the ssc subreddit because I found it interesting. (Hope this is allowed.)
In the mid 2010s there was a crisis around social security disability. Things were so dire that estimates placed the DI reserves to run out by 2016.
And yet as we know, this didn't happen. Part of it was thanks to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which temporarily reallocated payroll tax revenues from the OAS fund to the DI trust fund but that was temporary and ran out in 2022. And as far as I can tell (and as far as my double checks with the chatbots can find), it wasn't extended.
And now with the upcoming social security crisis the DI reserves are the only part to not be facing any expected issues.
Another piece of the disability crisis, 14 million people were on disability in 2013 and the number was expected to keep rising and rising. And yet it didn't happen, the trend reversed and as of 2024, only around 7 million are on disability It was halved! Substantial drop! We're back to levels from two decades ago.
Why? How did things change so radically so fast?
-
Covid. I don't know how much of an impact Covid had, but it was disproportionately impacting the disabled both directly and indirectly (by using up hospital resources) and that likely lead to some deaths but it doesn't seem to be that much, we were already trending downwards before the pandemic. [Edit: See edit below, it's quite possible that Covid had a greater impact than I thought]
-
The social security admin changed up their policies a bit and got more pressure on appeal judges to make denials. This had an impact, but the changes to denial rates don't seem to be that drastic to explain a 50% drop. And since then that small trend downwards has actually reversed too, the overall final award rate of 2024 applications seems to be higher than the mid 2010s average.
I don't think those are the main reasons why it changed.
What do I propose was the main reason? The economy got stronger and the disabled got older.
You can see for yourself how disability applications correspond pretty heavily with the unemployment rate.
Unemployment has a selection bias, it mostly impacts the older, sicker and less educated. Those are people who in a good economy with low unemployment might be able to get jobs, but in a weaker economy they are too old and disabled to find something compared to their healthier younger peers.
You can see a huge surge in disability applications around the time of the great recession. These people were largely in their late 50s and early 60s, too young for early retirement but too old in the recession environment to compete well.
An NPR article from the time reveals this in an example of [in 2009] 56 year old Scott Birdsall and what an employee at a retraining center told him after a local mill closed down and the aging workers were left finding other jobs
"Scotty, I'm gonna be honest with you," the guy told him. "There's nobody gonna hire you … We're just hiding you guys." The staff member's advice to Scott was blunt: "Just suck all the benefits you can out of the system until everything is gone, and then you're on your own."
A 56 year old in 2009 is what age in 2024? 71. They are past retirement age, and would have transitioned off of disability and onto normal retirement pay.
This is what I think solved a significant portion of the disability crisis. Overall disability in the late aughts and early 2010s was being used as a makeshift early retirement program for uneducated middle aged and senior workers who didn't yet quality for their benefits, but were functionally unemployable already in the post recession economy.
And while I came up with this idea for myself, during research I stumbled onto an analysis that suggests the same thing. Their analysis ended at 2019, where there was still roughly 9.8 million on the rolls, and found that about half the explanation is the business cycle/aging and half is ALJ retraining. The trend from 2019-2024 is likely explained in a similar way, and given the increased final award rates we've tended back towards, this is likely explained even more heavily by the aging explanation.
There are some factors that help support this explanation more. SSDI in general tends to go to older, poorer, more rural and sicker (at least given death rates are 2-6x higher than peers) individuals.
"The typical SSDI beneficiary is in their 50s; more than three-quarters are over age 50, and more than 4 in 10 are 60 or older"
While this does not explain why the 2010s surge itself happened since those factors are relatively stable, it does explain why the surge was so temporary.
This also leads to an interesting question, what happens in the next period of high unemployment? How do we plan to address mass AI based layoffs if they occur?
Many people may be able to find a new job, but many won't and we will likely be facing a new disability crisis if it is forced to served as a early retirement program again.
Edit:
Thinking about it, one weirdness here is Covid unemployment which didn't seem to increase disability rates and in fact the trend downwards continued despite that. But we did see a huge surge in early retirement with about 2.6 million excess retirees. So maybe something changed in how early retirement works since? Or maybe Covid era unemployment mostly impacted younger healthier people or the jobs market for furloughed workers wasn't as bad. Or heck, maybe it's just coincidence that the downward trend was already happening and Covid really did have a major impact on the total number of beneficiaries.
My guess would be in the recovery, Covid unemployment surged higher but recovered really fast so we probably just didn't see as many Scott Birdsall situations.
Back to my thoughts, I'm extremely skeptical that the disability numbers could halve over such a relatively short period without some sort of accounting trickery. I could definitely see Covid having an impact, especially since the vast majority are older people. But the drop in numbers is just too great for me to take them at face value.
We've seen it before with disability, social security, etc, but often times the medicalized benefits system will just shuffle large amounts of people from one category to another once political pressure comes to bear on a label like "disability."
This also reminds me of the old post by Alone on how SSI is basically medicalizing political problems - can't seem to find it but if anyone knows what I'm talking about and has the link that would be great.
faceh
16hr ago
More critically, serious enforcement is dependent on self-reporting.
Yep. And this will increasingly be the case.
Generate a few dozen plausibly human-drawn images, release them on a plausible timeline that a human artist could achieve, and there's little anyone could do but speculate.
Maybe there's some solution that involves uploading the raw files from the WIP to a blockchain or something.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
16hr ago
Wow I don't know how I managed to miswrite that one.
Throwaway05
16hr ago
I mean it's worth considering that there are times and places where going the speed limit is just unsafe. In much of the NE (so Philly more than Pittsburgh) you see highway speeds that are set at 50 or 55 but are "safe" at 70+. This means the average person (traffic permitting) is going 65-75. If you try and go the speed limit you are at high risk of causing an accident by causing too much delta.
Most people will choose safety and convenience (especially when they go together) over abstractly following the law.
Cashier. Delivery driver. Maybe a waiter, probably the guy in the aisle at Home Depot.
These are not ‘good jobs’ but they do pay better than disability.
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