100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
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User ID: 2039
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4mo ago
So, I'm not talking about earmark at all. Try to be less stupid.
Here's a CRS report on NIH funding for instance
To the basically literate eye, one would find a table with the following budget authorities:
Institutes/Centers
Cancer Institute (NCI) Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Dental/Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) Diabetes/Digestive/Kidney (NIDDK) Neurological Disorders/Stroke (NINDS) Allergy/Infectious Diseases (NIAID) General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Child Health/Human Development (NICHD) National Eye Institute (NEI) Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
Those aren't the only ones. There are more, but it's easy enough to understand the breakdown.
Moving money from NCI to NIGMS, for instance, would require congressional approval. How money within NIGMS is spent is more discretionary, sure. But your contention is either a deliberate misunderstanding of my original outline of the problem, or a weird semantic gotcha. Either way, it betrays a profound level of ignorance (intentional or otherwise) of how Congressional appropriations work. But I repeat myself. Your use of the term "earmark" in a wildly inappropriate manner betrays you.
The result of this is grant applications for this money have to include some section about how their research is related to study of cancer, and this is enough for it to qualify.
Fraud is generally not covered by Congressional appropriations.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
Complaining about how other people think is dehumanizing?
Welcome to the Motte!
Can you offer more here than a basic "nuh-uh, YOU'RE stupid!" as a response? I'm willing to hear rebuttals to my evaluation of Sales style thinking, but I don't see much content in your reply.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
11mo ago
This is low effort and antagonistic enough that I considered reporting it for a moment. I am, however, generally opposed to reporting (there have been some exceptions).
Can I invite you to explain what you mean here in more detail?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3mo ago
Quoting a quote is fucking stupid, retard.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1yr ago
"Which is more important in an internal combustion engine? Oxygen or the flammable substance?"
It's diet and exercise. You have to have both. Together.
These pills won't make people healthier. They will make people feel better about themselves. They aren't weight loss drugs, they're NextGen antidepressants. Metabolic syndrome often does not present as visible obesity. Major stomach and liver issues can go undetected for years. People will start taking these drugs and remain at a lower body weight. Then, one day, they die suddenly and any autopsy performed with reveal superfluous amounts of visceral fat, a leaking stomach, and a liver close to non-function.
Physical fitness is, among many other things, an information feedback loop. If you are in bad shape, you have been making poor health decisions. Sometimes, this can be unavoidable (late nights during crunch time at work or school, what have you). But, mostly, it's a clear indication that you're making poor, poor choices. Using something that covers up the effects of these choices does nothing to alter that decision process. I'd wager that habitual users of Wegovy etc. probably will also habitually (ab)use other substances - alcohol, narcotics, sugar, social media. This is not a road to health.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
10d ago
The fact that a bullshit e-commerce company that profits off of male insecurity took the time to say "bald is sexy" makes me seriously question your unsubstantiated assertion.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4mo ago
Did you intend to offer a serious reply, or just use my comment as a way to jerk the spotlight towards yourself?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
touchy-feely-schmoozy-douchey sort of interaction that salespeople are pros at
Can you just ... try harder? There's no content here. Again, I'm all ears for a meaningful counterpoint, rebuttal, whatever. There are at least two or three already in this thread. Right now, you're saying "nah, salesmen suck" and leaving it at that.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
Excellent. AAQC'd
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
10mo ago
I find your post to be low content, low effort, and mostly a screed against your preferred outgroups. I do not see how it adds anything of substance to this conversation.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
but she's truly the most insightful person I've ever known
She's probably not. Because she isn't old enough.
Don't take this as me saying she isn't insightful. I take you at your word. But she's not the most insightful person you've ever known. Ask if if she is. She'll say she isn't. Take her at her word.
And then realize that if you still deny reality and message to her that you think she's the most insightful person you've ever known, she'll slowly start to question your reasonable judgement of other things.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
I don’t think you’re really grappling with the question of what it even means to say that such a life “matters.”
What if the existence of that child - just its existence, no concern for it's "productivity" - brings unquantifiable joy to its parents?
Do you know how many people I know? Less than most of them. Like, I might now a couple hundred people. Most of human productivity is completely disconnected and alien to me. Sure, you can make the argument about the man downtown who puts peaches in a can that I then enjoy, but that's a very transactional exchange of value. And zero exchange of meaning.
I get meaning from a subset of the group of people I know. You do too. We all do. We call these people close friends and family. We like that they exist and just that they exist.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6mo ago
The current environmental pressures reward the lower IQ more ohrtodox religious kind which will make society worse.
I disagree (and, also, fuck you)
whilst many professors go childless.
This is a good thing. Low-T dorks with sinecure wordcel jobs shouldn't be reproducing.
Anyone who is in a stable job, has a good wife should be having kids
I agree! In fact, earning that stable job, and keeping it, should be the kind of behavior and life pattern that results in lots of mate choices.
But it isn't because of a whole host of anti-social and technology driven causes that have made hyper-individualism the basic mode of western human personal evolution.
This is exactly what @hydroacetylene is talking about - we're not reproducing enough because, at the median, everyone is stupid and selfish and not rewarding others' pro-social behavior and choices.
And this is the the issue-behind the issue of the fertility crisis - we're not really a pro-social society anymore. We like laws that say you can't shoot me in the face and you can't take my stuff, but we're not interested in creating communities (and a society, which is a meta-community) that serves a meaningful purposes. We want a shitload of personal level guarantees backed by the lethal force of the state so that we can laugh "HAHA ITS MY RIGHTS" through a mouthful of lard sandwich.
If you're a hyper-individualist, you dont really care about the people down the street so long as they aren't allowed to fuck with you and your shit. You certainly don't care about a hypothetical yet-to-be-born-maybe-baby (abortion on demand!) and you absolutely don't care about a conceptual future culture that outlives you be centuries. That's for the "lower IQ more ohrtodox religious kind" with their fake and gay ideas of absolute truth and divinity. What uncultured assholes. Trump voters, I'd bet.
What am I getting at here, besides a post-christmas eggnog fueled rant? Probably nothing. I'm closing in 1,000 comments on the Motte and I've found most of this effort to be be pointless. I've learned a lot from this website, and it gives me a lot of optimism that the Real Internet isn't dead. There are good thinkers out there.
I ran out of steam.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
7mo ago
Do you have even something like even an InfoWars citation on for this? I've never heard this before (and, plainly, don't believe it). I know some of the moderation folks at YouTube etc. They're the last people who would work at the CIA - most are art history major from Vassar types ... which, yes, brings up its own concerns about the censorship. But, this idea that we're already at KGB levels of information-gov't integration seems truly weirdo.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
That's cool. I think we're just going to hard disagree on this one.
A society gets to decide if human life is sacred or it isn't. Our current society says "no, not sacred" at the beginning of life and well through to the end. My belief is the opposite - human life is sacred and should never be treated otherwise within the society[1]. There isn't much beyond this strict categorization. That's why, in my original post, I cited hoffmeister as having an argument I disagreed with, but still respect.
I look at justification of beliefs to be a problem of recursion. "I believe x based on y ... I believe y based on z ..." At the end of the day, a lot of belief (and justification for it) boils down to what you place your value in and how various value-having things rank relative to one another. I put human life at the tippy top. Perhaps you don't, or your relative ranking is weaker. Either way, it's fine as long as your own argument is cohesive, which I believe it to be. But you won't be able to reason me out of my belief unless you reason me out of my value rankings. If you have an argument for why human life ought not be my number one value, I'll hear and consider it.
[^1]: When you have issues outside or between societies you're talking about war or something extra-judicial that by its very definition cannot be handled by the same codes and laws as within a society. Let's just leave this as is for now and not try to get into just war theory.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
Words versus symbols, right?
More-babies-than-rockets Musk can be called an incel because he's weird, nerd techy (instead of cool San Francisco VC techy), dresses sort of schlubby sometimes, and dances weird (Wow, that clip is truly painful).
Just as there's nothing particularly feline centric about "cat ladies." Instead, it's about symboling signalling a harsh, unattractive, bitter woman who is not only repulsive to men but unfriendly with other women.
Incel is another evolutionary branch of nice guy or neckbeard. Cat lady is the descendant of marm, spinster, and witch.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
11mo ago
Yep. I'd say it's actually nearly the same as a diabetic who wants their insulin levels to be more stable but simply can't willpower their way to it.
But we also have to understand the very obvious future reality that many folks will gobble ozempic and similar drugs while making zero lifestyle changes. Perhaps they lose weight, perhaps not.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1yr ago
I will read the rest of your post if you can confirm that you’ve understood why you are incorrect per the above
I'm far too dumb to do that.
It’s not always possible to drive with an open cup of water in your car, depending on cupholders and road conditions
Is this why my pants are wet?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1yr ago
"...contribute significantly to the rural character..."
"...the stewardship many feel for their communities."
This reads like the preamble to some hardcore NIMBY organizations' charter. Amorphous phrases that point to "character", "community" and (unelected) "stewardship" don't trump personal property rights. They're not even in the same neighborhood.
And when is the "character" of a place set in stone? This is straight up No True Scotsman 101. This is such a literal trope the Simpson have a hallmark episode about it. The only constant is change and no person or group gets to self-appoint as "arbiter of the good character of a place and community." That's a well paved road to localized authoritarianism.
I definitely code traditionalist conservative, but trampling on individual and property rights "to make sure we keep the Main Street Habdashery up for another 100 years" is the same as when progressives want to outlaw parental choice in schools so that "we can end bigotry forever by forcing Ibram X. Kendi book reports."
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6mo ago
No.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
If it is aimed at the death penalty, I don't think it's well-supported and would be hard to meaningfully reason about given that practically every society in history up until the past hundred years has put some people to death.
I don't think this is a good thing. I don't want societies to put their own citizens to death.
but just an expression of your belief that the state ought not to be executing its own citizens.
Yes. This was my intent. To offer an explanation of belief for the OP.
What's your support for the belief that the state shouldn't do it?
Because I believe human life is one of the few things that is intrinsically beyond the State to decide on. Again, as my original post said, I 100% support the State's ability to put you in a box forever and never let you out. What is the meaningful distinction between that and death from the perspective of the State or the aggrieved? Or, to flip it around, what is the marginal utility / justification / satisfaction found in execution versus life imprisonment? If a prisoner is alive, there exists some chance that they may develop sincere feelings of remorse and regret. It'll never be enough to justify their release, but I believe a State ought to give its citizens every last chance to be human. If, as some will argue, some of these prisoners are just beyond-the-pale insane and unpredictably dangerous, I'd offer that raises a much more difficult argument; should the State be in the business of exterminating those we deem mentally incapable? You can see how quickly it gets to eugenics.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
This is not the case for a baby with anencephaly or cyclopia. These babies are, besides being very obviously deformed in a way that is highly distressing to look at (go look for yourself if you want to see what I mean), an unequivocally disastrous result for a pregnancy.
That's just, like, your opinion, man!
But, seriously, you understand what I was trying to do there and with the rest of my comment; the "worth" of a human life is dependent upon its subjective relationship to other humans. Of course I can see that maybe a majority of parents with a child with those conditions you listed would be distraught. I also believe that some portion of them would treasure the fleeting moments with their child as worth it nonetheless (try to detect the anecdotal experience I'm insinuating here...).
The only remedy to this is to draw a line on when human life starts versus when it doesn't. I'm happy to have that discussion because I think it is unresolved at various levels (scientific, philosophic ... not religious, however). What I'm saying is that your rubric of "usefulness" or "worthy enough life" is specious because you're trying to apply an objective rule to what is a subjective problem.
You didn't need to reply to my comment, weeb, nobody cares.
"sensuous" is a made up word. John Milton hacked it together because he was an incel weirdo.
Returning to your comment, you've just told an internet cafe of strangers what you like about the things you like. Wasteful.
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