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ApplesauceIrishCream


				

				

				

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ApplesauceIrishCream


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 20:15:39 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 882


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That would be the same ICJ that has no jurisdiction over Americans, as the US is not a party to the Rome Statute.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Election of 1800: A Perspective on Political Messes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think there were two aspects to Washington's example in retiring that set important precedents, but only one gets much attention--the two term limit.  His other example was not dying in office.  Later presidents died of illness or assassination, but FDR broke both parts of Washington's example--more than two terms, and refusing to leave office until death forced the issue.  Had Washington run for one more term, he would not have set the precedent "only three terms," he'd have established "hold power until death or the electorate remove it from you."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				[META] Something Shiny and Two Things Boring
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you were going for a shorter list, I'd omit "good," "bad," and collapse "deserves a warning/ban" into one option and have a mod consider the appropriate response.  The current list might be superior if you're looking at calibration of the user input, though.


Quality contribution speaks for itself.  For egregiously bad comments, I'll usually tag them "deserves a warning," since I'm hoping that will flag mod attention, which will escalate to a ban if reasonable under the circumstances.  If my opinion is good/bad/neutral, I'll usually tag "neutral" because that correctly signals my view of "no mod action needed" and my subjective opinion of the comment isn't really important past that point.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Another complication is that this right vs. left judgment is context-dependent, based on the particular society you're looking at.  In a lot of cases, each individual judgment may be more directional than absolute--for example, a rightist might say "our society is too error-prone in judging individual rich people guilty of exploitation; it should do that less," while a leftist in the same society might draw the opposite conclusion.  Move the same people to a different society, and they may both find themselves on the same side of a relative center that is positioned differently.


(Also, the leftist critique here is a classical Marxist economic-centered view; the woke left seems to have no particularly strong view of wealth per se, as their societal critique is identity-centered.  ...I admit, I'm amused by the the potential question of whether someone identifies as a rich person.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The naive rightist just assumes that most rich people earned their wealth legitimately and overtaxing them is theft. The naive leftist just assumes that most rich people are thieves who provide no value to society and can be eaten for free with no secondary long term consequences. And both encounter the other viewpoint and see how obviously naive it is, point out hundreds of counterexamples, and walk away safe and secure that their opponents are idiots. Which they are, because not enough people have a nuanced understanding that "rich" is not a moral category which must be inherently good or bad, it's an attribute that someone can achieve via a variety of methods which differ in moral goodness.




This difference looks to me like a disagreement in assigning the burden of proof, as well.  The rightist believes that evidence of wealth isn't sufficient to support a prima facie case of exploitation, while the leftist believes it is sufficient.  This isn't resolved by figuring out whether more rich people got that way legitimately vs. illegitimately; you also have to assign a threshold for assuming guilt or innocence that may not be the same as the object-level percentages (i.e. do you want to favor punishing the guilty, not punishing the innocent, or minimizing error in either direction?).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				[META] Something Shiny and Two Things Boring
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But this goes deeper than it sounds. Part of having the system prompt you is that not all prompts will be the system attempting to get actionable info from you. Some of the prompts will be the system trying to compare your choices against a reference, and the system will then use this comparison to figure out how much to trust your decisions.




I thought for sure that this meant some of the comments in the volunteer set were not chosen due to a user-initiated report, but were system-chosen, and I've been confidently wrong about that assumption.  Mea culpa.


I agree with @Bernd, though--that means the report button is being massively overused.  I assign "neutral" a lot.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Five More Years | Slate Star Codex
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Overall, yes, Trump's vetting was at best a mixed bag--though I'll note that failures in this area tend to be more spectacular than successes.  But in the case of judicial nominations in particular, there's more to the story.


When Trump entered the 2016 primaries, it was plainly obvious that he was--on paper--a very bad fit with the sizable chunk of the Republican base that was some combination of Southern, Evangelical, and Conservative.  In a way, the obviousness of this problem was an advantage, in that it could not be ignored and required a strategy.  This cohort was extremely sensitive to betrayal on judicial matters, as noted above.  So Trump did two things--he publicly announced a short list for candidates to the Supreme Court, so that they could be vetted in advance, and he appointed Leonard Leo, the executive VP of the Federalist Society, to oversee the selection of nominees.  While Trump made the final calls, Leo was the one preparing the short list.


Two of the three appointments to SCOTUS that Trump made were due to the death in office of Justices Scalia and Ginsberg.  The third was the carefully negotiated retirement of Justice Kennedy.  Prior to Kennedy's retirement, Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch--a former Kennedy clerk--to replace Scalia, and then appointed Brett Kavanaugh--another former Kennedy clerk--to replace Kennedy himself.  Both were considered more conservative than Kennedy, who was often the deciding vote, though Gorsuch more than Kavanaugh.


None of Trump's Supreme Court nominees were close to Trump himself--all three were previously-established, well-respected members of the federal judiciary, with resumes to match.  While all three would generally be considered somewhat more conservative than the combination of Kennedy, O'Connor, Souter, and Roberts, they are also on average more centrist than Thomas and Alito.  (This is something of an oversimplification--all of the justices mentioned have independent streaks.  Indeed, prior to Ginsberg's death, every single one of the conservative justices had formed a five-justice majority with the four liberals in separate cases.  The liberal justices vote together more often on average, but it's not uncommon to see splits in any of the "voting blocs" that analysts might describe.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Five More Years | Slate Star Codex
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's not really the full picture, from the American pro-life perspective.  As a grassroots movement, it was very far from fringe: solid majority position in the Republican party, and a minority position among Democrats--until the fallout from Obamacare hit, there was a small caucus of pro-life House Democrats, though it's gone now.  Prior to Dobbs, the controlling precedent was Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, which functionally replaced RvW--of note, the "Casey" that PP was suing was the pro-life Democrat Governor of Pennsylvania.


When you're talking about the Supreme Court, it's got few enough members that you might as well refer to the individuals rather than aggregating trends.  Roe/Casey would have been overturned decades ago, if not for a string of Republican appointees that refused to pull the trigger--Kennedy, O'Connor, Souter, and Roberts.  At least publicly, their appointing presidents (Reagan, GHWB, GWB) made common cause with the pro-life movement, and promised to appoint originalist justices, except oops...oops...oops....  Even then, each of those presidents did appoint justices who either were part of the Dobbs majority, or would have been if they'd still been on the Court (Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Alito).  Trump was unusual in that all of his appointees joined Dobbs, instead of just half.


So, yes, Dobbs was a "big surprise to everyone," but only in the sense that the pro-life movement had decades of experience supporting candidates that ultimately betrayed them, and expecting Trump's vetting to succeed where Reagan's, GHWB's, and GWB's did not looked like starry-eyed optimism at best.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Better to lose while being moral than to win while being immoral.




I despise this phrase, and I think its central error is presenting a false dichotomy.  There are third options, and this phrase is used to deflect responsibility for avoiding costly actions that are moral while simply taking the L with an air of smug self-righteousness.  Your character is not just determined by your actions: refusing to act can negatively reflect on your character when you are shirking obligations that are your proper responsibility--to yourself, your kin, the Truth, etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


refusing to even consider the most milquetoast moderate imaginable,




Is this referring to a hypothetical milquetoast moderate, or Merrick Garland specifically?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A variant is Becoming The Mask.  Or more generally, the advice to "fake it 'til you make it."


Consider habits, and consciously choosing to develop one.  It takes work to wear the rut into your unconscious, but the habit takes less effort to maintain over time, and may eventually integrate itself into your normal course of behavior.  I'd say that rehearsing a role is just one example of this type of personality modification, that is intended to be broader in scope but only temporary for the purposes of the production.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I expect the central answer to your question is limiting liability for management and/or the organization itself, in the context of bad publicity (and they can at least make the argument in harassment/hostile workplace environment suits, even if the workshops have no formal shielding effect).  Management can point to the workshops as offsetting institutional responsibility, and throw whatever individual involved under the bus as needed.


Also, this shield against liability can be proactive in cases of blackmail.  Jesse Jackson/Rainbow PUSH is a very early example of explicit blackmail, but just keeping an eye on implicit incentives can be good enough.  If the activists running the workshops see you as a source of funding, they are less likely to go looking for problems in your backyard.  (At least, for the grifters.  The true believers might still go after you.)


Sometimes the corporation even goes looking for the activists--Coca-Cola hired the NAACP to denounce regulatory attacks on its product as "racist," for example.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Why Are Women Hot? – Put A Number On It!
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As is all too common, I think there's an element of miscommunication between the modal reactions of men and women.


Men hear "I do it for me," notice that the thing being done is overtly public and communicative, conclude that the woman is not accurately describing her true motivations, and typical-mind into the conclusion that "obviously, attracting positive attention from the opposite sex is the real goal."


Women note that the conclusion is (often) wrong, and dismiss the rest of the argument.  This is also wrong, because while "feeling confident" is internal, knowing that other women will notice and recognize that you are not out of the loop is quintessentially social and externally motivated.  There is a contradiction between "I do it (just) for me" and "I do it for social reasons," and men are correct to notice, even if the modal conclusion drawn is in error.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Why Are Women Hot? – Put A Number On It!
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Makeup strikes me as one of many appearance-based ways to trade effort for status, which may be slanted towards provoking sexual attraction in men--heavily overemphasized eyes and lips, for example--but isn't necessarily.  Neatly arranged hair and flatteringly tailored clothing can also be bids for status...but there are also yoga pants with "JUICY" printed across the ass.


In general, working on your appearance sends the message "I have the time and resources to present myself like this, and chose to spend both doing so."  Results vary a lot, and I think the motives do as well.  It can be a confidence-booster to know you are putting your best foot forward, which probably shouldn't be reduced to "doing it for men," but if you're going full Kardashian, I am with you in not buying the "it's for me, not men" line.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would suggest that you take a look at the development of the insanity defense, which has been well developed over several centuries of experience.


A diagnosis of mental illness is not a free pass.  The defense is considerably narrower in its availability, and even then, a jury must find it persuasive, which is itself very rare.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Perhaps anger driven by a desire for justice provides psychological padding against the shock of doing deliberate harm to another?  Depictions of people who approach war and criminal justice coldly and unemotionally are not generally positive; one may describe them as "detached," and that phrasing suggests an "attachment" that is broken or missing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Mainstream Media is Worse Than Silence: If your Big Picture is wrong, say nothing.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Another situation that is sort of like the inverse of your ADHD meds is intoxication, often drunkenness.  It is common for the law to distinguish between voluntary intoxication (I went to the bar and got drunk) and involuntary intoxication (I was at a party and someone spiked my nonalcoholic drink without my knowledge).  With some edge-case exceptions, you're considered responsible for wrongdoing if you voluntarily became intoxicated, but not responsible if it was involuntary.


By a parallel construction, even if unmedicated ADHD causes a loss of agency, you might be considered responsible if your meds were available and you chose not to take them.  (I think the Kanye situation is related--he's pretty severely bipolar, but unmedicated by choice, as the meds negatively affect his creativity.  In my opinion, he gets to take the good with the bad in terms of being "publicly creative.")


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it says a lot about The Motte that this comment--which is obviously leaning super hard into deliberately poking emotional buttons--was met with multiple dispassionate responses that take the position offered seriously.  And I think they were correct to do so!


This comment showed up on my "volunteer mod" list, and I seriously considered both the "warning" and "AAQC" options.  Went with "neutral."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I could see that line being an example of Jesus no-selling a claim of displaced responsibility, though.  "It's not my fault, it was my eye that was responsible for the sin!"  "If you're serious, get rid of that sinful eye, and be free of (this) sin...wait, no takers?  Who knew."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In Defense of Wrath and Forgiveness


Anger and the rest of its conceptual cluster (wrath, outrage, hatred, etc.) are not in themselves wrong.  They are the appropriate, healthy emotional response to a violation of justice.  The virtue of anger is that it provides drive, energy, and motivation to correct or avenge a wrong.  A passionless man is not moved by injustice, but instead becomes the proverbial "good man" that does nothing, leading to the triumph of evil.  The common error in their manifestation is that of anger unchecked (or insufficiently checked) by reason and temperance, which frequently leads to further acts of injustice.  Anger is a good servant in its proper context, but a bad master.


Forgiveness is a setting aside, or letting go, of anger that has outlasted its usefulness.  It has nothing to do with whether the target of that anger no longer "deserves" condemnation; even the noble act of killing Hitler was insufficient to balance the scales of the tremendous evil he inflicted on the world during his lifetime, and he is no longer available on this earth to pay down that debt.  The Holocaust was an event of great and terrible evil, an injustice that beggars the imagination, and for that, anger is the proper emotional response.  But what corrective good can that anger serve, most of a century later?  With perhaps one or two very minor exceptions, the perpetrators of that evil are long gone.


Anger at historical injustices, where there is no just outlet for that drive, is purely corrosive and--best case--harms only the bearer.  "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."  Forgiveness is therefore necessary to purge the poison of pointless anger, and turn instead to more productive pursuits.  Forgiveness is not about denying the evil of past injustice, or forgetting the lessons that may be learned.  To the extent that past evils may be educational, they should be heeded to avoid future pitfalls.  But if they cannot be corrected or justly avenged, then angry fervor should be set aside.


Forgiveness is also conceptually separate from mercy--the denial or reduction of punishment justly earned.  One may forgive and still punish; in fact, forgiveness is often necessary to avoid over-punishing beyond the demands of justice.  This is no contradiction--once you are in a position to punish, the zealous drive of anger has most likely accomplished the good uses it can serve.  Forgiveness is also healthy at any point in the process--it is a setting aside of anger, not responsibility.  Using forgiveness as an excuse to avoid correcting injustice is still wrong.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Honor of the Queen is the second book in a rather long series, and the Graysons (the patriarchal vaguely-but-actually-not-Mormons) recur pretty frequently over the course of it.  While Grayson society does nudge a bit more liberal over the course of the series--and contact with Honor herself and diplomatic relations with Manticore (UK in Spaaaace) is not a small part of that--the process is complicated, not frictionless, gradual, and results in a society that would still be considered very conservative from both Utah and South Carolina standards.  Grayson society is not held up as perfect--none of Weber's societies are--but even before its gradual liberalization, it's presented as reasonably healthy, on the whole.


Broadly speaking, Weber's societies can be grouped into healthy and unhealthy categories.  The unhealthy tend to eventually converge into totalitarian hellholes with different color uniforms, but the healthy ones don't converge into a particular mode--the Andermani Empire (mostly-ethnically-Chinese Prussia in Spaaaace) is an absolute monarchy, but a mostly positive example.  Also, Chien-lu Anderman, Herzog von Rabenstrange is great.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I presume you mean "Germany would have already supplied tanks to Ukraine"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
David Weber is certainly conservative.  Eric Flint is not even remotely conservative.  While they've collaborated professionally multiple times (and generally come out the better for it; they tend to rein in each other's faults), their politics are very very different.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Then either downvote and move on, or if you feel mod action is warranted, report and move on.  Comments that are merely a brief statement of agreement or disagreement are officially discouraged by the local ruleset.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I believe the proper reference is to the Lightworker, also known as former President Obama, thanks to an exceedingly effusive article written by Mark Morford in SFGate several years back.




Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.




(Emphasis in the original text.)


Probably not a Lucifer comparison.