domain:nunosempere.com
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
4m ago
Secondly, slave holding interests arguably lost that election because of running John Breckenridge as a third party candidate instead of backing Stephen Douglas.
Interestingly, I don't think this is true. If you assume that a united Democratic Party keeps Douglas's votes + Brekenridge's + Bell's, Lincoln still wins the Electoral College (with 169/303 EVs instead of the 180 he got). The Lincoln vote is very efficient because he carries a lot of northern states by small margins over Douglas, and isn't on the ballot at all in the South so he doesn't waste votes in states he can't win.
For a united Democratic Party to win (presumably with Douglas as the nominee), they need to pick up some Lincoln votes as well - and that doesn't seem particularly likely. Looking at the states where Lincoln got just over 50%, Douglas would need to pick up NY, OH or IL and IN. We know that Lincoln outpolls Douglas in Illinois in a straight matchup (the Republicans won the popular vote in the 1858 Illinois state legislature elections following the Lincoln-Douglas debates, but the Democrats won more seats so Douglas was elected senator, and there was a further swing to the Republicans between 1858 and 1860).
The Southern secessionist narrative sure looks better in a scenario where Lincoln was elected President as a 40-60 popular vote loser!
MollieTheMare
6m ago
This is also part of his criticism of 1x1=1, in that it assumes axiomatically a rectilinear universe, which is not the way the actual universe exists.
It is possible to build up a thorough and comprehensive axiomatic theory starting from a geometry without the parallel postulate. But what's described here seems like an extremely painful, sloppy, and intentionally confusing usage of notation. Possibly just wrong, probably not even wrong.
In terms of foundational mathematics, building up from geometric definitions like crossing lines is an extremely cumbersome method of defining your axioms. Even if you do not insist on using intentionally confusing notation like 1x1=2. As you said, you immediacy run into annoyances in terms of defining basic things like the irrationals in sqrt(2).
If you wanted to make a serious attempt at analyzing alternatives to the conventional axiomatic assumptions, it would be much more clear to begin with variations on Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, with or without the axiom of choice and the continuum hypothesis. This would be a much more rigorous and clear way of showing how your systems produces a non-Peano arithmetic. If someone is unwilling to go through that work, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that they are producing anything interesting, correct, and non-trivial.
reality does not conform to our models
Though the foundational crisis may non be resolvable, the generally accepted formalism provides the necessary mathematical tools to do an extraordinarily good job of describing reality. If someone wants to propose a different formalism, it better provide a better or more useful description of reality. Saying that the current formalism does not perfectly describe reality so we should adopt a formalism that is less useful and more confusing, is pure nonsense.
To quote Hilbert (1927 The Foundations of Mathematics):
For this formula game is carried out according to certain definite rules, in which the technique of our thinking is expressed.
Laying out a formalism with overlapping but ill-defined versions of "spin" and "product," is not cleverness or some deep philosophical insight, it's an expression of sloppy thinking.
NullHypothesis
7m ago
In any case, it has some amusing implications. If a 100 IQ population can call an 85 IQ population animals, why should a 115 IQ population consider a 100 IQ population anything but? The line being drawn just below the median for Europeans is no more or less arbitrary than the line being drawn below Asians or Jews.
I know this is meant to show how absurd the position of race supremacists is but I don't think this a good rebuttal because the ability gap to do most things in life between a 100 IQ person and 85 IQ person is much greater than between a 100 IQ person and 115 IQ person. If you were to extend the gap by 30 to 70 vs 100 vs 130 IQ it becomes even more clear. 70 IQ people essentially cannot follow directions, to the point the US military deems them a liability. A 130 IQ person might be much more brilliant than a 100 IQ person but both would be able to navigate in society just fine.
I do agree with your conclusion that the line being drawn is arbitrary for the reasons you state in the previous paragraph. It's common to take a word with meaning and implications associated with it already and then redefine it. It feels like the far-right version of changing the definition of words like racism.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
14m ago
I think you are being a little disingenuous here, and here's why: you're essentially making the "strong HBD" argument, that blacks are fundamentally incapable of being civilized and no efforts to "uplift" them or bring them to anything approaching parity will work. There are a number of people here who will agree with you about that, but many who will not.
Essentially, you are saying "Given that blacks will always be violent, uncivilized savages, we can only segregate them, deport them, or let them destroy civilization." If we accept your given, this might be correct, but you are trying to skip right past any objections that don't accept your premise. That being the case, the people who "champion option 3," as you put it, are not actually championing that option and I think you know it. You may believe that this is the inevitable result of their attempts to integrate and coexist (because of your starting premise), and therefore they are tragically misguided and wrongheaded, but it's not accurate to accuse them of literally deciding "Yes, I think destroying society is good, actually."
do_something
18m ago
You have not given any sources at all either.
And which part of their argument was illogical?
And "slavery is our competed by not enslaved people for legitimate labour" does not mean that slaves are worthless. For start, some people are into torture and rape.
NullHypothesis
22m ago
More empirically: Jefferson famously tried to free his slaves on his death, but he couldn't afford it. The cost was too high. If slavery was really "on its way out" it seems odd that the price of slaves was still so high.
According to John Boles, a professor of history at Rice University:
When Jefferson’s father-in-law died, his wife inherited, which means Jefferson inherited, her father’s land and slaves, plus a lot of debt. He wasn’t able to get out from under that debt his entire life. A law was passed in Virginia in 1792 that said if a person was in debt, any slaves he might free could be seized by his debtors. So Jefferson was always under the cloud that he couldn’t free his slaves because they could be seized by his debtors.
Also, in 1806, a law was passed in Virginia that said if a person freed slaves, those slaves had to leave the state within one year or they’d be seized by the state [as slaves]. So Jefferson realized that even if he avoided that 1792 law about debt and freed his slaves, they had to be expelled. He didn’t have the means to buy animals or land or tools to set them up [in another state]. He felt hamstrung by that. He also had a lot of kin — children and grandchildren — whom he was supporting. At any one time, Jefferson was supporting 15–20 family members at Monticello.
Saying the costs are too high is technically correct but Jefferson's situation in particular has some details to consider that may make one consider what exactly that statement means. The laws around debt and Jefferson wanting to give his slaves a chance at life if he did free them by basically gifting them huge financial gifts made it economically unviable for him.
Is slavery profitable? Yes. Is it more profitable than willing workers engaging in a free market? That is the question. Opportunity cost is a thing.
sliders1234
23m ago
Opsec explanation seems fine to me. Yes if you liquidate your dollar account the world would be asking why are you doing that and assume it’s something like war.
That being said I am not sure Russia was capable of liquidating dollars even if they wanted to.
They could have gone to Goldman Sachs and told them here is $300 billion give me gold. They would move the price of gold significantly. Then they do war. Let’s say they win war. Now they want to use the gold to buy real things. Selling 300 billion of gold would drive the price down. A second issue is now the global market doesn’t like Russia. Trading in gold gets a negative reputation. Maybe Chile’s central bank wanted more gold but now gold is known as Russian money and buying gold helps bad people.
My point is I agree their is an opsec angle but de-dollarizing into something else is perhaps impossible but definitely not easy.
KMC
24m ago
Proving that 1*1=1 from first principles is very easy - natural-number mathematics defines 1 axiomatically as the multiplicative identity!
You don't prove axioms, you take them as a given. That's what makes them axioms.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
28m ago
Okay, look, this topic obviously incenses you, but while we welcome your contributions to the discussion and you are certainly allowed to take a contrary position, you are not allowed to put uncharitable words in other people's mouths. @FCfromSSC did not say he wants the US to be a white supremacist state with blacks as second class citizens, and if you want to claim that that is what he's really endorsing, you need to back it up with a lot more evidence, not just come in swinging because you assume everyone arguing with you is a white supremacist.
TIRM
30m ago
Yes. And the real life version of that cartoon is Barry Deutsch telling his doctor about health problems caused by his enormous fatness and then not liking his doctor correctly blaming his weight.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
34m ago
You can disagree politely, or you can be a snide, sarcastic jerk. You chose the latter. Don't do that.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
35m ago
More empirically: Jefferson famously tried to free his slaves on his death, but he couldn't afford it. The cost was too high. If slavery was really "on its way out" it seems odd that the price of slaves was still so high.
Do you have a source for that? Jefferson talked a lot about freeing his slaves during his lifetime, but he didn't because he couldn't have afforded to run his estate without slave labor, and he wasn't willing to downgrade his lifestyle. He freed a handful in his will, but not most of them. Freeing your slaves upon your death was fairly straightforward, and the only "cost" would have been the fact that your heirs would have to figure out how to keep their estate running without slaves.
George Washington did free his slaves in his will, but he complicated it by stating they would be free upon the death of his wife. Martha Washington, surrounded by slaves who made it rather obvious that they were waiting for her to pass away peacefully in her sleep (or, you know, fall down some stairs or something...) freed them in her lifetime.
4bpp
このMOLOCHだ！
39m ago
Well, what is the upper bound of ideological difference that you are willing to tolerate from a trading partner? Russia is one matter in which the US is still lucky to have a great number of affluent nations sharing its majority perspective; China is frankly a wash; and on the topic of Israel, you might find yourself actually having the opposite perception on who is genociding whom from all but a small handful. It's all well if you say you will reject the sinful outside world and stay in your righteous bubble, but nations trade with each other because it's advantageous for them - moral righteousness does not on its own beget food, science or missiles, and at least the hypothetical extreme case of an isolated America-Israel alliance shunning everyone else as genocide abetters vs. the rest of the world trading freely with each other even as there are occasional local scuffles would probably not develop in the favour of the US in the long term even considering its geographical and human capital advantages.
srid
44m ago
Honestly I wish you could turn feelings off. I dislike feeling envy, anger, hate, despair etc.
What about the "good" feelings though?
You can't turn off your aforementioned "bad" feelings because they are inextricably linked to the "good" feelings. For eg., hate is linked to love. Which is why, Richard advices minimizing both the good & the bad feelings, while maximizing the felicitous & innocuous ones. Then, you will eventually have a PCE, wherein the feelings are in abeyance.
jeroboam
47m ago
T-Bills did not lose any money.
T-bills never "lose" any money. If you hold to maturity you will get paid... in dollars. But tell that to the people who bought 100-year Australian bonds that are now trading 96% under what they paid for them. A promise to pay in 2050 dollars is worth only as much as the buying power of those dollars. In this case, probably not much.
If I have $20 of Jeroboam’s money in my pocket. And you Jeroboam punched me in the face he shouldn’t be surprised when I don’t give him his money back. Seems rational.
But it's also rational when the other kids on the playground wonder "Why, exactly, does this other kid have MY money in HIS pocket. Let me ask for it back."
No accounting for a risks free asset versus a hunk of metal that only has value if someone else values it. Gold is a Ponzi scheme depending on a new sucker getting talked into owning gold. The Dollar is not a Ponzi scheme. People have to use it and if they don’t use it a military takes them and puts them in jail.
The dollar is a medium of exchange. And yes, we are mostly forced by the government to use it. But, like gold, it doesn't have intrinsic value. If the supply of dollars is increased, their value goes down. That why treasuries are not a risk-free asset. It's true that you will get paid back. In dollars. But there's no guarantee how many goods and services you can buy for those dollars.
He's talking about feeling defensive (which arises due to the feeling of loyalty to some deeply-held belief or passion), not physical defence.
As for physical defence, this anecdote might be of interest:
RICHARD: Perhaps a personal anecdote will throw some light upon the subject of being fully engaged: some years ago whilst in a supermarket my wife and I had a pack stolen from the shopping trolley we were using when our backs were turned; I saw a young man disappearing along the aisle with our pack and on out through the turnstile; I went off after him at a brisk pace, negotiated the turnstile easily, and moved out through the self-opening doors; there was an ornamental garden between me and the car-park wherein off in the distance the young man could be seen heading away; I cleared the garden in one leap – seeing each and every plant and flower in detail as I sailed over it – and soon caught up to him as, glancing over his shoulder and seeing me coming, he headed for a crowded mall to the left ... and eventually regained the pack without a fight or even any display of intimidation. Upon returning to the supermarket I passed by the garden, through the pathway provided, and noticed by its width that I would not ordinarily be able to leap over it ... necessity provides all the calorific energy required.
He was a big, muscular young man such that I would not wish to enter into a ring with as I would be bound to come off second-best in any such organised sport. He knew that he had crossed the line in regards to the legal laws and social protocol and fully expected to pay the price for his actions ... his bluff and bluster collapsed like a leaky balloon when confronted in the mall with the straightforward request for the return of property not belonging to him.
Interestingly enough I was not even breathing heavily.
Throwaway05
50m ago
Check it out. Totally is a debate as to if it's real or not (although the FDA and mainstream thought leans on yes with qualification) HOWEVER, IIRC it's just for Peds (so the common apathy narrative is less applicable), it seems small, and it's just a risk for SI not completion.
Standard of care is still to counsel for everybody just in case.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
54m ago
Don’t you live in Japan? They’ve got symphony orchestras in every major Japanese city as well, and my understanding is that tickets are not particularly expensive. Why not go attend a concert?
It's kind of a weird standoff. They build all the stuff that we need. In exchange, we give them ... a place to dump their overproduction.
But somehow it does seem to work. China would probably face severe disruptions if their plastic vomit factories had to close overnight.
BahRamYou
58m ago
LOL i love the way you phrased this. As an Expat American it's incredibly annoying that my home country is still stuck on SMS messaging, and they just take that as a default ("texting") to where it's hard to even describe anything else to my friends back home.
By the end of the decade it had already boomed to a price similar to what it is now, like $2000 an ounce.
Not quite. Gold very briefly spiked in 1980. It reached a high of $843 for a single day. It's true that if you somehow managed to top-tick this speculative bubble, you'd have performed poorly.
The returns for most periods after 1971 look decent.
It's (ironically) not really a long-term, buy-and-hold investment, but something that can maybe save you during a big market crash but can just easily tank.
It's actually a wonderful buy and hold investment. What it isn't is a low-volatility investment. And it's pro-cyclical so it almost certainly won't save you during a market crash either. Gold is best as a hedge against a period of high inflation when other assets perform poorly.
Incidentally- treasuries right now have a great interest rate and are still rock-solid safe. This might be the time to just park your money in bonds.
5% is not great by historical measures, but I agree the Fed is likely to lower rates in the next 2 years which might make long-term treasuries a decent investment in the short run. If they lower rates, the new bonds at 2% or whatever will be terrible investments. But you will get paid back. In dollars.
2rafa
1hr ago
I will refrain from creating mod drama but the comment was clearly against the spirit of the rules, which are opposed to needlessly inflammatory or grossly offensive language in the interests of civility. This was enforced even during the emotion around the BLM protests, so I think it can be enforced now.
As regards the sentiment itself it has always seemed to me to be a very poor hill for white supremacists to die on. If chihuahuas and pit bulls and border collies are the same species, surely the different phenotypes of humans are too. Commonly held animals made up of several species (like Elephants) have major physical differences, separated many millions of years ago, and cannot breed successfully (only one Asian/African elephant hybrid was ever born despite them being held together in zoos for centuries, and it died after a couple of days). Human populations can all have children together.
In any case, it has some amusing implications. If a 100 IQ population can call an 85 IQ population animals, why should a 115 IQ population consider a 100 IQ population anything but? The line being drawn just below the median for Europeans is no more or less arbitrary than the line being drawn below Asians or Jews.
This forum is much better without arguments that belong on message boards with swastikas in the sidebar next to links to buy siege from the e-commerce shop.
Competence porn as mentioned in another post. But another part is they introduce interesting characters and locations without diving too deep or the author expecting you to get invested in them.
The Brits have a phrase, “overly personal” for getting too deep in someone else life story. Sometimes I want to enjoy a colorful cast without a therapeutic analysis.
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