domain:city-journal.org
ControlsFreak
12hr ago
How many times has someone been banned for this? Any guesses?
I am qualitatively annoyed by the situation, which is independent of the frequency. However, you have the mod history, so if you'd like to provide numbers to supplement the conceptual-level discussion, that would be appreciated.
You do not have to write an essay, a flowery effortpost, or come up with some wildly innovative idea. You just have to not look like an attention whore on Twitter.
There is a very simple solution for a major event worthy of discussion: write something about it. If it's too low effort, we'll probably clear our throats and say "Low effort, don't do this."
Technically, even this OP wrote something about it. But yeah, I still have no idea what the actual standard is.
Normally if someone rushed to be FIRST! we'd just warn them not to do it again (as I said!) and let the thread continue.
Perhaps your numbers from the mod history will bear out that the typical response is just a warning. I still think this is a bad equilibrium. It provides insufficient distinction between typical low effort garbage that we don't want and obvious 100% topics, which we (I) do. Moreover, I prefer a world where this distinction is overt in policy.
For any other mods who might be casually interested in subscribing to my newsletter this meta topic, I would like to note that so far in the responses, I see very little engagement with my conceptual definition of the problem to be solved, the incentives involved, the current or desired equilibria, or valuation methods for what type of resulting posting dynamics we'd prefer.
Hadad
12hr ago
If your goal is to convince a right-winger to not be a right-winger, you will fail. If your goal is to convince a left-winger to not be a left-winger, you will fail. If your goal is to convince a strange person through hostile interrogation that their values, opinions, or beliefs are wrong, you will fail.
You're arguing for the crowd, or yourself, never your opponent.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
12hr ago
turn signal
Yes
Stop signs and red lights
Yes, but we don't have retarded four-way stops like in the US
Speed limits
No, they are often badly designed or deliberately set up to extract speeding fines
The left lane
Depends on the traffic. If the road isn't packed, then yes, keep it empty.
make room for you
No
I can break
No
Any other possible driving scissor statements?
Yes
ResoluteRaven
13hr ago
I'm not here to change people's minds. I'm here because this is the online equivalent of an Enlightenment-era coffee shop with a rotating cast of brilliant and eccentric characters with whom to play word games and perhaps learn a thing or two about the world. Like its 18th-century antecedants, it may spit out some future revolutionaries, philosophers, or reformers who will go on to change the world, but that will happen out in the real world, not in this training ground.
Here, the bold may sharpen their rhetorical knives in combat against ideological demons modern and ancient that have been banished from polite society; some of us are just around for the thrill of the fight and don't have any grand vision for remaking the world, while others may discover that they had no stomach for it to begin with.
As to what may happen down the line, I suppose I'm just a high enough decoupler that the fact that in some future conflict I may need to take up arms against the majority of my fellow posters here doesn't bother me too much. If that ends up being the case, then it was fun while it lasted and I wish you all good fortune in the civil wars to come.
Hadad
13hr ago
Amadan already handled this, but to clarify, 'you' is meant toward nations, not you as a person. And my name is definitely not actually Hadad.
ResoluteRaven
13hr ago
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. +10 on the highway, +5 otherwise
4. Left lane is for faster traffic, but not for passing only except on highways with 3 or more lanes
5. No
6. No
No_one
14hr ago
Enforcing borders is not at all arbitrary as that famous wolfpack range map shows. It's as arbitrary as childbirth.
mrtheforce
14hr ago
1: Yes
2: Yes
3: No
4: Yes with qualification
5: Yes
6: Yes
No_one
14hr ago
Yes, it would. It takes a gigantic amount of shells and a lot of time to level a city.
Several H bomb blasts would accomplish the same at a fraction of a cost.
No_one
14hr ago
IAEA said they're days away from having 300 kg of weapons grade material, enough for a dozen nukes.(How they found out? Spooks? Or is it a lie)
Technologically not that stupid Iran stan was saying they already have a compact implosion design, and that the clandestine nature of their program and constraints(bunkers)have made Iran some of the develop world's best centrifuges.
If you're making plutonium byproducts leak and are detected, but you can do isotopic separation on uranium all you want and it's going to be hard to tell.
No_one
14hr ago
It's quite possible clear the sites are deeper.
Back in the GWB II era neocons American like Cheney were obsessed with hydrogen bomb bunker busters and talking loudly how such strikes are clean bc the radiation is mostly contained. Which is kind of true.
satanistgoblin
14hr ago
Jordan was just helping defend Israel against Iranian drones. Saudis are doing jack shit to fight Israel and made it illegal to criticise prince Bonesaw in that regard. Arabs are mostly Quislings, actually.
To be honest you should probably stop, then, and this isn't meant in an antagonistic way; rather it's an acknowledgement of the practical futility of such an exercise. The idea that you ever end up changing anything by participating in forums like this one is laughable. Even if you somehow do manage to convert everyone here to your point of view the overall effect of such a thing would be hilariously tiny, tantamount to a drop in the bucket. You would have spent countless hours to ultimately achieve nothing.
People participate here because they feel like they get something out of it aside from trying to right the political ship, something this forum explicitly isn't meant for. They feel like hashing things out with other people who share their ethos of discourse helps them clarify and sharpen their own thought, even if there is no agreement between the parties (yes you can cherry-pick comments that aren’t high effort, the fact remains the standard of discourse here is far above average). If you don't get that out of it, then I genuinely think it would be better if you left.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
14hr ago
As soon as you see a "lane ends ahead" sign you should be trying to get over. Don't ride to the very end and then expect to squeeze in.
I pity the fool who has never experienced the sublime beauty of the zipper merge.
This is so 2010's.
Look, I used to care about these periodic flameout posts, and I used to try to come up with solutions that would make hanging out here a little more enjoyable. I never got much of a response, and when I did it was usually in the form of this womanly exasperation that I haven't yet singlehandedly solved the problem yet.
On top of that, I am yet to here of a single space that gives half as much of a hoot about how rightwingers are comfortable there, as this place cares for the comfort of leftwingers, so it's hard to believe there's something uniquely wrong with this place.
What's the point? A better question is, how come you expect people to drop everything, and try to find one for you?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
15hr ago
Also very funny to see any pretense of "rationalism" or truth-seeking completely fly out the window to be replaced by personal anecdotes and confirmation bias.
Point of order: all rationalism is, is exactly that under a few layers of misdirection. Abandoning it is the good and honest thing to do.
functor
15hr ago
Rather, the people in the west are generally negative to Israel. Even Americans are net negative to Israel. Western politicians go against the will of the people and cuck endlessly to Israel regardless of what Israel does because of Israel's extreme influence. This becomes a problem when the voters are not onboard, yet they have to officially worship Likud.
2rafa
15hr ago
Revolutionary Iran by Axworthy only covers to 2012 but is probably the best introduction (meant only loosely, it’s relatively comprehensive unless you’re fascinated by a particular area of the Iranian state) to modern post-revolutionary Iranian history and the ideology of the revolutionaries before and in government. It shows quite meticulously how Khomeini strategically and patiently exploited just about every single cultural, class, political and ethnic division in Iranian politics to grant himself a level of absolute power rare even in the most autocratic traditional Islamic societies and then set about building an elaborate political operation and pipeline that sidelined even many of his own allied clerics (including many hardline Islamists) to ensure that the state he created would be extremely difficult to dismantle from within, even though he knew it would always be unpopular with Iran’s large, secular, urban PMC and wider middle class.
SkoomaDentist
16hr ago
How on earth is always using a turn signal "totally useless and actively harmful"?
comfortable
16hr ago
As soon as you see a "lane ends ahead" sign you should be trying to get over. Don't ride to the very end and then expect to squeeze in.
Eh, if the lane ends with a forced merge into the lane beside it, waiting until the end gives a predictable time and place that the merge will occur. In times of heavy traffic, it also maximizes road usage (and if you don't drive until the end, someone else behind you will, so you might as well). If the lane ends with, for example, a forced turn off the highway, then I agree. I especially agree in times of heavy traffic. Don't make the people who actually want to use that turn off the highway wait because you want to squeeze into the heavy traffic later.
SkoomaDentist
16hr ago
4-lane divided highways are signed at 100 km/h or less
The normal speed limit on highways is 120 km/h. 100 km/h is only during winter time.
phailyoor
16hr ago
Mazda CX5 ... Some people think this is "fun to drive".
For a crossover, it's pretty great. Feels like driving a normal car, unlike the cr-v or rav4, which feel like ass to drive.
the_Culture_is_great
16hr ago
- Yes for habit, no penalty if not
- Yes for cars, Idaho stop should be legal for bikes. A very slow rolling stop in a car is a minor sin though, many places would be fine with yields only.
- No, minor speeding is fine as long as safe for conditions - in sense areas traffic calming design is better, on highways limits should typically be higher. I'd prefer saner speed limits that are enforced to the letter in general rather than loosely goosy ones though.
- Yes, left lane is for passing (on freeways, streets are different due to turns). Riding a bumper is dangerous, but expected to happen if you're not passing on the left
- No, dangerous for everyone. Accept that the other person isn't considerate and merge safely later.
- No, despite the fact that some drivers can make better decisions, the rules should be universal for everyone.
- Bikes should take the entire lane if it's not safe to pass within the lane with >1m of space.
phailyoor
16hr ago
Used B9 Audi S4. There's something about the tuning of a sports car that makes it much more fun to drive and throw around corners. I also drove an Accord for a while and it's plenty fast (especially after upgrading it with racing pedals), but I don't have the urge to go loco with it.
Luxury cars also do add some bells and whistles, like RGB interior lighting, better materials, massaging seats, more screens etc. It's nothing that really affects getting from point a to b, but it feels nice to have. If you have the money and drive a lot then splurge, because you'll spend hours sitting in there.
It's the price you pay for having an army of oprichniks. They are simply unsuited to fighting a peer force, and your regular army has no desire to fight for the regime that doesn't respect it.
Iran could dismantle the IRGC and let the army manage itself without overbearing ideological oversight, but this kind of perestroika would threaten the rule of the ayatollahs.
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