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SubstantialFrivolity

I'm not even supposed to be here today

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joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
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SubstantialFrivolity


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
I'm not even supposed to be here today

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Friday Fun Thread for September 12, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sir, this is a Wendy's.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Honestly, it's hard to go wrong with a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup and some Sprite. It's not the best chicken soup or anything, but it is cozy and comforting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for September 12, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I just picked up a couple of games on the recommendation of people I work with: Hell Is Us and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge. TMNT is great, albeit pretty challenging (the third level is a huge difficulty spike and I got frustrated enough that I haven't played since). But difficulty aside it's exactly what you would want from a modern take on the TMNT arcade game of old. They added a decent bit more depth to the combat and a ton more characters to play (Splinter, April, Casey Jones, etc), plus the pixel art is beautiful.


Hell Is Us is... yeah IDK yet. My colleague pitched it to me as having a lot in common with the puzzle solving in Tomb Raider, but it doesn't quite feel to me like it has that vibe. There is puzzle solving, but so far the most prominent element has been the combat and the creepy supernatural horror atmosphere the monsters add. The basic premise is that your character is trying to navigate a world torn apart by religious civil war and see his parents, when he runs into the otherworldly monsters and... that's about it so far. I'm only 2 hours in, and the storytelling is very sparse. They seem to be going for a minimalist Souls approach to storytelling, which is very much not my jam. The game is also very proud to not have any sort of navigational aids - no markers, no map, just a compass you can consult to see which direction you're going. I can understand why they do that, but that is also not really my jam (in particular the lack of map, which I do not like at all). But all the same, I've been warming to it slowly and we'll see how it goes.


Though both of those games are getting set aside in a week, when Trails in the Sky 1st comes out. If you're unfamiliar with Trails, it's a moderately well known, long running JRPG series (like 12 or 13 games at this point) which is known for all the games having an interconnected plot. They have their smaller arcs so you can just play one arc without going balls deep, but it is kind of special to play since the very first game and see returning characters and plot threads from that far back. It's also unashamedly traditional JRPG fare, and it's become my Final Fantasy replacement for that reason (because FF is too busy trying to appeal to new audiences to bother making games their long time fans enjoy, and yes I'm bitter). Anyways, this game is a remake of the very first game in the series, and by the demo it looks to be a very faithful remake (exactly how I like them). So I'm looking forward to that one a lot, and all other games are going to get dropped when that comes out.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure, I can agree with that. If one is to engage with people who are cheering upon the news of this murder, it is more accurate (and more productive!) to respond along the lines of "hey, it's not really ok to be happy someone got killed" than "hey, it's not ok to support assassination".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Even if we assume that the clergy member in question is a Catholic priest, the seal of confession only applies to things said during the sacrament. If you go up to a priest after mass and say "I just murdered someone", he could report you as that wasn't said during the sacrament of reconciliation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Imagine that someone you really hated was randomly struck down by a freak bolt of lightning. Wouldn't you be pretty giddy?




Probably not. Celebrating when bad things happen to someone is evil, plain and simple. I'm not going to claim I've never done that (I have, I'm not a perfect person), but I regard those occasions as personal failings which I tried very hard to rectify. I would like to think in the future I would be more successful in avoiding it.




And if someone tried to argue that this made you just as bad as if you were advocating for that guy's murder, wouldn't that seem pretty unfair? ... I contend that for the average left-wing rando, "some nutjob has shot Charlie Kirk" has about the same valence as "Charlie Kirk has been struck by lightning".




But he wasn't struck by lightning. He was murdered. And that makes all the difference here. You're constructing this argument that we should have more sympathy for those who feel happy that someone they hate got killed by a freak accident, but the simple fact of the matter is that even if they perceive it as that, their perception is false, and they are in fact celebrating a murder.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In your world the distinction is that when they bust down my door and take me to jail they are the only ones inflicting violence, the law is not violent even though it backed up its authority with the social-derived power to inflict violence as an enforcement mechanism. I obviously disagree. I can infer the causality of that law and directly hold the people who proposed, lobbied, agitated for, etc. responsible for attempting to use the state's power to enforce violence for their own ends.




This is literally the same logic as the libertarian "taxation is theft" argument, even though you call it farcical. The logic there is that the government's demand for money is backed up by threat of violence, so it is tantamount to theft under threat of violence. Your logic is that the demands of the law (to not say the president has no clothes, in this example) are backed up by threat of violence, so they are tantamount to violence. And incidentally the same exact counterargument you give would apply back to your thinking: by living in society you implicitly agree to the social contract (don't say the president has no clothes), but you're welcome to reject that social contract and go live on your own, if you can find land to do so. Note that I'm not saying the libertarian argument is correct. I'm saying that to be consistent one must either accept both, or reject both, because they follow the same logic.




idk what slight of hand you think I am doing. My explicit point is that governments are formed on the basis of a monopoly on violence and social consensus (for democratic systems) and their authority is derived from those basses. Thus any action by the government to enforce a law carries an implicit threat of violence against lawbreakers. I am open to you explaining to me how that is not the case but I have yet to see anything to the contrary




I'm not accusing you specifically of rhetorical sleight of hand, for what it's worth (because that would be pretty uncharitable). I am simply saying that this sort of argument is often used for that. The sleight of hand goes like this: "violence" has a certain rhetorical weight to it. When you say something is violence, people instinctively go "oh that's bad" and are primed against it. But that reaction is based on the typical example of violence (like a stabbing or whatever), not very atypical examples like a chain of argument which goes "government policy => putting people in jail if they don't comply => taking them by force if necessary => violence, therefore government policy is violence". Even if the logic holds up under close scrutiny, by using an example of "violence" so far removed from what your audience expects you to mean, there can be a kind of dishonesty there if one is trying to get people to apply their associations with the central examples of violence to the non-central one. This is how it relates to the Scott Alexander post, as well. He cites several examples of that kind of rhetorical trick where it's like... yeah, technically the thing is what you said, but as a non-central example of the thing it doesn't inherit the moral valence of the central examples.




I agree that words alone in a vacuum can never, ever, constitute violence. I disagree that advocating for policies that lead to violent action absolves the speaker of blame. How do you think laws and policies get made? Do people not speak words when doing so? When they proposed the "President has no clothes" law was there not someone using words? If the end result is violence is there not some causal chain we can draw to such Words + Actions that directly led to that violence?




Ah, but I never said anyone is absolved of blame for anything. I simply said that words do not qualify as inflicting violence. Just because something is not in (bad category), doesn't mean it's acceptable. For example if someone cheats on his wife and she kills herself out of grief, he didn't murder her... but he's still a scumbag. Similarly advocating for a government policy (even if the policy was violent) is not violence, but that doesn't mean it's morally acceptable to argue for that policy. For example, I think that it would be immoral (albeit legal) to try to argue for rounding up all left-handed people and shoot them into the sun. But even if I might think "man that's evil", it wouldn't constitute violence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For example if I give speech that: "Gay-ness is an abomination before the eyes of God and we should not allow it in our government or our society" Am I inflicting violence? By your definition I am not, nothing I say is legally able to be restricted as I am not directly threatening anyone. However, say I do get this law to pass, now some faceless bureaucrat is going to punish any gay person they find because they are illegal, and they are going to do so with the full might on the state. Its back to stoning, conversion torture, or throwing the gays off roof tops. By my definition I have advocated for those policies, I have advocated for violence.




You've taken a couple of logical leaps here which are not well founded, and your argument suffers greatly as a result. First, the assumption that to have the government effect policy is tantamount to using violence to effect that policy. I think that this is very much not the case. It's not exactly a new argument (libertarians have been arguing that taxation is theft on more or less the same basis since forever), but it's not a good argument either. There's a reason Scott Alexander calls this form of argument "the worst argument in the world" (and against which he argued much more eloquently than I can). When you invoke a rhetorical phrase for an extreme edge case, it unreasonably connects the edge case in people's minds to the severity of the central example. That is (at best) unintentionally misleading, and (more often) an attempt at rhetorical sleight of hand to try to get people to accept a point they never would if you made it straight out.


Second, all of this seems to be in service to your original question of whether someone has inflicted violence. Even if I was to grant for the sake of argument that such government action was violent (which I don't), advocating for this government policy still would not be inflicting violence. Words can never, ever, constitute violence. Violence only means inflicting actual physical harm upon people. Even a direct threat of violence, like telling someone you're going to hurt them, is not violence in itself. Perhaps you weren't trying to say that advocating for violence (the phrase you used towards the end) is the same as inflicting violence (the phrase you used towards the beginning). But as written, it kind of comes off like you are. And if you are indeed trying to say those things are equivalent, then you're using a completely nonstandard definition of "violence" and there can be no productive discussion until that changes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm sorry for your loss. I know what you mean about mourning someone in advance; my wife (and to a lesser extent I) did that with her brother who died last year. He was obviously circling the drain (he had really bad alcoholism), but that didn't necessarily make it easier when he finally did push his body too far. I hope that you are able to not blame yourself too much, and that you will be able to remember him as he was during the better times.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Around here it seems to be laundry detergent for some reason. Don't ask me why, but every store has Tide locked up so that you have to get an employee to get it out for you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Let's say the US has X amount of specialized talent and thus they can only do Y amount of productivity with in a year. If companies in (or investing in) our country are so productive and there's enough market demand that they want to do creation over Y, then limiting access to talent over X puts a cap on growth.






Now I know, the general response is "because those jobs should go to the locals!" but the thing is, talented local people already have jobs. If they're hard working and capable, then they're mostly already doing their part in achieving Y (or doing something else in another industry) because companies want them.




I think that this part of your argument is mistaken. My experience working in tech isn't that the H1B program is used to bring in high skilled immigrants to expand labor beyond what the native population can support. It's that the H1B program is used to bring in employees at below-market pay, rather than paying the native citizens market rates for their work. Not only that, but then the employer has an indentured servant to whom they can do whatever they want, because if he leaves the company he has to go back home (and while the pay may be below US market rates, it's above the rates in his home country). This isn't exactly a situation where employers are giving people a win-win fair deal. The ideal is certainly as you describe, but I don't think that the reality lives up to that (thanks to good old human greed).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think this has pretty much always been the case. Apologetics is a very old discipline for this reason.




I agree with this. For example, look at Aquinas (though he was hardly the first of course) - dude spent a huge amount of effort trying to make rational arguments for tenets of the faith. And he was hardly a modern thinker, he was very much medieval! Moreover, I would go further and say that contra @coffee_enjoyer, the people who could be convinced without apologetics are not gone. There have always been, and will always be, people who don't engage with things on an intellectual level. They go based on vibes, or what is cool, or things like that. I think it's easy to figure that sort of person is gone because to most of us, they may as well not exist. Most people here exist in a very skewed bubble of smart people who like to discuss things intellectually, but there are definitely plenty of people today who don't enjoy that sort of thing (and who would even be put off by it).


Also, I think it's very much the case that even with apologetics one still has to take a leap of faith. I have my reasons for believing, but at the end of the day I don't know. I decided that the arguments for belief were stronger than those against, but the arguments for still could be mistaken. I'll only truly know when I die (if even then, because perhaps I'll go into an endless oblivion where I won't even exist to know I was wrong in this life). But I still believe, even so.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But wait, didn't we enlightened Americans figure out a way for multiple people with a plurality of different ideologies and religions to live together in peace and harmony without society collapsing?




Good posts (both this and the previous one), but I just had to say that this bit in particular has amazing Jojo "to be continued" energy, lol.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why would it go in SSQS? It's mainly a q about entertainment, not politics.




The SSQS thread isn't about politics, so that wouldn't really matter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Somewhat similarly, I don't use them because I'm lazy and a hyphen is good enough. But if I did, I would continue to use them because I don't care what people think.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am very much not a Richard Stallman fan. I think he's unpleasant as a person, is an ideological zealot, and frankly hasn't done much to deserve the rep that he has in the tech community. But every time companies keep pulling these stunts, all I can think is "dammit, Stallman was right again". It's like the "pol was right again" meme, but for tech.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I have no idea how well it holds up now (probably poorly, it was YA)




I personally don't think it held up well at the time, but I also was something like 10 years older than you when I read it. The book is full of bad writing  - first, it is generally written like Doctorow wanted an excuse to explain technical concepts like public key cryptography, not because he was trying to tell an interesting story. Second, the characters are all insufferable teenagers, ranting about how you can't trust anyone over the age of 30 with any chance they get. Third, and perhaps worst, the main character is continually thinking in leet-speak - which nobody does. It was super cringe, and I have no idea what Doctorow was thinking.


You might feel differently than I if you reread the book, though. Personally, I thought that the book always sucked; it made enough of a negative impression on me that I remember specific criticisms I had (which is unusual, I normally remember a vague sense of "I didn't like it" when it's been longer than a month or two). But YMMV.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think you're absolutely right. Of course, if the Democrats were capable of such introspection and smart politicking, they wouldn't have lost to Trump once, let alone twice. I firmly believe that the Democrats could've run basically anyone except Hillary "it's her turn" Clinton and beaten Trump pretty easily in 2016. And again in 2024, if they had bothered to consider that maybe just maybe people had legitimate grievances, rather than doggedly sticking with the "it's all a bunch of racist fascists" rhetoric that they continue to use to this day. There are a whole lot of people who don't particularly like Trump, and would gladly vote for another option that wasn't busy spitting in their face at every opportunity. But the party has consistently chosen to spit in those people's faces, so... play stupid games, win stupid prizes I guess.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not only that, but in a lot of people's perception nothing was done. This may be an inaccurate perception, to be fair - unlike with the Jan 6 riots, these were different events in different jurisdictions throughout the country, so it's entirely possible that some or even most locations prosecuted the rioters vigorously, and there were only limited cases where the rioters got off the hook. But certainly the perception is that the BLM riots were ignored by the justice system. That, too, increases people's wariness.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Dude, you're not handling this well at all. If you don't believe oats_son that's your right. But in that case just move on and don't say anything, because it's completely uncalled for to tell someone that you think they are making up painful stories from their life.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


someone who uses a frontend webdev language for other tasks




Absolutely haram. Inshallah may their keyboards wither into dust.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's one of those things which is really useful when you need it, though it can be hard to spot the utility when you are first learning. When I learned about functions as data in college I asked the professor why you would ever need to use that technique (and which, shame on him, he couldn't answer). But I've since found it to be absolutely clutch even if not something you use 90% of the time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Despite me giving you shit I actually do quite a bit of Python, because it's really the best scripting language available for Linux. I wouldn't call it my favorite language, but it is probably the language I use most.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Pascal is an odd choice of favorite language. That alone should've tipped you off that you were dealing with a crazy girl. Also... Python? That's the most basic bitch language choice I can imagine, next you're going to tell me that about your great love of pumpkin spice and Ugg boots.


(great post btw, you certainly succeeded at having an entertaining day)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for August 29, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


much like managers prefer optimistic timelines that turn out to be wrong over accurate, pessimistic timelines...




That is very much not the case in my experience. Managers would far rather be told the truth than what they want to hear (though obviously they prefer it if the truth is what they want to hear).