domain:thezvi.wordpress.com
nopie
16m ago
I think nothing is more important than economy. People talk about different values and in that sense we need more than economy, for example, democracy and pure air (ecology). But economy is a central thing that allows the country to thrive because everything is based on it. It is just that historically the growth was non-existent (0.01% per year) therefore not many past thinkers have mentioned it in the list of good values. We need to add this to the constitution of every country that achieving growth is very important.
Might be a fun experiment: any advice on rounding out my collection? This is what I have now
- Serge Lutens Ecrin de fumee. It’s very warm spicy, tobacco, sweet. Usually saving it for winter months
- Comme de Garçon Avignon. I have no idea what I thought when I bought it. It smells like church. I love the smell but I can’t really wear it without being self conscious, so it just sits there. My instinct is to dress up with it
- Mancera Red Tobacco. I think it’s warm, but like fresh-warm, almost herbal, which doesn’t really make sense. That’s my summer and spring go-to and I love it.
I also took a note to smell all of your recommendations some time
Themotte has a sizeable presence on twitter.
mrvanillasky
1hr ago
It mostly relates to acquistion of power, so if you can send tanks to harvard, you have likely already won, therefore any violence now is not gonna get you screwed over. Simialr to protests, protests are a way of showing your power, not acquiring it.
BahRamYou
1hr ago
Many of the Epstein victims admit they did it voluntarily for money, but you can't say that because it gets in the way of the narrative of helpless proles victimized by evil sex-trafficking finance guys.*
Por que no los dos? It's true that most of the victims were offered money to step on a plane, not forcibly kidnapped. But they were also psychologically manipulated and placed in a strange circumstance way outside anything the expected or had ever experienced. Being teenagers, maybe they thought they could handle it but then the reality was very different than they expected.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1hr ago
Yes. It doesn't really address this.
It also explains why this plot wasn't uncovered: because there are like, three people that would have to know about it, not even including Epstein's lawyers. Epstein could have just made up a sob-story and convinced a correctional officer to look the other way himself, or promised the officer his lawyers would pay them after the fact, and then didn't, because arranging that would be more complicated and time consuming.
What kind of sob story gets you to erase video evidence and bring down a huge shitstorm on yourself with a high profile prisoner? 'Bro I'll totally pay you after you've done this insanely illegal thing'?
TheLoser
1hr ago
You are afraid I'd be okay with exposing children to bestiality; I am afraid you'd like to censor anything that would raise a maiden aunt's eyebrows in 1890. You're right that this is where the battlefield is, however much I personally find Gender Queer offputting (and inappropriate for pre-teens).
I actually agree with you on this. It seems that, if I'm interpreting @BreakerofHorsesandMen correctly, anything outside of the most saccharine, banal works would be banned. Does description of child abuse warrant censure? How about descriptions of warfare or violence? Where does the line stop exactly? It seems that trying to ban things based off on their "appropriateness" to different age ranges is an inherently moral/political question.
Likewise, your arguments are toothless to me, because I don't know anyone who turned into a degenerate because they read spicy genre fiction as a kid.
However, I have to disagree with you here. It's well documented that watching too much porn can induce transsexuality or autogynephilia at least. I'd also argue that in terms of how well slippery-scope applies, sexuality is one context in which it best applies. Reading spicy genre fiction can easily lead to reading more hardcore fiction, which can in turn lead to joining adjacent online circles/forums/tumblrs that if not encourage, at least implicitly validate non-standard sexual behaviors and identities. Just see cracking-the-egg in trans spaces, or the public and shameless speculation on and encouragement for identifying as gay for anyone who even seems to be gay; see the anger when it comes to "queer-baiting".
Really, I believe the above is the crux of the argument. On one side, you have people who rightly believe that these works of art encourage or at least lower the activation energy of acceptance, so to speak, for sexual identities and behaviors that they perceive to be disordered or morally incorrect. On the other side, you have people who believe that not only are those sexual identifies and behaviors not disordered or morally incorrect, but should actively be accepted and encouraged in society; so, those works of art that can help to either cause people to tolerate those sexual identities or incorporate them into their person should be, in their view, not only permitted, but disseminated.
In Thomas Sowell terms, it's a conflict of visions.
I'd argue that you could actually make an empirical decision on which specific sexual identities are disordered or not based on empirical material outcomes, but that's beyond the scope of this comment.
GBRK
1hr ago
Then I guess NYC will just have to resort to universal tolls paired with a rebate to new yorkers specifically.
Gaashk
1hr ago
My sense is that all of the university teaching programs have been captured by folks who teach all the new teachers that the most important part of being a teacher is being an activist.
My sense is not that, based on acquiring an education degree and teaching in public schools for quite some time. The trainings lately are so anodyne they are actually contentless -- like to the point of having the ice breaker take up literally the entire training time. For hours if necessary. "Have you heard about the iceberg? Let's talk about your Meyers-Briggs type and your own set of lenses for a few hours."
My sense is more that the teachers lately are very low on autonomy, mastery, and purpose in respect to their main job duties, and some of them have a savior complex which comes out in things like that, or filing false abuse claims against families they don't like.
HalloweenSnarry
1hr ago
But allowing tariffs destroying economy? That is borderline to treason against the USA.
Is the economy that central to the American nation? I understand that market freedom has been an important component of our political strength, but at the same time, this feels like preparing for the last Cold War right as we are in the midst of a new one.
Goodguy
2hr ago
Either there is no super-powerful deep state or they're ok with Trump. If there was a super-powerful deep state that disliked Trump, Trump would have been killed years ago. I mean actually killed, not just a couple of close calls.
Goodguy
2hr ago
I actually suspect that the vast majority of ordinary adults who have sex with minors get away with it. There are probably thousands of such encounters happening every day. There are millions of guys, after all, who do not sit around pondering the risks of having sex with women who might turn out to be slightly underage. They just see someone who looks hot, fuck them, and if they worry about the consequences it's only afterward. Women also sometimes lie about their ages. You might have had sex with a minor and not even be aware of it. I am pretty sure that the majority of the time, no legal consequences ensue from such encounters.
Goodguy
2hr ago
I seem to remember that Epstein and/or Maxwell were also accused of taking away at least one girl's passport to trap her. Which is more than just prostitution.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2hr ago
China is fine with nation-wise oppression of minorities. They have no issues with oppression of Muslims in China, Hindus in Pakistan or the Chinese in Malaysia.
Second, the Muslim identity is primarily an Arab identity. East-Asian and great-lake-African muslims are oppressed all the time, and global Islam does not care. (note: North African islam is not the same as Subsaharan islam). These are the Muslims that matter to other muslims.
Do they just think they own Pakistan as a counterweight to India
Yes. It's less friends, and more that Pakistan is a client state of China. Pakistan is Turtle to China's Vince.
and Pakistan is happy to be owned?
No, but what option do they (Pakistani Army) have ? IMF isn't giving new loans anymore. Even the Saudis stopped giving freebees. Big daddy China is all that's left. Anything to be in opposition to India.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
2hr ago
Did you read the link?
MathWizard
Good things are good
2hr ago
I don't believe Minecraft dungeons does this (without mods?) but I have seen games that let you have two layers of armor: a mechanical one that's actually officially equipped, and a fashion one that determines your appearance. So you can have the best of both (and I think to incentivize players to buy fancy cosmetic armor with real money). I don't remember what game(s) this was, I think I've seen it more than once but not very often.
anon_
3hr ago
In that sense, I don't think it's a rehash of the sanctuary cities argument, not least because that entire debate was far larger than just "avoid the courthouses".
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3hr ago
Biden was a replacement level president, who left the running of government to his appointees, to a probably illegal extent. Biden remembering things didn't matter.
Trump routes everything through himself. Leaving things to his appointees would be total chaos.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3hr ago
If anyone who is right-leaning engages with violent methods, people will make an example out of him
Does that include Trump sending in the Marines? Or a future President Vance rolling tanks into Harvard yard a la Yarvin?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3hr ago
while the right polishes their gun collection muttering "one of these days, for sure..."
Yes, which is why I'm not calling for rebellion, but a Caesar sending soldiers as "right-wing death squads" to purge the domestic enemy.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
4hr ago
But billionaires get open license for underage pussy because they're rich? No, they should face the same crushing punishments inflicted on ordinary people who have sex with underage women, regardless of whatever ameliorating circumstances there are.
Absolutely. There's really no excuse for it. Billionaires can afford to employ a 'fixer' to get them whatever they desire (presuming what they desire isn't something explicitly underage). It's not difficult to do a background check to confirm all the girls are 18+, check them for discretion, make them sign NDA's etc.
I will agree that finding and employing a trustworthy fixer is something that would likely take time and effort though.
Furthermore, Epstein committing 'suicide' in the anti-suicide ward while the cameras were conveniently switched off is clear proof of some kind of paedophile-sex ring deeply embedded in the US government. The Q people were directionally correct.
It was blatant. As soon as cameras malfunction in a prison a tech is called out. High priority camera feeds are constantly monitored by people in a prison's control room on a monitor wall. A camera that is used for suicide watches malfunctioning is not something that can happen unnoticed. If a camera or NVR (recording server) malfunctions, a large blatantly clear alert pops up on the security management system. Most systems, especially those in prisons, have a redundant recording server so there are two copies of the video feeds.
I don't know how they got all the prison guards to shut up about it though. It would have been an expensive and high risk operation to shut so many mouths.
I also don't know if it was a paedophile ring, but Epstein clearly knew something that someone powerful didn't want getting out and that someone tied up loose ends. It must have been very important to them to make such a blatant move that clearly erodes so many peoples' trust in the justice system.
Mantergeistmann
4hr ago
As I said, not seeking to help his case, merely indulging my inner pedant.
"Your honor, my client could not have committed this robbery, as he was clearly seen committing wire fraud elsewhere at the time".
DiscourseMagnus
4hr ago
I have the general impression that the "enhanced social bonding" of alcohol is just the same sort of euphemism that people use to justify the use of cannabis.
We are totally dependent on global trade. That is a good thing, makes us all better off. People who worry about that don't understand this point and also don't have an alternative except start producing everything locally, which means that we become poor again.
The world is worried about China exerting its military power, therefore China needs to be restricted somehow. The good idea would be to make a block against China, remove any tariffs between countries except China and put sanctions and tariffs on China.
But punishing countries for trading with the US makes no sense. It strengthens China's position. Trump policy was so absurd that currently many countries have already given up and believe that this will be China's century. We hope the US will change its mind but we never know.
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