domain:felipec.substack.com
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
5m ago
I think claims about general tendencies in this forum should at least be furnished with some examples of the beliefs you claim to be widespread, if you can't provide quantitative data. Otherwise, well, what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
(Even the most expansive bailey I recall seeing around here, implicitly or explicitly, on this topic amounts to "always assume group differences in outcomes are fully innate, and refuse to acknowledge the possibility of racism in legislation, jurisprudence or social engineering programming", which is still a far cry from anything that amounts to using racial background as a means of organising society (like Apartheid South Africa, Israel or like Progressive America?).)
What "reasoning" do you see in that quotation?
Because the obvious retort is "those are the Guatemalans you see". I'm pretty educated by my home country's standards (granted, in many ways I'm more low agency than many of my less fortunate cousins who couldn't afford a Western education) but it'd be a pretty bad idea to assume everyone is like me (or them). Plenty of people do lay about or become bumsters. The fact that educated Westerners who would turn me into a model minority figure don't see them is irrelevant.
I have a huge amount of experience working with animals (both wild and domesticated). Slaughtered quite a few head of livestock by hand in my back yard today, as it happens, which I do about once a week. So I have a lot of thoughts here -- but the main thing I want to suggest to you is that cruelty toward animals is irreverent toward the Creator.
Yes, the chain of being is real and man's place is that of dominion over all other animals and more besides. How then shall we conduct ourselves?
FWIW I completely endorse your perspective on the rat and the kitten, though I don't expect most others to get it. Even learning to kill animals well requires botching the process rather a lot of times.
Even so, not giving a crap is contraindicated. I doubt you've had much occasion for (or inclination toward) abuse but it never hurts to bear in mind that one will someday stand before the dread judgment seat of Christ.
UwU
19m ago
Not a vegan but it seems internally consistent. Yeast are indeed living things, just like plants! Since vegans haven't quite figured out how to photosynthesize yet, they still need to eat living things to not starve. Yeast is just acceptable casualties.
and you have been arguing that because the "forseen unintended" case is ok, the "forseen intended" case is too.
Can you explain to me where? The forseen intended case of what? I'm worried that you're ascribing to myself a moral belief I do not hold, something like, "Sex is solely for babies" or something like that.
Let me make an analogy:
The point (telos if we're getting fancy) of a gun is to fire small ballistics.
The point of genitals is to have sexual intercourse.
The reason why firing small ballistics has large moral interest is due to its relation to killing people.
The reason why sexual intercourse has large moral interest is due to its relation to making human life.
Guns were made for the purpose of killing people.
Sexual intercourse exists evolutionaryily for the purpose of having babies.
Firing a gun can be done intentionally to kill people and for target practice/sport, etc.
Sexual intercourse can be done for making babies and for pair bonding and pleasure (for example, post menopause or when the woman is already pregnant.)
Using a gun for a reason other than to shoot ballistic missiles is suspect, because that's not what it's there for. Imagine someone trying to use a gun as a utensil, or to fire a wad of chewed bubblegum. It's weird and not quite right. Maybe not immoral, because a gun is just a human artificat made my humans to carry out our will. But it's weird, isn't it?
And perhaps if the gun was made by hand by someone who wanted a work of art at firing ballistics, the maker would weep to see the person they sold it to using it as a prop to keep up their wobbly chair. The maker wouldn't necessarily be upset to see the gun in a holster or on a wall, or to find out it never killed anybody. But they would be upset to find out someone poured maple syrup down the barrel.
Using genitals for reasons that do not end with sexual intercourse is suspect because that's just not what they are there for. The disconnect between a Catholic and some others is that non-Catholics might think of their bodies as their own, like in the sense of an artificat. It's another thing the nebulous "you" can manipulate. Catholics don't see our bodies as artifacts. They are something given to us, the physical expression of our eternal souls, and we can make our creator weep with what we do with ourselves.
If you're wearing a condom, you aren't having sexual intercourse in the sense a Catholic defines it. The penis is not ejaculating in a vagina. It's more like a kind of mutual masturbation. Please notice that I have not once argued that contraceptives are wrong because it avoids conception or that there is anything wrong about intending to avoid conception.
That said, I don't think the Catholic position on sexual morality will necessarily make sense to outsiders, in the sense most will feel they will feel the need to bind their consciences to it. As weird as it is, I have seen more than one person convert specifically because they felt the Catholics were correct on sex so strongly that the Church couldn't help but be correct in other things - but this is not the common path. Most people need to accept the Catholic claim on other things before accepting this one.
But man I wish we had more liberals/libertarians posting here.
Sure, but most of us aren't filtering that through 7000 levels of irony and then getting butthurt about it being perceived as pointlessly-hostile nonsense.
The problem is that [too much acknowledgement of] HBD is just as destructive to classical liberalism as it is to progressivism for reasons that should be obvious- once you start treating HBD as prescriptive rather than descriptive then there's no reason to be anything but a hardcore turbo-trad. If your political philosophy suggests society should maximize its "gain" from realizing HBD is true and immediately go full Apartheid, then you prevent those with [the characteristic that predicts poor performance] but perform well anyway from properly developing[1].
This is OK for traditionalist societies in which one Knows Their Place(tm)[2], but there's only one way to compromise such that differences are sanded down over time, and that's by giving them more freedom then their characteristics suggest in the chance that, when members of that group beat the average, we enable both a eugenic effect and more effective suggestion that the HBD-disadvantaged group better assimilates. (Whether those things have worked is an exercise for the reader- I assert that they have, that what is left at the bottom probably can't be fixed, and that it is unfortunate that they look that way but our ruthless market system will pay them what they're worth backstopped by our infinite greed above all other moral principles.)
Since the entire conceit of liberalism is that good performers who are worthy of unrestricted freedom shouldn't be held back by bad performers who are not[3] (and those negative consequences of excess freedom correctly fall on the virtueless, which is the fundamental problem trads and progs have with liberalism since charity for those people isn't mandated), we can understand it, but we can't really do anything about it other than offer our velvet glove before we give 'em the iron fist.
That does mean HBD predicts those most likely to get the iron fist are going to be [characteristic predicting poor performance], which means we can have the potential blind spot of confusing [characteristic predicting poor performance] with [poor performance], and the fact we know that means we're vulnerable to the bad-faith rent-seeking my outgroup defines itself by having the right to do because Muh Oppression or whatever.
[1] And now you know why otherwise high-potential modern teenagers and early twentysomethings are so fucked up- arresting development like this has serious group-level long-term consequences, but we pretend it's OK because "at least it's not HBD".
[2] Knowing One's Place is not unique to Traditionalists; after all, Progressives have the same stack vocabulary, they just put themselves on top of it axiomatically, where with the Traditionalists they at least have the notion (albeit as unenforceable as the liberal claim that charity will fix the problems) that those on top are to perform like they're at the top.
[3] And note that liberalism doesn't inherently conflict with HBD categories from being imposed; you can still have a liberal slave-owning society, or one with limited franchise for certain groups, and nearly every place with a tradition of liberalism has been this way at some point. This is another weakness liberals have to progressives, since progressives will argue using liberal aesthetic but will destroy all protections for high performers in the process if left unchecked.
09milk
35m ago
utilitarian suffering min-maxing which leads to crazy conclusions like those mentioned above (banning pets, GMOing predators to herbivores, being concerned about exploiting earthworm labor).
Is this actaully utilitarian if they are not minimizing the suffering by compromise? In my opinion, what they and the boarder progressive are doing seems to be closer to deontologist
As an utilitarian, one should optimize for the result and use whatever means to achieve it, while the end justifies the means, it also unjustifies the means if the end is nothing to show for
aqouta
38m ago
Anyone remember that whole "HBD" thing? You don't hear much about it anymore.
I mean we won huge battles in the fight against affirmative action and knocked the woke racial identarians off their game in a lot of areas. It being discussed less fits squarely in the hypothesis that most of us HBD people weren't actually white nationalists but simply what we've been telling you we are, people who prefer race blindness if they're allowed to have it. Yes, white nationalists continue to exist and they will continue to make white nationalist noises, not really sure why that should matter when discussing HBD.
thejdizzler
39m ago
They have about as much sense perception as a tree: their single sensory nerve is to open and close the valve that allows them to filter feed. Nutritionally they fill a gap in my diet (Taurine, Iron, Omega-3s, B12), and I live in Maryland so they're cheap and tasty
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
40m ago
It's an end to affirmative action, not establishing a racial caste system.
Right. The more cynical HBDer will note that the racial caste system establishes itself as a result of HBD... even given heroic efforts to suppress it.
TheDemonRazgriz
45m ago
many vegans wouldn't consider me vegan because I eat oysters and honey
I can see how honey is at least arguably vegan-compatible, but why oysters? I guess they’re not exactly intelligent but they have nerves and such. Sincerely curious, if you’d care to elaborate.
By extension wether a man is black or white must matter more than whether they are an aged Supreme Court Judge or a Twenty-something meth head.
Maybe. I saw some stats on the Trump 2016 election, and the survey showed that being Black was a better predictor of presidential vote than being
ulyssessword
49m ago
Nice strawman. But even the most hardcore HBD believers would accept that the worst whites are likely worse in some aspects than the best non-whites.
Ethnonationalists are (often) also HBD believers, and they say that the important aspect of a person is their race, full stop. You could point to higher intelligence, longer life, better health, or lower criminality among other ethnic groups, but that still wouldn't convince them that someone from another race is better in the ways that matter because that's not what they're judging people on.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
50m ago
I think, no matter what, there will need to be someone who is held accountable for the actions of AI. A human who can be jailed, fined, or fired if something goes wrong. But will that person be in a position to actually tell if the AI is producing bad product if they never gained the "on-the -ground" skills that people earn through practice?
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
51m ago
would prefer if you just spoke directly.
Do you think there is any utility at all to marriage, for a billionaire?
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
56m ago
I was recently discussing why are foods including yeast ok with vegans but honey is not? Yeast are living things and we either stick them in bottles of their own waste until they shut down or cook them alive and there are many many more of them than anything else we use to prepare food.
OliveTapenade
59m ago
This is pretty much my take on 'HBD' or what I might term the 'neo-racialists'. It is no doubt true that there's genetic variation, on the population level, across the human race, and these variations to some extent correlate with racial categories. I can't really argue with that. However, the HBDers routinely outrun that observation and draw massive, sweeping conclusions about the desirability of using race as a proxy for a huge number of other issues, and therefore organising society, or even treating individuals, on the basis of race. The whole thing is just a motte and bailey.
hanikrummihundursvin
1hr ago
I made a very simple argument relating to a very simple thing and you've been spilling verbiage to get at something that's not that. The rudeness of my language only exists in relation to your condescending tone and asinine word games.
It's not courteous to twist words, walk past context and argue for the sake of arguing. I've explicitly stated what I was saying and why. If you want to argue for whatever it is your view on marriage is, go ahead. But, like I said in a previous comment, I don't know why you are arguing about it with me and would prefer if you just spoke directly.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
1hr ago
Interesting. Maybe? Idk I don't know that liberalism is the default view around here. Perhaps 'liberalism if they agree that Christian values are the correct values for their individual flourishing.'
aqouta
1hr ago
The Bailey is that the existence of such differences makes racial background the "scientifically correct" means of organizing a society and a key peice of information to be considered when evaluating the individual performance or value of any given person within it.
People who question the Bailey are routinely downvoted to hell and back while being derided as "blank slatists" "denying reality" and having "crippled thinking", yet even if "the motte" is true, its not clear to me that "the baily" follows naturally from this unless someone is already drowning in the woke kool-aid.
We must be reading totally different threads. Every time the topic comes up it's people defending what you're calling the motte from blank slatists. Not to consensus build, as I'm sure we have people who cynically want to live in the bailey, but it really seems like the modal motte opinion on the topic is that HBD is obviously real is a large part of various outcome gaps and what should be done about it is to stop trying to overturn every inch of society for a racism of the gaps. It's an end to affirmative action, not establishing a racial caste system.
OliveTapenade
1hr ago
But the problem with basing a theory on a hypothetical is that it feels like wishing, the infamous 'my ideology will be the one to arise from the ashes'. Trying to predict the world after an epoch-changing event is like trying to look inside or beyond a singularity.
Well, I think it's reasonable to take a position like, "the current order cannot or will not hold, massive changes are likely to come, therefore I/we should try to be resilient for now while being flexible to changing possibilities". If the political order is likely to radically change, in ways you cannot predict but which change the space of what's possible, then it makes sense to avoid investing too much in the current order while remaining open to the winds of change.
That said, oops, I had assumed you were American. Presumably you would need to adapt your specific concerns to your particular country.
Thank you for the serious answer, though. I appreciate it.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
1hr ago
Liberalism (meaning, not socialism and not hard right) is the dominant position here, and pretty much everywhere else too. Libertarianism is also popular here.
You were probably looking for a term like “progressive” or “woke” instead of “liberal”.
thejdizzler
1hr ago
As perhaps one of the few resident vegans (although many vegans wouldn't consider me vegan because I eat oysters and honey) on this forum, I think this stuff is insane and is why we've had little to no progress in growing the movement or in meaningfully reducing animal suffering that we cause. Things like animal welfare restrictions that make factory farms impractical are broadly popular (although would require people to eat less meat). Nope, instead we have to focus on utilitarian suffering min-maxing which leads to crazy conclusions like those mentioned above (banning pets, GMOing predators to herbivores, being concerned about exploiting earthworm labor).
I still have an intuitive belief in a lot of what veganism stands for. I don't like how animals are treated, even on non-factory farms, and I don't like the idea of killing a conscious being for what basically amounts to taste pleasure. Yet as a movement, or at least how it's practiced right now, veganism can never work. Nutritionally it's become clear to me that eating shellfish/fish is straight better than being on a strict vegan diet. Ethically, the emphasis on not eating/exploiting kingdom Animalia, when things like oysters have just as little sense perception as plants makes no sense, not to mention the failure to admit that there are gradations of intelligence/sense perception that should cause us to feel differently about cephalopod or mammalian suffering say, compared to that of arthropods. Practically, people don't like being scolded, and that's what a lot of vegans end up doing when it comes time to do activism. You can prevent a lot more animal suffering by teaching all your friends to cook more plant-rich meals than by converting one person to veganism and alienating everyone else.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
1hr ago
Eh, I understand why you had to do it. But man I wish we had more liberals/libertarians posting here. Mister Turok is pretty salty but still. A boy can dream.
It's getting slightly more popular but I think that's wholly because the gays have either abandoned their movement or refused to Sistah Soulja the trans side.
If they totally surrendered today and treated trans like NAMBLA...maybe Republicans would rebound. But I don't know that they have it in them so who knows where the negative polarization bottoms out?
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