haroldbkny
2yr ago
What was the enforcement for the stay at home order? Where I was, I still drove around, took walks outside on roads and in public parks, went to the supermarket, etc. No one was threatening to stop me from doing these things, and I could have easily just gone and gotten together with people if I wanted to, gone to people's houses, met them outside in public places. Idk, maybe I was just lucky and the police never stopped me to give me a ticket for breaking lockdown, but I don't think that was the case. No one seemed worried about such things at all.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I'm not a Bush fan, but if I were to try to say:
- He managed the country without it dissolving or getting destroyed. I know this may be a low bar to some, but I don't think it is. It must be the hardest thing in the world to be the president
- He rallied America after 9/11. Getting the nation through that, and stoking feelings of patriotism and solace, and trying to get people to believe that they're actually safe in the face of the most unprecedented event in American history is no small feat.
It's pretty well known that the sexual revolution of the 1960s led to a lot of pedo stuff
That seems kinda like consensus-building, to me. That's clearly what ZHPL is trying to say, but it's a very controversial statement. Very many people around here are trying to connect both present-day and past leftism to pedophilia, and even though I can't stand the left, I can't stand when people try to make that connection even more. I find it insulting that ZHPL justs waves his hand in that general direction and is like "people got into leftism in 1968, and than all of a sudden 9 years later: BAM! age of consent was revoked (in France)". It's almost comical.
Alan Ginsburg was a member of NAMBLA. Lolita was considered a classic. Roman Polanski was Humbert Humbert in real life and the French celebrated and protected him.
There are pedophiles everywhere. You know the arguments: The plural of "anecdote" isn't data. Chinese Robber Fallacy, etc.
I hate when people try to say the Right is full of pedophiles because some priests molest kids and some backwoods rednecks are inbred, so I also hate it when people gesture at the left for similar things.
Today, of course, we see a strange bifurcation where 23 year old women are incapable of consenting to sex with a 40 year old man, but its okay to subject young children to intense discussions and demonstrations of sexuality. Perhaps he's trying to invoke all of that. I don't know. His writing is vile.
I have no argument with you on most of this paragraph, especially with regards to the strange bifurcation existing in leftist thought.
Though I may slightly disagree with you about whether most leftists are okay with "demonstrations" of sexuality for minors. They definitely are okay with "discussions" with minors, and I think they go too far there, but I don't know if they're really mostly down with "demonstrations". Other than the aforementioned pedophiles, who as I mentioned before are everywhere and on all sides.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
You ignored the modern part, and tried to defend the 1970s left
I'm not really interested in arguing about the 1970s left without connection to the modern left, tbh, I simply have little interest in the subject. But look at the timestamps and you'll see that your caveat of
Furthermore, I am not talking about the modern-left
Came after the post you just replied to.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Is any of this supposed to contradict what I said in my last post?
There are pedophiles everywhere. You know the arguments: The plural of "anecdote" isn't data. Chinese Robber Fallacy, etc.
haroldbkny
2yr ago
Where I was, anyway, (northeastern US) I don't think the government was threatening to imprison for such things. I could be wrong, but I remember it all being advisories, but people were still free to do whatever they wanted. I know Australia and China had intense lockdowns imposed, but how many other places did? Were there any places in the US that took that approach?
haroldbkny
7mo ago
That's interesting. I kind of feel the same way, in that it is absolutely virtuous for a father to protect his son, and ensure his family has a future. But this also makes the future of his political party more difficult, along with worsening the state of partisan politics in the world, as it gives the other side both a bludgeon against his party and an excuse to do corrupt things like this themselves.
haroldbkny
7mo ago
Well, I really don't know too much about the Biden family's situation, so I could be wrong. But my general assumption would be that it'd destroy his family if Hunter were in prison. It'd be detrimental to Hunter and his kids to have a father behind bars, creating emotional trauma and financial and logistical hardships that could last generations. As opposed to if he is pardoned, he could still be a father and go on to still achieve things.
haroldbkny
2yr ago
You sound like someone on the Left saying that even if the average conservative isn't racist, it's creating a haven for racists to normalize their racism, which is bad because we need to stop any and all racists at all costs. Therefore, we need to throw all support behind the left to stop the proliferation of racism. Just replace racist with pedophile and right with left.
haroldbkny
2yr ago
Bragg's theory
What's that? Isn't that about x-ray diffraction?
haroldbkny
2yr ago
I have no reason to doubt them, they aren't really woke at all and weren't big on MeToo
Are they anti woke? If not then maybe it's worth reconsidering if you should doubt them. Me Too captured the hearts and minds of women everywhere, except the anti woke. Everyone loves being told that they're a victim, that they're uniquely put upon. People will internalize this if it's a dominant message in society.
haroldbkny
2yr ago
In all honesty, no. I can't say I do without severely watering down the meaning of the word empathy. If I felt a non zero unit of empathy for every dying child in this world I'd be emotionally crippled by the weight of the world's suffering.
That's definitely true, and a real issue for having empathy for all of humanity. It's a problem I have as well, I don't think having empathy exactly like that is effective or helpful for anyone.
However, I get around it by not thinking about the quantity of children/people dying around the world. Just think of them as if they're one, or a few people who are dying and need malaria nets or whatever. Think about, try to feel, how much pain they're experiencing, how scared they are, how scared and sad their family is, etc. That way, you can feel the empathy, which can get you to take positive action, but not have to be destroyed by the scale of how many people out there need help.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
That's fair. But I don't personally think that's the case. Most anti-leftists I have known have no scruples or even much higher level thought other than an extreme hatred of the left, and an arguments-as-soldiers kind of approach. For whenever reason, I've become different from that over time (and I believe many people in the motte, and anti-leftists in the rationalist community as well are more like me than other anti-leftists). I am anti leftist because I care about the truth, not in spite of the truth. It's just hard to meet other anti-leftists like that. Rationalists are rare to meet (where I am), anti-leftists are rare to meet, anti-leftist rationalists are really rare to meet.
I think for all his children, but especially his youngest, it could take a big emotional toll to have a father in prison. I just don't really know how they feel about him, but I could see that it could cause anyone to have additional layers of self loathing and feelings of inadequacy to be told that they come from someone that is deemed as not worthy to participate in society.
Finally there's the point about Hunter providing for his children financially, to which my only response is a high trill of gay laughter. Whether Hunter had gone to prison or not, I think we all know that, either way, his children would have been financially provided for by their grandfather, not their father
Yeah, that's probably true. Though I don't know much specifics at all. It may be a drop in a bucket, though, but it is generally costly to a family to have a father in prison.
Hunter's children being elevated to being a point of material concern in whether or not he should serve jail time, and not the welfare of the children of all the other people who've been convicted under the same laws he's deemed to have violated?
Well, I'm definitely not saying it's fair, or the right or just thing to do, or that Hunter shouldn't serve jail time. I'm just saying what I would do as a father if I had the power to. But also that Biden may also wish to think about how such a move may have repercussions for his party or the political system.
haroldbkny
7mo ago
Yeah, I'm somewhat aware of that, though I didn't know all details. I still think that for all parties involved, having Hunter in prison would have far more detrimental effects, emotional, psychological, legacy-wise, and otherwise, than not.
Definitional question: if the victim enjoys it, is it even rape? Note: I'm not taking about if the woman feels pleasure or orgasms from it, but if she actively thought it was a good experience and she was glad for it.
I used to joke with my wife and ask her "can I rape you?" When she would say no, or roll her eyes, I would say "fine, I'm not going to rape you if you don't want me to".
haroldbkny
10mo ago
Well, I can't speak for everyone. But I can definitely say that I've seen more introspection from some, and many fewer spouting their opinions like they're the only logical ones. Three months ago, I don't remember nearly as many Dems doing that sort of behavior as, say in 2020, when it singled you out if you didn't act with no awareness that others might disagree
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Well, for whatever it's worth, I've always been someone who hates people who hate other people for hating people. That's just the way I am. I'm a 3rd order hater. I guess I feel like the proper response to dealing with bigots is to admonish them, but try to do better yourself, not to debase yourself like they do, and not to play the victim.
haroldbkny
2yr ago
I disagree. Elon can try to have an iron grip on his company, but once again, companies are huge. So much information can get lost in the shuffle, from him to individual teams, or from teams actions to him. They very well might not know every individual thing he's said or promised, and he absolutely cannot not know, and probably doesn't care to follow every single ban they do. It'd be impossible for him to have that visibility and still have time to run the company. In-person print-out code reviews are probably nothing like this, because it probably was process that's cascaded down to teams. I don't believe for a second that Musk was actually successfully reviewing every code review himself, that would completely fail to scale.
I do find this phenomenon very interesting. I've encountered people many years ago who told me that if I really despise modern feminism so much, I should call myself a feminist and work to reform it from the inside. When is it appropriate to do it, and when it it not? I know that I call myself a liberal, partly to try to "reclaim" the label, partly because it makes people (in my circles, anyway) not just want to write you off as crazy or hateful, and partly because I do believe in classically liberal values, even though liberalism really does more often than not mean leftism these days.
But in general, I am often against such appropriation. Like you say, it's highly confusing, and it seems really intellectually dishonest in certain cases.
haroldbkny
2yr ago
I am also a consistent blood donor. Why don't you give through the Red Cross? Is there some reason Vitalent is better that I should know about? I'd never heard of them before your post.
I have absolutely no context on it, and I'm interested to hear what others say, but I thought it might have to do with women being the arbiters of social acceptability, women determine what ideas get passed on what ideas don't. Men tend to look to women for moral guidance on what is okay to think, okay to talk about, okay to do.
I think the idea that women are the arbiters of social acceptability is itself a controversial idea, but it's one that I believe is true, nonetheless.
haroldbkny
6mo ago
But like I said, I don't think it's "justice" in any way to pardon him. I just think it's what a father would want to do, and maybe should do, because fathers should always protect their children in any way possible.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
We're stuck with inflated nominal prices but we're not necessarily stuck with inflated real prices
Are you saying that you think prices are going to go down? Or wages are going to catch up? I don't know enough about economics at all to necessarily know how these things tend to go.
I don't think I could really say much better than what @Goodguy has said in response to you. Go talk to him.
But I'll say one more thing, less directed to you than to all of the Mottezians who just loooove to spend all their time all day thinking about how much the left is full of pedophiles who can't wait to start molesting kids:
Do you know how irritating it is to have to defend a group of people whom you despise, against people who also despise those people but despise them for stupid reasons? People who want to think the left is full of pedophiles and therefore should be hated for that reason are watering down actual arguments against leftists. There's plenty of reasons to be against the left. Your efforts are better spent on those causes, and will do more to hinder leftism than this pedophilia bent.
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