RenOS
something is wrong
No bio...
User ID: 2051
RenOS
something is wrong
10hr ago
If I think that knifes should not be illegal, does that make it funny if I get stabbed? If I think cars should not be illegal, is it funny if I get run over? I really don't get this logic, it's rare that I use the word but this seems genuinely hateful. If Kirk was exclusively a crazy gun nut who can't talk about anything else and was shot by a fellow gun-nut with a military-style assault gun I could maybe see some ironic karma, but he was just a general purpose conservative who got shot by a hunting rifle that usually not even gun control people want to ban.
RenOS
something is wrong
1d ago
Yes/No. I believe that many believe that they want fairness/meritocracy. But if you measure a process purely by getting the outcome you want, claiming that this somehow makes you process-oriented is, in my view, sophistry. And progressives have shown a noticeable incuriosity, often even marked hostility, towards a detailed investigation of the processes itself and how/why some groups tend to disproportionately fail; it always boils down only to getting the correct outcomes. See Ivy student acceptance rates; Merely just investigating the acceptance process is allegedly racist, since it gets the correct outcome, and that's what matters. Unless the outcome isn't correct, in which case you also don't investigate the why, you just change the process until you get the correct outcome.
Secondly, a decent number of progressives have in fact even fully moved on from claiming to want meritocracy, and outright use entirely different justifications, such as representativeness of a community, racial/social justice or equity over equality of chance. In many circles, meritocracy has become negatively connotated.
RenOS
something is wrong
1d ago
As I understand it, it seemed to solve a gender bias, but it certainly failed to solve a racial bias. The latter was the reason it fell out of favor for progressives.
RenOS
something is wrong
1d ago
Yeah, I see it commonly used, but it has a bit of a different connotation imo. On the one hand, you can be an agitator without doing any obstructing or interference, just purely based on your rhetoric, and in that sense it's actually still a lesser word. On the other hand, it usually implies agitating for violence, and as much as I dislike the obstructors, they generally stop short of that.
RenOS
something is wrong
1d ago
If protesters had also murdered three ICE agents in MN in the same time span, that would justify ICE having a high prior that someone wants to murder them, making their snap judgments more understandable.
It's somewhat callous, but I can't help but think similarly overall. The Renee Good shooting was imo somewhat understandable, since she was spinning on the ice with her wheels pointed forward. That would have scared the shit out of me as well and shooting her before she gets grip is objectively a plausible way to stop being run over. But it still also was a bad shot, in the sense that, as you say, with the benefit of hindsight we know he wouldn't have gotten run over. Pretti was arguably the kind of guy who gets shot, and the left usually has no problem with this if they don't agree with their politics. But again, it was a bad shot in the sense that no ICE agent was factually under threat.
And while there has been a lot of questionable behaviour by obstructors, ICE agents generally rarely get injured and it is claimed that literally not a single agent has been killed in the line of duty in the past few years. Unless we assume superhuman competence for the ICE agents, that does point in the direction that the obstructors do not intend to seriously hurt or kill ICE agents, no matter how little one may like their other goals and/or their rhetoric.
And this simply matters a lot for PR. If you want to convince a normie that ICE agents are in sufficient danger to allow these shootings, you need to be able to provide examples of at least some of them actually being killed. Yes, this sucks, I don't really like it, but I also see little way around it.
RenOS
something is wrong
1d ago
Interestingly I had just asked chatgpt and it proposed "obstructionist" as the top option, and a lot of lesser options including "interferer", "disruptor" and "agitator". "Obstructor" is probably a good choice.
RenOS
something is wrong
1d ago
For a similar example to the body cam discussion, see blind auditions. It's a nice view into the mind of the left - the way blind auditions were pushed, they most likely genuinely thought they would be good. And it's hard to argue that blind auditions aren't the most fair and meritocratic approach, which was a common primary justification. But when (racial) inequality stubbornly refused to budge, it revealed that the latter was merely instrumental, and they are actually perfectly willing to sacrifice fairness and meritocracy for equality.
On the 10 demands, without the democrats giving clear, legally binding proclamations of cooperation on being willing to enforce immigration law and to crackdown on the anti-ICE "protestors" (btw, what's a good word here? "terrorist" is too harsh a word, but "protestor" too weak, since they actively block and interfere with basic government work. Very few would call a pro-lifer trying to physically interfere with abortions merely a "protestor", not even the right), I really don't see how this can possibly work out in a way that doesn't kill any and all immigration enforcement in blue strongholds.
RenOS
something is wrong
2d ago
There's a few caveats that make it better. First, my prof doesn't control my working hours at all and my de-facto hours are honestly substantially below full-time. I have a few friends who are paid substantially better, and most of them have de-facto working hours so much higher that it's a wash in terms of pay per hour. I could have gotten better paid work in past, but the employers have been clear that they'll be much more strict, so I decided against it due to the kids. Second - though it's partially a result of the first - my wife also works, and her income is identical to mine when full-time, though it's more volatile and sometimes she has to go part-time (which pays more than half due to tax reasons) due to the more insecure financing in her group. So our family income varies between roughly 65k and 84k.
RenOS
something is wrong
2d ago
Small anecdote, there is a somewhat well-known public incident where a guy got into trouble due to being recorded while referring to a person as "it", but then later it turns out that this particular person literally identified as "it". When I told this to an acquaintance who is involved in mental health counselling at university, she told me that this has happened to her as well, it just didn't go public - she had a counselling session with a person who wanted to be referred to as "it", and then afterwards had a private discussion with a colleague about it. The colleague was incensed and slandered her behind her back afterwards, unwilling to believe that anyone would like to be referred to as such. Fortunately, her general reputation was good enough that it didn't get her into trouble, and after a while she managed to mostly explain it.
It's true that there are also some people who use "it" in a derogatory sense, but it does at least exist as self-identification as well.
RenOS
something is wrong
2d ago
That seems like a general problem though that applies to plenty of academics as well, especially once politics gets involved. For an example, I've read more than enough articles by such claiming that hunter-gatherers were often gender egalitarian, citing tribe after tribe where, say, women are involved in hunting, or men are involved in cooking, or men are involved in child-rearing, drowning you in citations that superficially seem like their case is ironclad.
Then you read the opposite position - sometimes another academic historian, sometimes not - and they point out how even in the cited tribes, women actually only "hunt" in the sense of laying traps for small game, men still do just the most physically demanding parts of preparing food and leave the majority to the women, and the men also only teach older children useful skills, while again leaving the younger children to the women. And more importantly, they actually go quantitative and show how cherry-picked these few tribes even are, and that the great majority of those we know is even less gender-egalitarian.
RenOS
something is wrong
3d ago
No, Berufsschulen are a special kind of school for an Ausbildung, which you do after regular school. They help with the theoretic part of a practical education for a specific kind of job. As an example, if you want to become a mechatronic, you may learn the practical part working in an actual repair shop, and then for specific days you go to the Berufsschule and learn some basic electrical circuitry or whatever.
I would say it slightly differently, tenure is a special kind of being a civil servant, but yes.
RenOS
something is wrong
3d ago
I guess math/CS would also be a fine combination given my background. I have as much programming credits as math in any case.
But after looking up actuary openings again, that still seems like the better and less complicated option. But it's hard to gauge.
RenOS
something is wrong
3d ago
On teaching, you're right of course once I'm actually a civil servant, but I need to get there, and I'm technically a Quereinsteiger, which makes it more difficult. As you say, my pay will be substantially lower for a long while, AFAIK much more than 2 years and the job market for teachers here locally doesn't appear all that great, especially not for getting into the Gymnasium. And elementary school teacher pay is both a lot worse, and it's also not something I'm at all interested in to be honest.
On data science, it's still the title that has by far the most posted openings. Though it's true that judging by some of the lowballing offers I've gotten in the past, many of those aren't really seriously looking.
On actuary, that's great. Most mention the certification in the application form though.
RenOS
something is wrong
4d ago
I'm an europoor, so just making 65k. Due to the stupid way german taxes/insurance are calculated, this is roughly equivalent to an international pre tax income of ca 77k, and my actual income is around 40k plus a little christmas money and tax payback, I think around 42k overall.
I honestly don't have a clear expectation on how much more I want, it highly depends on the difficulty of the switch and the security of the new job. Just a few extra k per year would already make a substantial difference, doesn't need to be crazy.
RenOS
something is wrong
4d ago
But isn't it true that the american public is largely moving against ICE in polls? Incidentally I also think that it's crazy what the "protestors" are getting away with, including being called protestors in the first place. But unfortunately, most people don't seem to agree, which is what the optics argument is referring to. Yes, the bad optics are also arguably partially downstream from highly sophisticated media propaganda, but not entirely, and it doesn't change the fact that most people who hear about this are against it.
RenOS
something is wrong
4d ago
In addition to Corvos' point, civilization has also historically required the less able to defer to the more able. It's a two-way street; The able help and do a disproportionate share of the work, and in turn, get status and power, the less able give up status and power in exchange for being provided for.
Modern societies' insistence that you can get one half without the other is partially a sham, and partially the thing that is killing it.
RenOS
something is wrong
4d ago
So, as some may know, I'm a postdoc in genetics at a small german university and in my early 30s. Originally I studied applied math with a focus on medicine/biology. I work with large (bio) data banks, and code a lot, especially high-throughput on our cluster, but obviously more natural science-style scripting than proper programming. Anyone in the space will know the wide gulf between these, though I have some experience in the latter as well (but rather from hobby modding than from work).
My wife wants a bigger house and while we can afford it, our buffer margin will be a lot smaller, in particular we will actually go into the negative during the first year if we should have a third child (and we both want it - it's one of the reasons we want to buy the house), or if one of us loses their job. Currently I'm looking through our expenses and ruthlessly cutting everything that can be cut, but we've both always been rather frugal in most ways, so it's not a terribly large amount. The biggest point is supermarket, but my wife is not really willing to cut there since it's mostly due to healthy food.
So I'm again considering a job change, both for more money and for security reasons (while my prof has made no noises so far in that direction, I still technically only ever get prolonged for a year each time and could get cut anytime his money runs out). Any recommendations for directions I should look into? Fortunately, one of the largest german cities is in commuting distance. My current ideas are: 1. data scientist, ideally medicine/bio adjacent, possibly remote, possibly international 2. trying my luck again in the pre-implantation genetic testing industry where I have worked for a short while, which would pretty much have to be remote international 3. actuary or other insurance/bank statistical work 4. becoming a regular gymnasium teacher in math/bio and going for that sweet civil servant status. Mostly an option if I lose my position though, since the income is almost identical if not a little lower 5. trying to go into finance - I've been asked by headhunters during my doctorate but back then I wasn't interested. But I'm unsure how realistic it still is. 6. simply doing some extra tutoring on the side.
In general my biggest constraints are that we decided not to move any time soon, and that I share child duties equally with my wife, so going high-powered career right now is not realistic. Might be different in a few years, though. Several of the options, such as actuary, would require me to get some additional credentials, which obviously I'd like to avoid. Also, the job situation in germany is a bit rough atm, we even actually have some nice local biomedical companies in our city I'd be interested in but they aren't hiring at all.
RenOS
something is wrong
5d ago
It's insane, but completely unsurprising, that the Guardian doesn't mention any of this.
RenOS
something is wrong
8d ago
Lower right, but still pretty close to the center. Prog/Con almost exactly center. The quiz calls this "Social Libertarianism".
Overall not surprising. I want a smaller government that focuses more on infrastructure and the essentials and less on social engineering and redistribution. I think most conservative traditions are positive and existed for good reason, but some lost their importance and we need to adapt them appropriately to modernity. Etc.
It's worth noting the stark class differences. The middle class usually does things the conventional way. But I seem to rub shoulders most commonly with people living in council housing (or at least they're the people most likely to invite a daft but friendly foreign doctor home from a pub) and oh boy.
But that has been the case for decades, if not centuries (or ever?), and is the same in every developed country I'm aware of. Poors be trouble.
RenOS
something is wrong
11d ago
At least in germany, medicine as a whole has been 60%+ female, tendency upwards. Specialty study programs tend to be similarly, or even more lopsided: I studied a special "applied math in biology and medicine" course, which was around 20 women to 4 guys (admittedly partially due to many guys dropping out in the first semester). Women don't like math, but at least a few are good at it, and if you give it a focus on something they actually do like... The same goes for several specialty courses we have here on medical / biophysics or -informatics, even engineering, all of which naively may sound male-dominated, but from my impression were also 60%+ female. Just attach "medical" (or "media", for that matter) to any course name, and the women will flock to you, apparently.
Then you have the degrees which used to be Ausbildung, such as midwifery, and some other such as nutritional biology, which combine very low standards and a lopsided gender ratio.
RenOS
something is wrong
11d ago
Depends a lot on where you look.
Urban academic is depressing, mostly because of the combination of the gender mismatch (almost 2x as many women as men nowadays AFAIK, certainly at least at my medically oriented university) and most women nevertheless expecting their partner to be university educated as a bare minimum, and there is also aggressive political filtering. There are still plenty of well-adjusted couples of course, but also just many clearly unhappy single women, often with blatant dysfunctional coping behaviour. A lot of hostility/resentment towards men in general, too. Gender norms around kids are also a bit drama-heavy; The women all want to theoretically continue their career while simultaneously in practice staying home with the kids as long as possible. And when it predictably doesn't work out, somehow the man is at fault. All very typically western cosmopolitan, I guess. The men aren't perfect, either, of course; but what strikes me is that the worst are primarily egotistical (sleeping around, generally doing stuff with no concern for their partner), while the worst women are self-hurting dysfunctional.
The urban poor, of course, are awful, but they're awful in every other way as well, so it's not particularly surprising.
Rural middle class, at least where I'm from and from what I heard from a few acquaintances' country background, is doing well. Dating is still mostly from work, partying or extended friend groups; App is the option of last resort and not held in high regard. For an example, my main old school clique is 15 people, of which 2 seem headed for permanent bachelorhood (one of which almost surely is a closeted gay, why he doesn't come out is a mystery to us all, we really don't mind), 1 has had relationship but I'm not sure currently, everyone else is in a stable relationship (well, one is an incorrigible philanderer, but his current relationship has been a few years now, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt). We have 12 kids now afaik, as usual mostly the girls but the guys are also moving after. We're early thirties, so no worries from me that we'll hit 2+ TFR. In my second old school clique, 4 people, everyone has been in stable relationships for ages now and two of the others just now had their first child, too. They also intend to have more so again no worries. I've lost contact with most of my acquaintances from school of course, but if I randomly see them they almost always have a partner and often have kids, too. Gender norms are pretty easy here, women can do what they want, but when the kids come they want to be mom anyway.
But this is millenials. I have little idea how gen z is doing, to be honest.
RenOS
something is wrong
25d ago
Could you link the videos? I tried finding them, but couldn't. In general, is there an easy way to search for all post that include links?
I've seen the officer POV video before and also found it quite scary, and tbh have a hard time emphasizing with people pretending he had no right to be scared, that it was trivial to just sidestep (how should he even know beforehand into which direction?), etc.
But I haven't seen the 2019 video, and can't find it on google either.
If you're a young (gamer) guy, I strongly endorse getting good at shooters at least once. I was the kind of nerd looking down on it until I got really into one (BFBC2) due to friends, and it really is very different, intense and fun. It really gets your adrenaline up. I still have a lot memories burned into my mind.
More options
Context Copy link