domain:city-journal.org
aqouta
11hr ago
You should turn on your turn signal every time you switch lanes or otherwise would be expected to use it, even if nobody is around.
You should do it as a habit but not doing so when no one is looking isn't a major infraction. Not doing so when there are other people around that could benefit from the knowledge is shitty behavior.
Stop signs and red lights need to be fully stopped at, even if nobody is around and you know there isn't a red light camera.
Stop every time, if there's literally no one around you can maybe not come to a total complete stop.
Speed limits should be followed to the letter when possible.
Depends heavily on the location. It's fine to speed like 5-10+ on highways. In neighborhoods much less.
The left lane is for passing only, and also, if you are in that lane and not passing and someone cuts you off or rides your bumper, that is fine.
Left lane is for passing but tailgating is also stupid and dangerous.
If someone does not make room for you and you need to come over (and properly signaled) you can cut them off guilt free.
Depends heavily on circumstance, if it's a zipper merge and you're in the right place then you should be going over. If you're trying to skip the line then no.
Any other possible driving scissor statements?
You should go when it's your turn at a stop light and not hesitate to cross as a pedestrian at a crosswalk. The half starts are dumb. If everyone just consistently took their right of way everyone would get where they're going faster.
The_Golem101
11hr ago
Technically this would be an Ordo Malleus call wouldn't it? As it deals with demons? Though, James Workshop is very confusing with how the Inquisition actually operates, and even Ordo Xenos members seem to spend most of their time fighting Chaos in books.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
11hr ago
Kitty Genovese
I remember learning about this stuff in my English class as a teenager (in the context of some weird psychological mystery of how nobody helped etc) and the actual story went completely over my head. After some life experience of racialised underclass dynamics and now that I google and see photos of the perpetrator and the victim... the story suddenly clicks in my head very well
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
11hr ago
"A typical relationship is an exchange of resources for sex" shouldn't be taken to entail anything more than what it says on the tin.
"A typical relationship is an exchange of resources for sex" is a claim that the exchange of resources for sex is the central feature of the relationship. It is true that marriage relationships involve both sex and the sharing (as distinct from exchanging!) of resources; they also involve a great many other acts and features: emotional intimacy, emotional support, the bearing and rearing of children, companionship, emotional and physical labor, cooperation, negotiation, and on and on; most forms of positive human interaction would either be included or approached by a complete list. What you are doing is to take two items from a very long list, and claim that these two items and their interrelation are central, and all else is peripheral. To say that this elides more than it reveals is a notable understatement.
Another concrete example: Parenting involves exercising total control over a human, while also providing for their physical needs. These two features are the essence of both slavery and imprisonment; therefore, parenting/slavery/imprisonment is basically just slavery/imprisonment/parenting.
One can play this particular game with any form of complex human interaction. Selectively ignoring and exaggerating the aspects and interrelations of any two forms of interaction allows one to claim that anything is like anything, but sophistry provides no actual insight, only the illusion of insight.
As I argued in another post, I don't think that the deficiency of prostitution (deficient in love, bonding, companionship, whatever the claim is) entails the moral blameworthiness of prostitution.
From a strict materialist perspective, it seems the chain of argument starts with noticing that these two modes of interaction appear to be mutually exclusive, and quite stubbornly so, and then note that one is very obviously more conducive to human flourishing than the other. It's really no different from materialist arguments against drug addiction, wireheading, or other forms of degenerate hedonism. If you yourself admit that prostitution is deficient in love, bonding, companionship, whatever relative to marriage and you recognize that prostitution and marriage appear to be mutually incompatible, then prostitution is worse in concrete terms, and in the abstract the situation is improved with less prostitution and more marriage, all the way up to no prostitution and all marriage. Why, from a strictly materialist perspective, should we encourage or even accept the worse state, rather than pushing people as hard as we can toward the better? Maybe that pushing grows counterproductive at some point, quite likely there's a level of coercion where the juice isn't worth the squeeze, but again, the same is true for all the other degenerate forms of hedonism, defection, and bad tradeoff behavior. We live in a society, as they say.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
11hr ago
First car was a 1994 Integra which I purchased in 2003 for $4300. Prior to that, I had ridden mopeds, motorcycles, and occasionally busses to get around, and borrowed my parent's car in the summer. I still remember this car fondly, as it had a wonderful ride and a crisp, genuinely enjoyable manual gearbox. Sadly, in 2006 it developed a head gasket leak and I deemed it not worth fixing. The Honda dealer I had working on it gave me a reasonable trade-in offer on it and I bought a black 2006 Civic with manual gearbox off the showroom floor. After trade in, the price was something like $22K.
I lived downtown at the time and this car was largely ideal for getting around the city, though I grew to sometimes resent the manual when stuck in creeping traffic. Eventually, I ruined the decent handling it had with some atrocious cheap all-season tires, and shortly afterwards, I was T-boned by a hit-and-run driver in a bad part of the city which totaled the car. I got the plate and gave it to the police, and subrogated my claim to the insurance company, but I never did get my deductible back.
After test driving a couple cars I replaced it with a 2012 Fusion automatic for about $27K, which is still my daily driver. There's nothing wonderful about it, but it runs fine and doesn't cost much to maintain. It doesn't have an LCD screen or any driver aids beyond cruise control and automatic headlights, but it does have Bluetooth and a decent sound system, and I try to keep it clean. I know I will probably want to replace it before it gets unreliable, but have a hard time getting excited about most cars out there. If I had to replace it today, I'd probably go with a hybrid Accord or hybrid Maverick. I'd like to test drive a Model Y.
Throwaway05
11hr ago
I now interrupt your regularly scheduled WWIII/Nothing Ever Happens to ask a question:
So, the Bike discussion down below generated a lot of angst and heat, so I'd like to poll The Motte on our driving habits a bit (in the CW thread because I do fear we are going to get some strong feelings).
How do we feel about the following:
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You should turn on your turn signal every time you switch lanes or otherwise would be expected to use it, even if nobody is around.
-
Stop signs and red lights need to be fully stopped at, even if nobody is around and you know there isn't a red light camera.
-
Speed limits should be followed to the letter when possible.
-
The left lane is for passing only, and also, if you are in that lane and not passing and someone cuts you off or rides your bumper, that is fine.
-
If someone does not make room for you and you need to come over (and properly signaled) you can cut them off guilt free.
-
I can break some of these rules (or others) but other drivers should not.
-
Any other possible driving scissor statements?
If you'd like to be mad at me: Yes, Yes, No, Yes with qualification, Yes, No.
incognitomaorach
11hr ago
I mean famously the Iranians aren't Arabs. An under appreciated aspect of the whole dynamic is precisely the struggle between the Persian/Shia side and the Arab/Sunni side. Iran has been remarkably resilient to civil conflict in comparison to the rest of the region.
Throwaway05
11hr ago
Admittedly handling this well requires some flexibility of thinking that is going to be challenging for the general population, but just like how HBD claims doesn't mean we have to treat *ethnic group * like ass, just because free will is limited doesn't mean that we can't punish people for misbehavior, arrange society in various desirable ways, and so on.
Let's start with the free will statement. The strongest form of the argument is something like this: we have good data on things like efficacy of treatments, causes of various things, outcomes given various adverse childhood experiences and so on.*
We can cobble together some genetic data and presentations, certain kinds of childhood experiences like gross sexual exploitation, family history of other mental illness, family history of substance abuse, etc and say "this kind of person is enormously unlikely to ever overcome their circumstance." Can we do this for most people? Well not right now anyway, but for certain kinds absolutely yes.
Should we allow them the chance to make their own mistakes instead of doing something first? Different question. Should we let them run roughshod over things? No, but different question.
This definitely applies to certain patterns of child abuse.
A better example is probably opioid abuse. Medication assisted treatment (this is not safe injection sites) originally started as highly stigmatized and disliked but has grown to be approved by most in medicine because what we've found is that once addicted (rarer then you might think) most people just don't recover.
Free will need not apply. The thing is too dangerous.
Look for other options.
We know that external locus of control and efforts at getting people to help themselves work for those who can, so we should try, but thought leaders should be aware that some populations and situations just aren't going to get fixed without outside intervention.
*Simplest place to start if you want to examine the research base is ACE studies.
TheFooder
11hr ago
Isn't that the general precedent? Top-level big thread, keep it out of CW thread? My $0.02 = no reason for a ban.
FarmReadyElephants
11hr ago
Edgy sacred-values trolling plays a lot differently in communities where nobody has kids than the opposite. Most of the people harshly opposed to Aella online aren't the same people living in her Berkeley circles
Throwaway05
11hr ago
I see forensic patients at time and had some of my training is in a forensic setting.
Two things can be true at the same time.
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I hate you and I am quite happy if you spend the rest of your life in prison. You deserve it.
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I have compassion for you, will take care of your medical needs, and feel bad about the circumstances that led to your criminality.
In another setting it might be something like "I love you and I'm sorry your father abused you, but the way you treat me is not something I can tolerate and I will not have you be part of my life."
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
11hr ago
· Edited 11hr ago
I said that it was transactional. I didn't say it was purely transactional. There's a difference.
I previously shared some of my thoughts on love in general here. The most relevant bit is this:
If your love for your beloved is contingent on them possessing some particular quality, then you are liable to the charge that you don't really love the person: what you really love is that quality. You are a lover of intelligence, or humor, or beauty, but not of that particular person. But if you say that you would continue to love the person regardless of any qualities they possess whatsoever, even if they were stripped of all qualities and left only as a "bare particular", then it would seem that your choice is entirely arbitrary and without justification; for what could be motivating your choice if it is made in the absence of all qualities? And a baseless arbitrary choice cannot constitute love either. The conclusion we draw is that, if there is such a thing as "love" at all, it belongs to the domain of the unsayable.
Transactions are a reality; love is an absurdity, if not an outright impossibility. Love has value only and precisely because it is absurd.
I occasionally become impatient with people who glibly assert that they are "in love" without realizing that they are uttering an absurdity (or without realizing that, statistically speaking, their relationship probably won't last the year). This is not at all to say that people shouldn't love; it is only to say that it should be done self-consciously rather than than unconsciously.
It has long since penetrated popular consciousness that "justice" is an open and apophatic concept. Any assertion that such and such an act is "just" can be met with "ah, but what is justice? Whose justice? Is that really justice?" I am simply opening the possibility of a similar discourse on love. At least as far back as Plato's Symposium, it has been recognized that love is not (just) an emotion but a discursive concept which can and should be subject to critique (critique not in the sense of "mere" criticism, or dismissal, or negation -- but rather critique in the sense of a coming to self-consciousness, a laying bare of the groundwork and the conditions of possibility). To assume that we know love when we feel it is presumptuous. We can always interrogate whether any emotion, action, or other particular entity is an instantiation of the general concept of love, whether the conditions of instantiation of love can ever be met at all, etc.
One can feel and experience many things; but whether and how these feelings can be mapped to concepts should not be decided too hastily.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
11hr ago
At this point it just signals your support for Israel. It is more dignified to just post the 🇮🇱 emoji.
Dude, you and your fellow Jew-posters turn everything into a story about Da Joos, ask anyone who questions you as to their Jewish affiliations, and are quick to post the most thinly-sourced claims about Jewish direction as proven fact while sneeringly dismissing anything contrary to that narrative no matter how well reasoned or documented.
Look in a mirror. You are the very reverse image of the pro-Israel partisan who deflects every criticism of Israel with bad faith accusations of anti-semitism. (An accusation that, frankly, seems less often bad faith than merely overly broad nowadays.)
Someone whose posts are full of thinly-veiled 1488 content is not in a position to snarkily comment on other people's lack of dignity and imply they are just 🇮🇱 wavers.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
11hr ago
I've been driving some kind of BMW I-series for half a year now. Great car. Shame it belongs to my driving instructor.
aqouta
11hr ago
Maybe you do but I consistently find that the sorts of people who resist thought experiments tend to have deeply conflicted world views that they never examine. As I said, if you're being accosted by some rude stranger feel free to dodge out and stick to small talk. But With people you know well who are curious about how you think? On a discussion forum where the whole purpose is battling out ideas? What's the point? You could just go do something else with your time.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11hr ago
I mean, is that an example of “brute force violence”? If those American hostages had been captured by, say, ISIS, we would have seen high-definition videos of them being decapitated, set on fire, etc. Instead, the Iranians released all of the hostages unharmed. The only casualties from the entire incident were caused by the American military’s own incompetence in Operation Eagle Claw. (Obviously if Kenneth Kraus had been killed instead of injured and subsequently released, the story would be different, if only slightly.)
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
12hr ago
Are you saying inflation was caused by wages increasing instead of the government printing money?
Real wages went down in the Biden years.
What I recall during the Biden years was employers complaining that they couldn't find people to work for them, without being willing to raise their wages. And then Biden imported millions of new low-wage workers for the complaining businesses instead of letting the market come to a new equilibrium.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
12hr ago
It does not appear to be truthful reporting. American officials took the unusual step of announcing on several occasions that America is not on board with the attack. The IDF is telling reporters that they are coordinating with America.
I think the only coherent reading of both claims is something like "Israel told the US ('coordinating with') they were going to do it, and US forces didn't take part in or recommended against ('not on board with') the actual action".
Lizzardspawn
12hr ago
Meh. Iran choose to have economy comparable in size to Denmark themselves. If they had done the sensible thing - chase growth they would be on par or even surpass Turkey by now. The west has no need to destroy them, their stupidity is enough.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
12hr ago
Are the traumatic memories of life under the Shah, fifty years ago, really still so fresh that the Iranian people will continue to roll the dice on the Ayatollahs?
No, but Islam is that powerful.
FarmReadyElephants
12hr ago
Sexual nihilism is considered harmful. There's a reason why the rationalist community has a very low TFR - I wouldn't be surprised if it were as low as 0.1.
There was a rationalist adjacent group in a certain city that banned Aella from their events, and I remember her complaining about it a few years ago. But that subgroup had a TFR of closer to 2.0. They didn't want someone throwing sex parties, being an open prostitute, and debating whether-or-not pedophilia was really that bad around their kids. She felt hurt, her friends felt the need to defend her, but its an unavoidable side-effect of basic social hygiene.
Sex is an incredibly powerful psychological force. People kill for sex, people die for sex, people throw away their careers for sex, they lose a fortune for sex, the commit crimes for sex, they bully people for sex. Jeff Bezos pissed away ~$40 billion to upgrade his lay. The best we've been able to do is cage that energy and channel it for pro-social and pro-civilizational ends.
People like Aella are smart enough to reason through the second and third order consequences of their actions. They just don't. Probably because they are directly benefiting from lighting civilization on fire. Cool. The rest of us don't have to put up with it.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
12hr ago
So history won’t change. I’m just like waiting for anyone to take a fair honest look at the ME. Israel isn’t perfect, but I think most people are hopelessly naive about just how warlike the Arab world can be. It’s just a bunch of war and honor cultures that are hopelessly aggressive against Jews existing in the region. Iran isn’t France, and Palestinians are not Hopi. Jihad is a major part of the current theological understanding of Islam, and not the internal kind of jihad.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
12hr ago
This is the same question I have: how many sustained humiliations can a government endure and still maintain a sufficient level of popular support? Like you can only blame the perfidy of the Great Satan for so long before the buck eventually stops with you. I’m seeing that Fox News apparently reported that the Israelis managed to dupe the entire leadership of Iran’s air force into a fake meeting before taking them all out. If this sort of thing happened to the American military, I have no idea how the government could continue to stand.
Is the fear of what regime collapse would mean for the country so pervasive that the Persian people will continue to tolerate the status quo? Perhaps I’m just a naïve American, wildly overestimating how much power the people of Iran have to effect a regime change even if they wanted to. Are the traumatic memories of life under the Shah, fifty years ago, really still so fresh that the Iranian people will continue to roll the dice on the Ayatollahs?
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
12hr ago
I know the Persians are a civilized people, so they may not resort to brute force violence.
LOL. You know, the storming of the US embassy and the ensuing hostage crisis is in fact within living memory.
(1) Yes
(2) Yes
(3) No
(4a) Yes, assuming the left side of the road doesn't have a driveway or an exit ahead
(4b1, regarding cutting off) No
(4b2, regarding tailgating) Yes
(5) Yes
(6) No
More options
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