domain:astralcodexten.substack.com
Corvos
32m ago
IMO English is an unfortunate language (compared to Japanese) in that it is difficult and disapproved-of to shorten words and phrases in a way that is still readable. You can't just stick a couple of kanji together or throw out half the sounds. You can't turn 'leave without pay' into 'no-pay leave' without sounding childish, let alone 'go-no-pay' and 'life without parole' can't be turned into 'forever-jail'. I think part of it is the cultural love-affair with sophisticated latinate vocabulary (he says as someone with an impeccable classical education, but we're all hypocrites here).
Acronyms are an attempt to solve the job but are often too complicated in their own right and are mostly unreadable unless you already know what they mean (BATNA).
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
37m ago
It's not true speech, it's a lie that uses truth to mask itself, making it more dangerous, because it's more likely to be believed.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
43m ago
Nice try, but it's clearly an Umlaut, which makes the pronounciation of coöperation coördination very funny.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
46m ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)
The diaeresis diacritic indicates that two adjoining letters that would normally form a digraph and be pronounced as one sound, are instead to be read as separate vowels in two syllables. For example, in the spelling "coöperate", the diaeresis reminds the reader that the word has four syllables, co-op-er-ate, not three, *coop-er-ate. In British English this usage has been considered obsolete for many years, and in US English, although it persisted for longer, it is now considered archaic as well. [citation to 1993 book] Nevertheless, it is still used by the US magazine The New Yorker. [citation to 2012 article] In English-language texts it is perhaps most familiar in the loan words naïve, Noël and Chloë, and is also used officially in the name of the island Teän and of Coös County. Languages such as Dutch, Afrikaans, Catalan, French, Galician, Greek, and Spanish make regular use of the diaeresis. (In some Germanic and other languages, the umlaut diacritic has the same appearance but a different function.)
Personally I tend to think that both the Colbert firing and the Kimmel firing were partly in result to Trump admin pressure...
...but that reason, while true, wasn't at all the main reason. We heard Colbert's show was losing money regularly, and I imagine Kimmel's was too (although it's possible some Colbert defectors propped it up for a bit so may not have been recently the case, dunno there), so I believe both networks saw it as a win-win situation.
(The Kimmel quote in question is incredibly weak sauce, though. At worst he's accusing Republicans of being murderers, but that seems like a logical stretch of language. He's wrong on the facts of course but it's not like I have a high bar for comedy-ish monologues of the political issues de jour)
Am I worried about this kind of press pressure? Yes. I'm not, like, apocalyptically worried, just normal worried. I'm currently sort of on the train of thought that even if Trump 2.0 is followed by another Republican, I'm not sure these absurdities will continue. My mental model of the Trump admin is roughly that a ton of loose, low-qualified cannons running around using Trump's formidable political cover are going buck wild on their own personal pet issues and Trump doesn't care too much as long as it can be spun positively on TV, or gives off "we are strong" vibes.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
52m ago
coördinated
Why the Umlaut?
clo
53m ago
Rosencrantz2
54m ago
Yeah, and I think it's dishonest to pretend the former is worse than the latter.
This is where we part ways. Biased but true speech is interpretable and informational for smart people, even if it misleads others. Lying is simply pollution.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
56m ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements_by_Donald_Trump
So? Wikipedia is well known for slanted coverage of anything political, it's no surprise their edditors would autistically catalogue every misleading statent from him, and refuse to do the same for other politicians.
Anyway, don't many of his supporters acknowledge that he lies a lot, but say his lies are good car salesman style lies, whereas other politicians may not lie but they are selective with what they include and what they omit?
Yeah, and I think it's dishonest to pretend the former is worse than the latter.
quiet_NaN
1hr ago
Kimmel spread an obvious lie.
Are you referring to the following?
We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it
After the evidence published on the 16th, claiming that the shooter was MAGA would be at least a fringe view. One might claim that everyone from the FBI and state prosecution is blatantly partisan and obviously trying to blame the murder on the left, but that would leave the question how the FBI fabricated a MtF boyfriend. So personally, I think that the official narrative -- the killer acting to 'fight LGBT hate' is probably correct.
Still, the Kimmel episode was aired on the 15th, when none of these chat quotes were public (afaik).
And then you have the FCC statement:
[...] FCC Chairman Brendan Carr appeared on Benny Johnson’s podcast and blasted Kimmel’s remark, calling it “some of the sickest conduct possible.”
So Kimmel was either spinning the truth very hard or outright lying. Bad, but mostly SOP -- Trump himself does the same whenever he opens his mouth. If Carr thinks that this is the "sickest conduct possible", he must live a very sheltered life indeed -- free from social media, for one thing. One wonders if he has ever watched Fox News. In short, his statement is as much of a lie as Kimmel's is.
I think that the right is reasonably upset by the social media celebrations of the murders by the far left. Kimmel was not guilty of that at all, he was just someone the FCC could cancel who had interacted with the topic in a way which did not please Trump, and was already on the cancel list, so he got got.
Dean
Flairless
1hr ago
exaggeration of a call to action (not fact based)
Don't Call Your Wife 'Beautiful.' Use These Less Sexist Compliments Instead
"A real self-starter": Is she blushing? Oh, she's blushing.
Okay, this one made me laugh.
"The strong nose of a Caesar": She'll feel like a princess -- no, an empress!
And this one truly is 'not fact based.'
Rosencrantz2
1hr ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements_by_Donald_Trump
I read a few reports quantifying his untruths vs Biden and Obama, and he came off much worse.
Whether there's an actually solid study comparing all politicians, journalists, academics and their lies I don't know, but it seems baldly apparent that he is up there with the best of them.
Anyway, don't many of his supporters acknowledge that he lies a lot, but say his lies are good car salesman style lies, whereas other politicians may not lie but they are selective with what they include and what they omit?
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
1hr ago
Now I can squat two plates and bench one plate.
Good job! Benching 60kg x 5 was easy for me, but my fucking knees won't let me squat more than 1.5 plates, and only on a good day. I've switched to endurance training (cyclist squats on a wedge) for my knees, with a plan to add some split squats or lunges when I'm ready. I hate both.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1hr ago
Very little, truth be told.
Les Trois Mousquetaires, in public-domain audiobook format (librivox). Mostly just to keep my French from escaping me altogether, but also because I genuinely enjoy the genre. I think I get about half of what's being read. It'd probably be a better idea to actually read the text.
Mistress of Mistresses, by E.R. Eddison. It's slow going so far, very much unlike The Worm Ouroboros. I trust Eddison to know what he's doing, so I'll keep at it.
TowardsPanna
1hr ago
Yes, that makes sense.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
in a country presided over by one of the most prolific liars in history seems absolutely risible.
Where are you getting the idea he's any worse than any other politician, or even journalist or academic?
Rosencrantz2
2hr ago
He shouldn't have said it, especially as it turns out to have been wrong, but to take him off the air for it in a country presided over by one of the most prolific liars in history seems absolutely risible.
quiet_NaN
2hr ago
Oh, I had no problem with your overall point, it was just that your phrasing in that sentence irked me. I agree that criminalizing all sorts of cat-calling is silly.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
2hr ago
Are there many cases of someone being tried for treason and exonerated? Treason does sound like the "TPTCurrentlyB want you dead" charge.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
2hr ago
it is that we have half the country that sees riots and murders against people they don't like as a good thing
This is an exaggeration. I'd say it's more like 5%, although they are very loud and influential, and that proportion is still way too high.
I’m not going to dox myself to make a point, but back when I was a politician I wrote under my real name in support of Jyllands-Posten posting the Danish cartoons, and against prosecuting David Irving for Holocaust denial.
I was originally flabbergasted by your post, so I had to take a step back, mull it over, read it over a few more times, and hope it would help. I don't think it did...
First of all, definitely do not dox yourself, it won't really prove your point, because the issue isn't that I don't believe you. The issue is that for over 10 years we've been seeing an ever-escalating cycle of speech-controls coming from the left. Now, my memory is kinda sketchy, and I do tend to remember some thing better than others, but I simply do not recall you expressing that much of an issue over that. Now that the right retaliates with a fraction of the force the left was applying for over a decade, you call McCarthyism. This is the basic state of where we're at.
Now, in order to show me that you did actually have an issue with left-wing speech control, you bring up... cases from over two decades ago? How is that addressing my concerns? What I want to hear from you, and people from your side, is that if I burn political capital (such as it is) with my side in order to enforce a "free speech" rule for all, you'll do the same when your side starts transgressing, and won't just slink back under a rock, wait for it all to blow over, and call me a McCarthyist for not raising a finger in your side's defense once they're out of power again. I'm sorry, I'm already pushing 40, I don't have time to play Charlie Brown in political cycles that take decades to play out.
I'm also not sure what point you think you're making when you talk about citing "Exiting the Vampire Castle". You did it a whopping 4 times total, including this post, and it was always to litigate some point about chronology, and never to show a left-winger how they're doing leftism wrong.
Re. The international angle, various people in the US, most recently when explaining what Charlie Kirk was pushing back against, have talked about the climate of fear that wokestupid created in US universities and PMC workplaces.
Right, and your previous point was how this climate of fear prevents various critical sectors of society from doing it's job properly. I'd argue that norms like "don't make fun of victims of political assassinations" is far less harmful to the work of these sectors than norms like "don't talk about riots being ineffective at political persuasion", or "don't talk about the impossibility of men becoming women".
was worse for you than it was for us
I'm not an American, and don't live in America.
Fining people for teaching dogs the Roman salute is bad, but a lot more people want to make small donations to right-wing causes or say that there are only two sexes than teach the Roman salute to dogs.
You literally just arrested Graham Linehan for making fun of trans people. Your government arrests ~30 people per day, over tweets. This includes criticizing progressives for being too authoritarian by arranging their flag in creative ways
The UK courts have ruled explicitly that saying there are only two sexes is not a firing offence, and I’m not aware of a case where a British employer even tried to fire an employee over a normie-level political donation.
Yeah, the court has ruled so in response to Maya Forstater getting fired. The case had to go all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the ruling was extremely controversial. How did you end up thinking that this shows that the British workplace culture less censorious than the American one?
Wokestupid cancel culture created fear, anger, hate, division, and above all retardation which broke things I care about - and not because of the specifics of what was cancelled. The backlash to wokestupid got us Brexit and the Trump tariffs, which also broke things I care about.
Again, I've seen you talk a whole lot more about one than about the other.
aaa
2hr ago
I'm not going to make a comprehensive argument for the existence of God
Fair enough, I therefore remain convinced that you would not be able to starting from that definition of initial state.
You brought up Feser earlier, I wonder what you've read of him. Five Proofs of the Existence of God provides five chapter-length proofs
This one. He has both problems: he relies on a rejection of actual infinites and also on a (non-)definition of causation that does not have referents.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
2hr ago
Yeah the issue with police stand downs isn't the physical damage, it is the psychological damage. This might sound hyperbolic but it is unfortunately accurate - it works the same way terrorism works, utilising the spectacle of violence to achieve a political or ideological aim by manipulating the emotional state of a much larger audience. It creates deep insecurity and distrust in the general public on top of a general sense of unease and danger.
Can we have that conversation?
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