domain:forecasting.substack.com
Some of it, it’s fine but relies on a lot of the hearsay (quite a bit of it traced back to Epstein’s own bullshitting laundered through people he spoke to and then others who heard it second or third hand) I discuss in my comment. Especially discussions of when Epstein originally met Ghislaine Maxwell, speculation about what he was doing in the 1980s and so on is a weakpoint with little critical analysis. For example, every suggestion that Epstein ever met Robert Maxwell (and this isn’t concrete evidence that he didn’t by the way, it’s just interesting) can be traced back to Epstein personally, who used to tell people in New York that Robert had personally asked him to look after his daughter, which was ludicrous and ridiculed as such by his sons, whom he had actually groomed to takeover his business and look after their sister and who, unlike Ghislaine, actually knew about his various business and personal affairs, including connections in Israel. That’s before we get to Khashoggi and the many, many people (almost everyone) he knew, none of whom heard of Epstein before the mid-late 1990s post-Wexner fortune grab.
Epstein was unemployed, living off savings and scrounged money in a 1 bed apartment in NYC (much cheaper back then than it is today, of course) before he met Wexner. The suggestion that he was a well connected shady international businessman with close and profitable Khashoggi ties doesn’t track.
Yudkowsky wrote a whole author's note about how obvious he thought it was and how he didn't know how to make it any clearer:
Since many reviewers are still asking if Quirrell is Voldemort, I tried putting in a final sentence from "Professor Quirrell's" point-of-view and got such reader outrage at the unsubtlety that I gave up and removed it. I am now seriously asking for help and suggestions on what I can do to make it clear to all readers that Professor Quirrell is Voldemort. So far we have the following facts:
- canon!Tom Riddle applied to teach Defense at Hogwarts and put a curse on the position when he didn't get it.
- canon!Quirrell is possessed by Voldemort.
- It has been repeated within the fic that the Dark Lord has lost his last body but is somehow still alive.
- The author has summarized the First Law of Fanfiction as "Frodo gets lightsaber, Sauron gets Death Star".
- The Defense Professor at Hogwarts is
5a) A drooling zombie
5b) Who occasionally undergoes a drastic shift of personality and
5c) Becomes a genius who
5d) Loves the spell Avada Kedavra and
5e) Is extraordinarily knowledgeable about Battle Magic and
5f) Talks about how he always wanted to teach Defense at Hogwarts and
5g) Wanted to be a Dark Lord when he was a young Slytherin and made a list of all the mistakes he would never make and
5h) Talks about "pretending to lose", which he learned through a horribly humiliating experience in a martial arts monastery which was wiped out by Lord Voldemort shortly thereafter, except for one student who was a friend of his and
5i) Doesn't seem to understand why Harry wouldn't want to become a Dark Lord and
5j) Talks about how much he hates this flawed world and
5k) Has manipulated Harry into disliking Dumbledore and
5l) Thinks that when Harry knows him a little better, Harry will deduce that he would want to cast a spell on the Pioneer 11 plaque which will "make it last a lot longer"The reader is supposed to know at this point that PQ is LV. How can I make it clearer without it being disruptive? If you have ideas, please share them.
Have you listened to MartyrMade's series on Epstein? I used to like his stuff a lot, but he's gone off the deep end recently when it comes to Israel and Jews.
I have a hard time believing there's any actually damning evidence against Trump or really anyone, or else someone would have leaked something by now. It's been a big issue for years, multiple administrations.
The common retort is that there’s stuff on Bill Clinton as well as Trump so they can’t. But this is a bad argument because
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They could just have published the Trump stuff and conveniently redacted the Bill Clinton stuff if they had wanted to.
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I really don’t think Bill’s grip on the party is so strong that they wouldn’t throw him under the bus to attack Trump if necessary.
Quite true, and I suppose it varies along lines of culture and class. Doesn’t make it any easier to determine lawful slavery, I suppose.
What brought you to the Motte?
Strong disagree. I think 5% or less would support that, within polling margin of error. I’m a little shocked you think otherwise. Do you personally know people who would sign such a contract? What are they like? If you don’t know any, aren’t you just saying that you’d like to enslave people?
I know well that American chattel slavery was unusually bad. But Greek slavery was also quite bad, you know. It’s what they did to people they defeated in war! Or, read in the reverse, people were willing to fight potentially to the death for the privilege of not being a slave! I know we’re all very sophisticated around here and have very novel and interesting perspectives, but this is lazy whitewashing.
I fully understand that society always has and likely always will have classes, and that the labor of the lower classes is compelled in a way which the upper classes are not subject to. I’m even amenable to the idea that it’s a reasonable system in the abstract for some to own and organize while others provide more of their labor. But slavery is an extreme form, not the normal, and it’s fair to say that those in the bottom tranches of labor should get their choice of master or strong customary and legal protections or both, and that depriving them of these is wrong.
I thought Elfen Lied was great… when I was in high school. Now, it’d probably go in the “guilty pleasure” box at best.
I can’t imagine recommending it to someone who’s just getting into anime, unless I already knew they were into that sort of thing.
Dunking on maga is great but you should be expected to explain and defend your position. Not drop a cryptic reply like "I'm anti third-worldism." several times and never explain what that means.
As far as I know the "official" definition, as an obsolete cold-war political movement, has nothing to do with the current right at all.
Your posy by itself does a better job dunking on maga than any of Alex's sneering walls of text.
It’s crucial to understand why this isn’t the case. The mechanic competes in wages with the fruit picker (in an economy with an absence of illegal labor), not directly but transitively, because the mechanic competes with somebody who competes with somebody who […] competes with the fruit-picker. Increasing opportunity for the lower class increases it for the lower-middle, which increases it for the middle. Everyone’s QoL and wages increase. Food prices increase, but wages increase higher than they for the lower and middle. It won’t increase wages for the upper white collar professionals, because there’s a strict barrier where they simply would never consider entering a trade or working as a chef even if wages in these places rose considerable, which is because of the class association. (And remember remittance payments: 66 billion yearly just for Mexico!)
I understand that argument, and I think that there is a lot of sense to it. I would have said something very similar yesterday, probably. But I'm just bewildered at Trump repeatedly getting emotionally heated about this issue, out of left field, with nothing really compelling him to do it. It seems like a deep emotional reaction. It's starting to seem to me that something really bugs Trump about the Epstein matter on a personal level, beyond just journalists annoying him about it. I don't necessarily think that where there's smoke, there's always fire. But I am seeing a weird amount of smoke coming out of Trump about this lately. He's acting defensive about it beyond his usual level of getting annoyed when attacked. He's bringing it up un-prompted. Those are very common behaviors that people engage in when they are trying to hide that they did something.
7.77 million tons of rice production annually isn’t trivial and neither is 77,000 tons of green tea
Yeah, in theory.
But, in practice, how often is there actual accountability? And a good way to fire them?
If it were viable to employ illegal workers as baristas, you would be shocked at how horrible the QoL for baristas is too. Have you seen how bad the QoL is for soldiers? It’s because they don’t have a choice!
Wow, horrible, picking berries. They are performing literally the same physical movements that a grocery stocker performs, except the objects are lighter, they aren’t breathing in microplastics all day, the ground beneath them isn’t concrete, they don’t hear horrible pop music 24/7… how could anyone do this?
He killed the guy simply by hacking his leg? That's unexpected.
Just a few days ago I read a court opinion where somebody died from being slashed in the face. He didn't bleed out; rather, an air bubble got into his blood vessels and he died of a heart attack. (I unfortunately don't have the link on hand.)
Could just be a narcissism flare up.
I have a hard time believing there's any actually damning evidence against Trump or really anyone, or else someone would have leaked something by now. It's been a big issue for years, multiple administrations.
Well only the fruit pickers wage would go up. The mechanics wage would not, and the price of their food would.
If everyone's wage goes up equally you're just describing inflation.
Fair enough
They would love when the price of consumer goods go up if their wages go up as well.
What is the source that they fled for work at factories as opposed to increases in efficiency of agriculture and an absence of employment driving them to work in factories?
Any amount of physical labor is backbreaking if you have a supply of illegal labor that you can abuse. Even retail would involve an inhospitable amount of bending and lifting if the employer could abuse them without the public seeing.
Imagine trying to convince my 1800s great great grandmother that my great grandmother, who just kicked her from the inside, was not a baby.
Would be difficult. Fortunately nobody not made of straw would need to. All pro-choicers say is that if she wants an abortion she can get one.
I appreciate the advice. It's even good advice! The failure I envision is on my part, and yes, I'm aware of the risk of self-fulfilling prophecy here.
Stop being lazy, and grab the goddam reins. Because no one else is going to.
My own dad has said the same to me, on many an occasion. He's the opposite of lazy, being an extremely hard working man who has, time and time again, worked himself to the bone to ensure his family and children wouldn't need to.
I say that, but it actually seems to me that you do a lot, and are not one of the perpetually unmotivated. Your substack is active, and mine has only one lonely post, so you're way ahead of me there. You mod here. You're a friggin' doctor.
Thank you, but a lot of that is simply a consequence of my natural proclivities! Everyone has hobbies, some people are lucky enough to have hobbies that are quasi-productive.
I intrinsically enjoy writing, enough to outweigh the chore it can sometimes be. I like arguing with internet strangers, and can usually stay polite while doing so.
Medicine? I hated med school, and was a slacker for most of it, doing my best to cram at the last minute. Most doctors are rather type A individuals, I somehow survived despite being the opposite.
I eventually got better, after graduation, I spent several years working very hard to avoid the fate of never entering higher training, and for the purposes of escaping India. I suppose that is a concrete example of me becoming better, the previous exams were ones I "had" to give. Everything after was something self-directed, and I'm justifiably proud of myself, even as I've found many things about life and work in the UK disappointing and a chore.
If you had to sum up my laziness, it is rarely truly catastrophic. If I'm worried about my house catching fire, I'd probably do something about it instead of waiting for a fire to tickle my ass hair. But my life would definitely be far better if I was more motivated to do the things that I really ought to do, and earlier. For the sake of privacy, I won't go into too many details, but it has had personal and professional consequences.
There are definitely people worse off. I'm not lazing in bed high on weed all day without a job, I have a relatively demanding one, even if most other flavors of doctor have to work harder. I occasionally do things that people appreciate, but can I really take credit for that? It's just a fact about my preferences that I like writing instead of say, only video games and going out clubbing.
Gym time will ultimately make you feel good. I am sure there is a physiological reason and I am equally sure that you know what this reason is probably better than I do, but perhaps haven't reached that point of that good feeling, and you perhaps doubt that it is a point you will likely reach.
I'm not sure about ultimately. Back in med school, after a messy breakup, I was motivated enough to lose about 10 kilos while working out at least twice a week, for 6 months. I was even doing HIIT on the side, dodging the odd cobra outside (not a joke). I think six months of solid effort should normally be enough to figure out if I enjoy something for its own sake!
I didn't like going to the gym at the end, the only thing that got better was that I stopped having DOMS after the first few weeks.
Have you read the studies suggesting there could be a relationship between macular degeneration and regular use of semaglutide? Admittedly there are many caveats by the authors (admirably so) regarding the design of the study and how it was not designed to establish causality. But still. How are the peepers?
I did read them when they came out, and was slightly concerned, but not to the degree it put me off. I'll probably have to look at follow ups, but the fact that, AFAIK, medical bodies haven't immediately begun recommending regular eye tests to patients on Ozempic is suggestive. I'll have to look more into it again, but I'm not worried enough to not take the meds.
My peepers are currently rather sore. But before you get alarmed, that's because I spent this afternoon looking at Magic Eye images on Reddit and ended up straining them.
(You should have fewer qualms about throwing most things you write onto your substack. Your slice of life and the odd wistful recollections are a pleasure to read, and I'd certainly follow along. Link your substack again, if you don't mind, I'd be happy to give it a follow)
A common pathway for something like this is:
-you nearly bleed out
-medical attention arrives
-in the meantime multiple organs are not getting enough blood and therefor oxygen
-this may include the brain
-you are taken to the hospital which keeps you alive
-but you are already dead OR
-while in the hospital swelling, tissue death, infection from all of the damaged areas causes problems leading to formal death later
tons of stuff like this can happen.
Imagine trying to convince my 1800s great great grandmother that my great grandmother, who just kicked her from the inside, was not a baby.
Watch Death Note. I've never found a human who didn't like Death Note.
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