Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
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User ID: 290
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
1d ago
No one's ever had such big numbers before!
By magnitude, or by font size? (Late Show with Stephen Colbert, April 2016)
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
1d ago
At some point it becomes more useful to model it as a form of tithing than con artistry. The people buying this junk must be getting some form of utility out of it, even if it confounds the sophisticated mind.
During the 2021 short squeeze of GameStop, some people bought stock not caring whether they came out ahead, considering the entire amount they had spent on it to be a fair price to strike back at the Wall Street investors whom they blamed for 2008. ("It's not about the money; it's about sending a message.")
Someone who feels ill-used by the Very Serious People in establishment politics might very well purchase the items in question thinking not "This has a good chance of being profitable." so much as "You bastards ruined my life and then had the gall to blame me and say I deserved it. F%*# you, I'll give money to the guy you hate."
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
2d ago
It varies by region, per Ig Nobel laureate S. J. Newman.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
4d ago
It might [be] too early to celebrate the death of wokeness
If/when the estate of Dr. Seuss returns On Beyond Zebra and McElligott's Pool to print, I will consider wokism to have expired, gone to meet its maker, run down the final curtain, and joined the choir invisible.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
4d ago
Homeless people aren't birthed into this world as penniless drug users at a corner in the business district.
No, but they are birthed into this world as human beings, made according to the image of God, and bearing the inalienable right to be treated as an end in themselves, rather than as an inconvenient obstacle. (There, but for the grace of God, go I....)
They chose to occupy that premium real estate because it affords them some other benefit. Typically the easy ability to harass people for money and targets for retail theft. He always had the option of staying where he is from where people know him and would let him use the bathroom. Or going to a shelter for the homeless and using that bathroom.
The important reframe of modern homelessness that will help just about understand what we are talking about is this: They are on premium real estate, and there is no right to use some of the best, most expensive land in the country in whatever way you desire. I cannot go to Lincoln Park and start a hot dog stand next to the lion's exhibit.
But if you start declaring parts of a city as 'no poors allowed', you're opening Pandora's Jar; homeless people not allowed in 'premium' areas --> more areas adopting the same policy --> poor people confined to 'Sanctuary Districts' like in that Star Trek episode with the Bell Riots --> razor-wire fences, mass graves, and U. N. investigations.
There is no reason a homeless fellow should be able to occupy the same space and fill it with stink and feces
No, they should do their $euphemism in a toilet; however, this requires that they be allowed to! If there are free-at-the-point-of-use toilets nearby, and a homeless person chooses to befoul the ground, it is justified to prosecute them.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
5d ago
From the bottom of the ladder, the difference between 'direct harm' and 'indirect harm' looks rather academic.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
5d ago
Is it coercive to forbid someone from taking a No. 2 on the pavement?
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
5d ago
I don't think that's a real thing ... The only real indignity is starving, plus maybe not having a (small) roof over your head.
'Existence worthy of human dignity' is how it is described in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, meaning more than mere survival. Living in a bare closet, eating tasteless gruel, dressed in rags, and staring at a blank wall when not working or sleeping, would not be 'worthy of human dignity' even if it isn't 'starving'.
So essentially, you admit there's full employment, yet there's still no way to get you to accept that workers have agency/they aren't raped when they have sex with their boss? Only if there's a new system, full communism or something.
'Full employment' in the economic-statistical sense is necessary but not sufficient for the concept I am attempting to point to.
If Alice wants an employee who will provide sexual favours/stand up for hours on end doing tasks that can be done sitting down/not eat rice on Tuesdays, and Bob wants a steady pay-cheque without involving genitals/allowing him to sit down if he can still get his work done/letting him eat whatever he feels like on whatever day he pleases,
- how often will Alice blink first, and how often will Bob blink first?
- if they cannot come to an agreement, how hard will it be for Bob to find employment under his conditions, and how hard will it be for Alice to find an employee willing to accept her conditions?
The thing I am trying to point to is 'economic conditions in which Bob does not almost always yield first, and, in the absence of agreement, Bob's future is not vastly harder than Alice's'. It can be present in some circumstances while simultaneously absent in others; thus it is not adequately captured by a single figure, although it is more common with lower unemployment.
I think achieving the lack of any real unemployment in a society (like the current 4% in the US) is of primary importance, and a great boost to the agency, bargaining power, and psychological health of workers. So I'm very sceptical of any attempts to help workers that could increase unemployment (raising minimum wage, anti-firing legislation, etc). What they gain in salary or security, they lose in bargaining power - that's not a good trade over the long term.
The other direction is not a good trade either -- a worker deserves a living wage (in the FDR sense, adjusted for the material progress of broader society) and security from being fired arbitrarily or for un-justifiable reasons and the ability to set reasonable boundaries. This is not an impossible trilemma unless one imposes the constraint that neither Alice's profit margin nor privileged social position be in any way inconvenienced.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
5d ago
Why doesn't it apply to doing the task for which he was hired?
Because that is a reasonable expectation.
If you are looking for a meta-level principle that will determine what is and isn't reasonable for Alice to demand, without having to think about the object-level details, I'm afraid that There Is No Royal Road To Geometry.
Certainly, in a wage dispute, Alice's ability to hold out longer is equally if not moreso present.
Which is why we have unions and minimum-wage laws.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
5d ago
"If you don't do this, we will take some money from you at gunpoint" is making people do it.
"If you don't do this, we will shut down your business at gunpoint" is making people do it. Regarding the issue at hand, laws that require retail businesses to offer restroom access to non-customers would count as 'making' someone do something.
The plan I am suggesting is (to quote the Rightful Caliph) a Something Sort Of Like Left-Libertarianism-ist alternative to more coercive measures.
(A Something Sort Of Like Left-Libertarianism-ist Manifesto, Slate Star Codex, December 2013)
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
5d ago
Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned
nor hell hath any fury like a woman scorned.
-- William Congreve
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
6d ago
An that's why I always say the best anti-rape policy is to lower the minimum wage
But then you have the problem of people who work full-time who still can't afford the costs of an existence worthy of human dignity.
and fight the unions.
That goes in the wrong direction; unions are an attempt to solve the very problem I am alluding to, namely the gross imbalance of power between Alice and Bob!
Doesn't the US have full employment already, therefore Bob was not raped?
Perhaps 'full employment' was not the exactly correct term; I am referring to the balance of power between management and labour, and economic circumstances in which the lack of an agreement has similar costs to both sides.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
6d ago
Does this apply to all aspects of employment contracts, or only to sexual favors? Is Bob bound by anything in his employment contract, or can he break it as he sees fit because he is being held hostage by reality?
It applies to unreasonable provisions, i. e. ones Bob only accepts because Alice can afford to hold out longer.
It doesn't apply to 'doing the task for which he was hired, to a reasonable standard'.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
6d ago
If it turns out that political considerations keep you from doing those strong measures
...there will still be less excreta on the pavement, because some of the people previously doing their business there will now be using toilets. Even if it isn't a complete solution, we're still better off.
Part one: hurt people by making them do X, part 2: ameloriate the harm from part 1
My proposal isn't making anyone do anything. If you want to reserve your business's toilets to paying customers, I am not proposing to forbid that course of action!
Under the status quo, businesses are in a position isomorphic to the prisoners' dilemma:
- if all businesses offer public toilets, I am better off than if none of them do, because there are fewer bowel movements on the ground.
- However, if all the other businesses offer public toilets, it is in my financial interest to reserve the toilets in my business to paying customers, and thus spend less on maintenance.
- If none of the other businesses offer public toilets, it is also in my financial interest to reserve the toilets in my business to paying customers.
Under my proposal, the extra taxes paid by businesses not offering public WCs would be reserved for the exclusive purpose of either directly providing facilities, or subsidising other businesses' provision thereof. (I apologise if that part wasn't clear.)
it's easy to say you'll do part 2 without actually doing it.
Hence the specific tax, from which businesses can make themselves exempt if they provide restrooms one can use without spending anything.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
6d ago
Why not simply relinquish the silly ban on paid public toilets and enforce the law as it exists?
Because I am trying to come up with a solution for the problem of 'providing restroom facilities to people who cannot pay for them'.
It is generally considered unacceptable (at least in the West) to put someone in a position in which they have no choice but to violate the law, and then punish them for doing so. As people do not cease to have bodily functions when they cannot legally perform them, there needs to exist places in which someone can exercise the Greater and Lesser Conveniences, even if they cannot pay to do so.
(I suppose one could allow private businesses to operate paid toilets, subject to taxation used to fund the free-at-point-of-use facilities....)
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
6d ago
That analogy falls down when you equate the 'commons' to someone with feelings.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
6d ago
A not entirely unreasonable point. Our economic system gives too much leverage to employers; if Alice hires Bob, Bob has a lot more to lose than Alice does; thus Alice can make unreasonable demands knowing that: 1. Bob will probably back down first, and 2. if he refuses, she won't have any difficulty finding someone more desperate. If we try to patch specific abuses with rules like 'don't make sex with one's boss a condition of employment', we end up playing Whack-a-Mole as Alice keeps finding more indignities to inflict on Bob, and campaigns against any intervention with the argument that Bob 'voluntarily' agreed to her terms, in the same way as the victim of a highway-man 'voluntarily' agreed to hand over his valuables.
Under full employment, however, if Alice demands that Bob offer her sexual favours, or forgo safety equipment in order to work faster, or stand up for his entire shift even though he could do his work just as well sitting down, or answer his phone at zero-dark-thirty for something could have waited until morning, or refrain from eating rice on Tuesdays, &c. &c., Bob is more likely to leave, and, having done so, is less likely to experience financial hardship as he can readily find a more reasonable employer, while Alice, less able to find anyone who will accept her onerous terms, will be incentivised to be more reasonable herself.
In such a system, the libertarian argument that Alice and Bob mutually agreed to whatever terms would be much more likely to hold water.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
6d ago
That doesn't help the issue of people with empty wallets and full bladders/large intestines. If there is no legitimate place in public where people can relieve themselves without spending any money, everyone else will have to navigate a bio-hazardous obstacle course on the side-walk.
My recommendation:
- Tax businesses who do not offer public bathrooms (defined as allowing anyone to come in, use the toilet, and leave without buying anything).
- Use the revenue from the tax to fund (a.) subsidies for businesses who do offer public restrooms (as defined above), or (b.) construction and maintenance of free-at-point-of-use public toilets.
- Once there are plenty of places where one can empty one's excretory organs without spending anything, it will be much more justifiable to take strong measures against those who continue to No. 1 on walls or No. 2 on the pavement.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
9d ago
Also check for parasites; hookworm has been known to have adverse effects on cognition....
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
9d ago
Strategic “divide and conquer” is a well-known tactic used to prevent group cohesion; anything which draws a wedge between white people or highlights differences will ultimately reduce the strength and chance of group advocacy.
Now apply the same reasoning to 'white people' wrt 'black people'.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
11d ago
And more Biden voters in Texas than there were in New York. (xkcd #2399)
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
11d ago
With which Russia had also previously interfered (2004, Viktor Yushchenko).
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
12d ago
The radiological hazard of depleted uranium is overstated; U-238 decays very slowly, and is sometimes (due to its density) used as shielding for more rapidly-decaying nuclides.
However, it poses a chemical hazard, as uranium is chemically toxic in a similar way to other heavy metals.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 My lineage is that of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve🌹
12d ago
Russian propaganda mentioned it several times back during the Maidan crisis in 2014 and it was just as silly then.
Sillier, actually; I don't recall any noise among the Western nations about biting off any territory from Ukraine.
I shudder to think what that would mean for Vance's actions, given that Harrison's successor, John Tyler, later became the only U. S. president to openly swear allegiance to a polity firing on U. S. troops....
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