domain:alethios.substack.com
OliveTapenade
1d ago
This is an act of desperation, it's going to increase antisemitism because wildly disproportionate responses like this reveal the underlying criticisms made by "anti-semites" to be true.
What criticisms have you made that this shows to be true?
Magusoflight
1d ago
Iirc danish sperm is the worlds most coveted.
We will all be Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Scarlet johansen
Magusoflight
1d ago
I don’t really see why this is bad. You have to to put in perspective, which is that we are in a full blown race against genetic meltdown in the gene pool. Genetic mutational load is cumulative! That means deleterious mutations continue down the germ line! In layman’s terms: We are breeding people to be dumber and weaker and sicker at an alarmingly fast rate. Why shouldn’t we equip people to fight this trend? It’s like, our only effective tool at this point
Weaponomics
1d ago
Woke identifying beauty + science as an-existential-enemy-to-Woke might be “right”, but that does not make the Woke “more correct”.
However, if your claim includes the assertion that. abc/msnbc/salon/post/times/NPR are all Woke, I still mostly agree.
OliveTapenade
1d ago
The difference is that we Jews don't demand that everyone else should subscribe to our metaphysics. Now, Christians do, and while they don't think that someone who doesn't believe in the trinity is anti-Christian, they do believe he is the next best thing.
1 John aside, I would suggest that the standard Christian approach is to distinguish non-Christian from anti-Christian, such that 'non-Christian' means not being within Christianity or disagreeing with Christianity to some extent, and 'anti-Christian' means possessed of specific, active malice towards Christianity.
(If you read all of 1 John, that letter appears to be talking about schisms within a particular community. 1 John 2:18-19 would seem to indicate that the 'many antichrists' are those who 'went out from us'. The 'liars' in 2:22 are presumably then those who were part of the Johannine community but who have since gone around denying the constitutive dogmas of that community.)
This approach seems consistent with how we talk about other religious groups as well. As I am a Christian, I naturally disagree with parts of Judaism and parts of Islam. I sincerely believe that religious Jews and Muslims are, ipso facto, in error about certain facts. This does not make me anti-semitic or anti-Islam/Islamophobic, just as I do not consider those Jews or Muslims to be anti-Christian. We distinguish between disagreement and malice.
The whole criticism of trans activism here is that they are treating disagreement as malice. There's no 'neutral' position. You either affirm the whole platform or you are a transphobe.
OliveTapenade
1d ago
I don't see how that relates? In fact, it seems like an instance of the same mistake?
Both genetic screening and treating someone differently after DNA modification seem like genetics-based discrimination. In both cases the correct approach is the same, which is to say that people or their worth cannot be reduced to genetics. Genetics do not encode personhood.
OliveTapenade
1d ago
Editing and screening are two different things, though I'm not particularly supportive of either.
In principle I have no objection to genetic medicine. If we could alter somebody's genes so as to end or remove illnesses, that would be a good thing. However, the line between medicine and enhancement is, in practice, pretty murky. If we could use gene editing to genuinely cure Down syndrome, that would be good, but in practice I suspect that if we had that technology it would inevitably be used for enhancement - that is, in an attempt not to improve the lives of actually existing people, but to manufacture better people. I think the risks of instrumentalising human life that way are considerable.
Screening is a step beyond that, isn't it? Screening is the equivalent of aborting an infant with Down syndrome prior to birth, only quicker and more efficient. So all moral objections there would apply.
Weaponomics
1d ago
Re #6 - Indeed.
However, only one major trading partner artificially keeps their currency undervalued - in order to stimulate inward investment at the expense of its own purchasing power on the open market (China).
I think it was Trace who mentioned recently that, for all the growth China has experienced, it still greatly lags behind what it could have been if it followed the example of any of the other Tiger economies.
FtSoA
1d ago
I think one can simultaneously believe that perhaps PEPFAR should not exist forever as a U.S.-funded program and believe that the way DOGE handled it was an unnecessary travesty that caused needless suffering.
But also you seem to be conflating "effective" with "solves something permanently" when those are not always the same thing. Sometimes the latter is not possible via charity but an effective band aid of sorts is feasible.
But really I'm not the guy to defend EA because I'm not one myself on several fronts.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
The Obama thing wasn't exactly a secret assassination. He held a press conference about it right after it happened. It later became controversial, but in the context of the legalities and official policy of the United States. And while you can point to MKULTRA and any number of other secret Cold War-era government programs as evidence that liberal democracy doesn't preclude shady government dealings, it's worth considering the context during which these things came to light. The Watergate scandal and everything surrounding it almost completely eroded the public's trust in government and brought down a sitting president who had been elected in a landslide less than two years earlier. It sowed a cynicism that hasn't abated since, and which the Epstein conspiracies are a direct consequence of. It's also worth pointing out that the project was going on at a time before informed consent guidelines really existed, and running those kinds of experiments on convicts and mental patients wouldn't shock the conscience the way they would today. During the same time period, Jonas Salk was testing his polio vaccine by going into orphanages and administering it to all the children there. There was no large-scale public discussion on the ethics of medical experimentation until the mid-1970s (largely a response to the 1972 revelation of the Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiments), and the FDA did not have published guidelines for drug testing until 1981. I'm not saying that the general public would have necessarily been okay with MKULTRA had they known about it at the time, just that the ethical issues involved aren't as unambiguous as murdering a US citizen on US soil and framing it up as a suicide. Anyway, while that's been a nice discussion, I'm not sure how relevant it is to your argument. As far as I understood, you were arguing that some outside actor had bribed one or two prison employees to murder Epstein, not that his death was sanctioned by high-ranking members of the government.
Keep in mind that the person that "added them to the mix" was Alexander Acosta. This is the entire rub of the story, and much stronger evidence than anything you bring up.
Acosta gets asked why did he let him off the hook so easily, and he says "I was told the guy belonged to intelligence".
Acosta didn't say this publicly. No one who heard Acosta say this reported this publicly. The quote is based on a 2019 opinion column in The Daily Beast where journalist Vicky Ward attributed it to an anonymous former Trump Administration official, who allegedly told her that Acosta said it during his Secretary of Labor interview in response to concerns that the Epstein deal would become an issue during his confirmation hearings. We don't have any additional context, most importantly whether the person Ward talked to even claimed to have heard this directly from Acosta, or if this was just a rumor they picked up. Acosta, for his part, has denied any knowledge of an intelligence operation, and so has everyone else who has gone on the record. But beyond that, the story doesn't make sense. Why would there be concern that a decade-old plea deal involving a guy nobody had heard of from a case that didn't get any press would be at issue during confirmation hearings? More importantly, how would his answer have mollified the interviewers? Supposing Epstein actually was an intelligence asset, and Acosta was asked about the deal during his confirmation, was he supposed to have made this public? Did the interviewers ask him more questions about it, or just leave it at that? Nothing can really be gleaned from this.
But even worse is that your narrative is incomplete. Epstein was initially investigated by local authorities, but the case stalled when it got to the DA's office. Prosecutors initially wanted to offer him a deal where he'd get five years probation. Then they decided to indict him on a single felony count of solicitation of prostitution. At this point it's worth pausing to look at the accusations as they stood at the time, since they all followed a similar fact pattern. Girls already in his employ would recruit other girls with the promise of quick cash if they were willing to give a rich guy a massage. He'd ask them to strip to their underwear and they'd massage him while he was naked. At some point he'd start jerking off and ask the girls to lower their panties while he fondled them with a vibrator, though this didn't happen with every girl. Then he'd pay them about $200. All the girls claimed to be eighteen (this isn't relevant legally, but it can influence a jury). Some of the girls came back multiple times, and there was no evidence that there was any coercion or forcible abuse.
Was the Palm Beach County DA reluctant to prosecute because they got a call from Washington informing them that Epstein was involved in intelligence? The explanation they gave to the police was that it was actually a difficult case to prosecute, and as a lawyer, I can see where they're coming from. Epstein's attorneys hired investigators to dig up dirt on the accusers, most (or all) of whom came from poor families and had had rough lives. Social media profiles showed drug and alcohol use and contained provocative comments about their bodies and sexual prowess. Some of the girls had minor criminal convictions. The prosecution's case would have rested almost entirely on the testimony of these girls. The reports they gave to police may have been compelling, but how would they react as witnesses? How would they deal with having to recount sexual abuse in open court? Would their stories be consistent with what they told police? How would they hold up under cross examination? Would the jury see them as victims, or as juvenile delinquent prostitutes who lied about their age and kept coming back to get more money? The chief of police was enraged, and turned the case over to the FBI.
This presents an interesting conundrum for someone who thinks Epstein was treated with kid gloves because he was some kind of intelligence asset. If the DA in Florida was willing to offer Epstein an even better deal because of it, then the Powers That Be were obviously tipped off to the investigation, so why bother letting the FBI spend a year on it? Why not just tell them to knock it off and say it's a state matter? After the Feds started investigating, Acosta had the same problems as the Florida DA with one additional one: Jurisdiction. The Feds could only prosecute cases that involved crossing state lines, and most of the Florida victims never left Palm Beach County. The pool was much shallower, and the victims who were left were among the repeat customers who had the biggest credibility problems. Acosta nonetheless hit harder than the DA in Florida had, indicting him on a charge that carried a ten year sentence. But the problems with the case didn't go away, and Dershowitz and Ken Starr made it clear that they intended to take the case to the mat, beginning with a jurisdictional challenge.
It's worth pointing out here that US Attorneys in general don't bring criminal cases unless they're practically guaranteed. Local DAs are often willing to roll the dice, but on the Federal side they expect the case to be airtight. Alexa Acosta was still in his 30s at this point and had previously handled civil rights cases and employment discrimination cases. I'm speculating here, but I don't think he'd want to deal with the humiliation of going after a high-profile target and whiffing. So he dealt Epstein. It was a sweetheart deal, but there was still jail time involved, and he still had to register as a sex offender, and those are usually the two biggest hurdles a prosecutor has when dealing out these kinds of cases. The case hadn't seen much press at this point, so there was no public clamor for him to proceed.
None of the stuff about powerful people potentially being involved came out until years later, when Virginia Giuffre et al. started filing lawsuits. None of the girls questioned in the initial investigation claimed to have serviced anyone other than Epstein; it doesn't look like there were any guests at the house at all, just staff and the girls. Gilsaine Maxwell doesn't even appear. I'm not trying to excuse Alex Acosta or the Florida DA or anyone else involved in slapping Epstein on the wrist here; they had a duty to prosecute these crimes, and they failed at it. But I understand where they were coming from, and I think that explanation makes more sense than that Epstein was a secret intelligence asset who would blow the whole operation if he didn't get what he wanted. It's easy to claim otherwise when what we know now gets conflated with what was known by prosecutors at the time. By 2019, the pubic had learned about what had happened and was appalled, and the US Attorney in New York had the political capital to go out on a limb. The national mood had also changed in the previous decade, and juries would be much more sensitive to a troubled teen taken advantage of by a rich pervert, and more sympathetic to a witness with a troubled past. The victims, too, would be adults now, and in better position to testify.
If Epstein was running a whorehouse, the guy who knows more about this than probably anyone else doesn't seem to think so. Bradley Edwards has represented over 200 alleged victims, and he said that the Epstein was both the pimp and the john. He said that a few of the girls may have serviced a few of Epstein's friends at some point, but for the most part he kept that part of his life hidden from those he interacted with.
anti_dan
1d ago
Some things may be straw men of EA, but IMO it has made a lot of obvious errors as a movement, stretching its reputation to the point I don't think it maintains much credibility with people who are not already bought into charity qua charity. That most of EA freaked out about the PEPFAR cancelling is a great example. Its a 22 year old program that still requires massive outside subsidies, and there is no visible point on the horizon where that will not be true. You can call it many things, but "effective" is not one of them. Thats like calling a family where, after 22 years all the kids are still in the house, barely passing classes, and with no jobs and no prospects "effective parenting."
FtSoA
1d ago
Well, yes. That was true of much of the northern U.S. until more recent times.
The problem is that the Europeans can't quite seem to get AC now that they probably ought to have it. It's kind of banned in many places.
FtSoA
1d ago
Slavery was legal and then made illegal in the West. As a matter of classic liberalism in terms of morality, it was never great to treat some humans as property since that's pretty darn coercive. Economically, coercion usually is not very efficient.
At no point do I or would I say a policy intervention is never called for. I am not an anarcho-capitalist. Some externalities demand government intervention. We should tax carbon and price congestion, for example.
NunoSempere
1d ago
You are making points without the knowledge of what is already been discussed on the topic. Go google "avoiding EA burnout" and you'll find a plenty of stuff on this front.
I think you are empirically wrong on this. E.g., if you go to one of the most upvoted such essays you will see my comment at the top. But it's been a while. Maybe there is much that I have forgotten.
sockpuppet2
1d ago
Now I personally have religious reasons to oppose this sort of intervention
What are those reasons? Do you oppose IVF, in general?
wayfarer
1d ago
In other words, economic feasibility had to be achieved to consider such things at all; formalizing the changes in law is a lagging indicator.
it is trickier, it is similar to slavery: economical progress enables to get rid of it (or makes it much easier), but activism/law also has its place and is necessary to eliminate some abuse that would be present otherwise
faceh
1d ago
Yeah, the altruism question is interesting, and I've seen what I might describe as "weaponized altruism," where an individual commits an act of self-sacrifice with the hope and intent of convincing someone else to commit to an act of even greater self-sacrifice.
Or perhaps the classical example where someone engages in an altruistic act that leaves them worse off, but they perceive that doing so will let them acquire increased social status in that particular situation, and they'll be able to trade on that social status for greater gains in the long term.
I define 'real' altruism in terms of incurring some material loss that is in excess, ideally far in excess, of the expected gains of taking the action, and that someone else is the expected beneficiary of the action.
On the extreme end this would mean dying or incurring some devastating injury in order to ensure someone else lives.
Even in less extreme cases, I don't now that its possible to live a whole life devoted to this ideal, because your ability keep incurring costs is bounded.
So I see it as only being represented in individual acts, and there are individuals who are capable of committing to such acts when the time comes, and those who will default to whatever is actually in their direct self interest.
wayfarer
1d ago
and with no air conditioning
that is a small aside - but large reason for that is that USA is much hotter and until recently it would be not-so-needed
article you linked even mentions it
FtSoA
1d ago
Well, there is no one "EA"; but broadly speaking EA exists within the liberal democratic view of human rights. So "unbounded consequentialism" isn't actually on the menu for policy interventions.
I'm personally a rule utilitarian / classic liberal, so I care about specific classic (negative) human rights and fostering material progress. So I like a lot of what EA is all about, but I have my differences. I do not like philosophical ignorant veils and ponds of kids, for example. In terms of rhetorical utility though, I very much enjoy using EA as a hammer to bludgeon progressives/leftists with.
I do not think it is fair to directly fault EA at large for Ziz and SBF. In the former case, they literally disavowed the individual and their ideas. In the latter case, they were too trusting (I just assume all crypto is a scam by default) and deserve some demerits for that, but SBF also fooled a great many worldly financial types outside of EA.
EA has no provision against people thinking of themselves as bringing about a utopia, and that makes it a dangerous philosophy.
Again, this is an extremely broad criticism that applies to many religions and ideologies.
MonkeyWithAMachinegun
Dancing to Tom Paine's Bones
1d ago
I'm completely unsure, but the comment I saw said there was "raw sewage" everywhere as a result of the aforementioned lunch-smushing.
FtSoA
1d ago
There's an entire world of rhetoric that's not just logical arguments. Use that.
There's the saying that you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I don't 100% buy that because I myself have disproved it on major beliefs at least three times, but it is often true in practice.
The point of the essay was to, as much as possible, list clear facts that I don't think reasonable people can disagree with on an object level. Using much rhetoric would defeat the style of trying to list clear facts. (To my knowledge, there isn't such a list of these facts all in one place [or a current one, at least]. If there were, I'd have written something different.)
There's no one single way to convince a particular person of any given thing at any given time. I acknowledge my approach has the tradeoffs it does. (Part of my worldview is acknowledging tradeoffs.) Plus, rhetoric is typically more words and my list was already pretty dang long, practically speaking.
Also, if we're debating the metalevel relative merits of persuasive strategies using the written word, rhetoric is a symmetric weapon. For example, Marxists can wax poetic about solving inequality just us much as I can lovingly describe personal liberty. I think you could call both Adam Smith and Karl Marx talented writers in terms of style. But as soon as we start talking about facts I get to beat Marxists to death with empirical results and basic math.
You got pretty close, but then Trump laughed your guy out of the room after using him.
One thing I will say for Trump is that he does seem to be restrained by "numba go down." That doesn't help avoid the subtler long term damage to growth, but if certain other presidents had cared about market reactions we'd be a richer country. Shame about DOGE being mostly a clown show.
It would be excellent if SCOTUS is able to overturn certain very bad no good decisions that led to significant government intervention.
ABigGuy4U
1d ago
Typically when a soldier uses a garrote, the victim is pushed forward with a knee to the back, while the garrote is pulled backwards with force. This crushes the trachea to the point the airway cannot reopen, and possibly even breaks the neck. It is a useful technique for quietly and quickly removing pickets, and if you want to see a demonstration there are World War II era training films that show the technique. This is consistent with the postmortem analysis that found physical effects that differed from those you would see with a suspension hanging, and were more consistent with a violent strangulation.
From a progressive standpoint, you're not looking at successful systems in hopes of further maximizing efficiency. You are looking for solutions to problems. Expensive projects with dubious results might look economically silly, but the need for them arises from a want. For example, after hearing that a local homeless person froze to death or something. 'We need to do something' always sounds better than 'welp'.
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