Corvos
12hr ago
Cold Turkey is the best I know: the kinds of blocks you can do are sophisticated and flexible, and so are the ways you can implement those blocks.
Sadly, it doesn't work on Linux. I have LeechBlock but what I really want is the opposite: to unblock things for the next X time and then have them block automatically.
In all seriousness, this doesn't work out. I know a guy who married a prostitute made good (not as a client, they met elsewhere). The problem with marrying someone who has sex for money is that the mercenary attitude to sex tends to leak into their relationships. She ended up treating the guy as a sort of long-term john, cheating on him when she wanted more spending money or when his salary was too low for her liking. Also, of course, all the original problems that led her to prostitution were still there: awful criminal family, drugs, low motivation etc. The guy was far from perfect but this isn't a dynamic you want.
Corvos
20hr ago
https://www.jsanilac.com/dispelling-beauty-lies/?ref=jsanilac.com
This guy, I think.
Corvos
20hr ago
It would be nice to sit down and enjoy a AAA game for a couple of days without feeling like it was trying to surgically attach itself to me. I quite liked Helldivers: the equipment tree is a premium currency hellscape but it gets straight to the gameplay loop and the loop is fun.
Corvos
21hr ago
Really? Never knew that. In the UK I used to have lots of (moderate) friends who read it as a contrasting complement to the BBC.
Corvos
23hr ago
Because the alternative is only having access to social media that is government-vetted. Given the events of 2016-2024, this makes me nervous.
Corvos
23hr ago
Thanks for the links, they mostly check out. The only thing I’d add is that every link emphasis that they believe the content on TikTok is unnatural: Greenblatt talks about an unnatural switch to using Iranian terms, the other links argue that the ratio of pro/anti Israel content on TikTok is significantly different to that found on campus polls (and is therefore evidence of foreign manipulation). This concern about artificiality is probably a fig leaf, I doubt that most of these groups would be happier if they could show it was organic, but I imagine it flipped a few senators.
Corvos
1d ago
people directly involved admit that the Jewish lobby was decisive in the matter which had previously stalled after failing to get enough support. It is the decisive reason, they even admit this
In the interests of fairness, it would be quite nice to have a source for this, too.
Corvos
1d ago
Some evidence would be nice, though. If you’re going to ban force divestment of a product worth billions because its owners are promoting anti-American propaganda, having literally any evidence that the owners are doing this seems pretty important.
I don’t even approve of TikTok but the reasons for banning it seems very dubious. We seem increasingly close to, “we are going to impose totalitarianism on you to protect you from totalitarianism”.
Corvos
1d ago
Welcome back, unless you’re an impersonator :P
Sorry about your phone. I lost my favourite glasses a similar way once.
Corvos
1d ago
True, and I’m all for these things. The replacement of alms by tax-based welfare is something I’d love to know more about, and would surely make a good effort-post.
@Jim Specifically, the point is that even if the "agree or get fired" orthodoxy is totally irrelevant to day to day life, it will still warp the sciences in a massive radius around it. Naive physicists will ask why lightning is the only light that gets slowed by atmospheric moisture and get fired, it will be harder to talk about fibre optics and supersonic aircraft and that kind of thing.
Worse, any physicist who wants to take down a colleague can accuse him/her of believing that lightning comes before thunder, and most people will be unable to convincingly refuse the accusation because they secretly do believe it's true. Physicists become routinely mistrusted, and mistrust their colleagues. People have to have an internal switch that tells them when you can and can't safely talk about lightning.
Even the humanities get affected: a bunch of old books have to be Dr. Seuss'd because they describe lightning storms in ways that make it clear that characters see lightning and THEN hear thunder.
Jesus. In a 42 page document, beginning on page 7, men aren't mentioned till page 9:
We also combat discrimination and harmful gender norms that affect people of all genders: women and girls— including transgender women and girls—gender nonbinary and gender nonconforming people, as well as men and boys. (Emphasis mine)
In total, men are mentioned a grand total of 11 times in 42 pages, and with only two exceptions those instances reference men purely to illustrate the comparative plight of women.
42 pages. 11 mentions. 1 positive mention.
That 'positive' mention is the one I give above, where it's suggested that men need help to liberate them from their masculinity. The other mention is neutral, stating that the commission will work with men to, of course, help women.
Thanks for the reply! It’s always interesting to get a medical perspective on these kinds of interactions.
One wrinkle is that this actually took place in Japan, where medical care is extremely cheap (heavily subsidised) and efficient but as a consequence it’s very process-oriented. Most discussions with a doctor cost $5 but take about 5 min; that transcript was pretty nearly the whole conversation, although to be fair that was partly because I had a more urgent problem.
I take your point about other lifestyle factors; I wanted to treat my ‘anemia’ so I could rule it out and apparently taking strong iron tablets is dangerous without medical supervision.
America has long advertised itself to the world on the basis of being fundamentally, philosophically not-China.
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander” doesn’t work here because precisely by imitating the controls that China puts on what its citizens can access, America is saying that it does not believe its citizens can be trusted to make right choices for themselves and their country.
Put another way, “nobody’s making them download Chinese propaganda/spyware” might be groan worthy naïveté but considering that to be naïveté rather than nobility strikes at the heart of what I would consider the American project.
Tell me about it.
Me: I think I have anemia. My score is just above the threshold and I’m tired all the time.
Doctor: But it’s not below the threshold, so you don’t.
Me: but it’s literally as low as you can go without passing the threshold, right at the bottom of the ‘healthy’ range. Presumably almost having anemia is pretty nearly as bad as actually having anemia. Can’t we bump up my iron levels a bit?
Doctor: yeah, that’d be normal procedure. If you had anemia.
Corvos
4d ago
Overtraining? You could try doing the minimal possible workout and see if the problem persists.
Rather, I would present that your attempted framing is a form of moral malpractice- not because it defends terrorists, but precisely because it does not defend non-terrorists.
In the nicest possible way, if you would like a discussion I would appreciate it if you made your point simply and clearly.
The question was posed to you with the expectation you'd avoid it
Not intentionally. I didn't realise what you were getting at. If you avoided gotchas and made your point plainly, it would reduce such misunderstandings. I am not interested in 'winning' and I am not arrogant enough to believe that I'm going to suddenly provoke a flood of introspection in people I'm talking to. I'm just giving my perspective as straightforwardly as I can.
Yes, obviously, if someone is attacking you then you have to defend yourself against them, which may well mean killing them. It's unfortunate. I'm quite capable of feeling pity for the soldiers of an aggressor. And, yes, a little bit for actual Hamas terrorists, depending on exactly how vile they are - I remember the al Qaeda child suicide bombings and whoever set that up deserves to burn in hell. But I hate the insistence that because the Russians/Nazis/Napelonic forces are the enemy then they must be evil monsters with no soul against whom anything is morally justified.
appeals which are used by bystanders in rationalizing acceptance of the 'actual terrorists' who use such appeals as the basis of their strategy, are placing more people at risk, rather than a less.
I am not a combatant in a propaganda war, nor a lawyer. I felt that bombing large numbers of innocent Gazans in the service of killing a small number of terrorists and thereby protecting a small number of Israelis was inhumane, and said so.
Including, yes, people who hate the Israelis and hope that Hamas wins, which I imagine is just about everybody at this point, as well as the people who pack their lunch boxes.
This would be a great deal of wishful projection.
I meant in Gaza, and that is not my wish. I neither hate the Israelis, nor hope for Hamas to win.
And WW2 was also where the pre-WW2 era of geopolitical dominance by European monarchies and empires was broken, and with it the artificial imposition of European monarchist political norms.
Whereas American geopolitical dominance is natural and snuggly, of course. In any case, you seem to be agreeing with me: the understood laws of moral responsibility were destroyed retroactively to justify what our new overlords wanted. All hail.
It is my understanding that the British had other, more selective tools and the resources to use them.
To some extent. Most notably, we eventually managed to cut off the main source of their funding (American, unfortunately) which I think slowed them down considerably. The thing is, Israel was doing quite well at cutting off Hamas' backing before Oct 7. In fact, if I remember correctly, most of Israel's neighbours had made big steps toward official relations with them, mostly with the intent of opposing Iran. One of the most plausible reasons for Oct 7 was that Hamas needed to split the neighbouring muslim nations off Israel by provoking bloodshed.
We have regular muslim killings of white people in the UK: are we permitted to keep exterminating them until we are sure there are no Islamists left among them? The Chinese suffered terrorism too, I believe, does that render the Xinjiang internment camps justified?
If you have a community of 2nd-3rd generation immigrants and ethnocultural terrorism seems to have root in that community, it is your duty as a government to at the very least increase overwatch and law enforcement over that community. And if you can't or won't enforce the values and laws of the larger country over that diaspora so much that they might as well be a different state - then it's what is usually called "war".
That sounds like yes, especially since in practice anything short of Xinjiang levels of overwatch don't seem to work. I'm pretty nativist and I might abide by that if I had to but I wouldn't call it 'moral'.
Side with? Maybe not. But if they really can't destroy Israel, or secure sufficient independence from Israel (while Israel doesn't exactly have any reason to trust them with independence given the history), then I have all the less sympathy for them. If you want to do terrorism and martyrdom for independence, you'd better win and win fast.
This seems kind of like:
- If someone steals your land and you accept it, you lose and they get to rule you forever.
- If someone steals your land and you do everything you can to take it back but fail, you're pathetic and you deserve death.
- If someone steals your land and you immediately kill lots of them and force them away, fair enough! Good on yer!
It's pragmatic, yes, but it seems a weird way to allocate sympathy. Certainly the West would probably be in much better shape now if we'd exterminated all our slaves and colonial subjects rather than merely repress them for a couple of centuries, but again I can't call that moral. Likewise, Israel did essentially steal much of the land and is therefore not starting with a firm moral foundation; you have the settlers, you have clear instances of extremely poor behaviour against both Muslims and Christians, and now you have them massacring Gazans. Two years ago I would have told you I was firmly in the Israeli camp! But frankly I can't condone what's being done, and I get increasingly creeped out as the pro-Israeli contigent (not pointing at you specifically) talk about how necessary all of this is and even sometimes say cheerfully that exterminating the Gazans man woman and child would be best for everyone.
Corvos
5d ago
I'm not defending the terrorists, as in the people actually firing rockets, I'm defending everyone else. Including, yes, people who hate the Israelis and hope that Hamas wins, which I imagine is just about everybody at this point, as well as the people who pack their lunch boxes.
Even people under terrible regimes have agency, which is why 'just following orders' or 'just running train schedules' were dismissed as defenses in notable past examples.
Incidentally I disagree with this, and discussed it further here. Until WW2, it was almost always understood that those giving orders would be held responsible for the results of those orders being carried out, providing that the actions taken corresponded roughly to the orders given. Like so many load-bearing aspects of our society, we jettisoned this so that we could jump up and down on the Nazis a bit more.
The IRA wanted to take over Protestant-occupied Northern Ireland, and hated the Protestants who lived there with a hatred that bordered on and frequently surpassed murderous. They planted bombs, killing a considerable number of people, whilst also regularly maiming and brutalising their supposed countrymen. See for example this article from 1996.
The IRA was blamed last night for driving spikes into the arms and legs of a youth in an horrific attack on a youth in republican west Belfast. The victim, aged 18, was grabbed, taken to a back garden, handcuffed, his mouth taped and then beaten by at least seven men. It was one of Northern Ireland's worst punishment attacks, police said. This was the 3Oth paramilitary punishment attack in that part of west Belfast in the last year. There have been more than 210 others throughout Northern Ireland. Loyalists have been responsible for up to 100.
They were, as another poster commented recently, aware of the utility that promoting British reprisals on innocent people would produce for their cause, and encouraged violent rioting and stone throwing, though it can't be proved that they intended to get Irish people killed for propaganda purposes.
Now, obviously the situation is not exactly the same. The parties are different, their relations are different, and most importantly, it never occurred to the British or the Northern Irish to round up all the Irish and carpet bomb them until the IRA were dead. Neither partly used artillery or missiles and thus, the use of human shields was less relevant.
I see absolutely no way that Hamas could destroy Israel, who are no slouches themselves and are backed by the most powerful nation in the world. I see no reasons why Gazans would ever, or frankly should ever, side with the people who stole their land and bombed them into paste over the people who are plausibly fighting for them.
To condone Gaza indefinitely bombing Israel because Israel can (mostly, for now) take it because stopping them would take more Gazan lives than Gaza currently takes Israeli lives is far too close to the concept of utility monsters for me.
Were the IRA utility monsters? Would we have been justified invading Ireland and killing Irish citizens to stop them? We have regular muslim killings of white people in the UK: are we permitted to keep exterminating them until we are sure there are no Islamists left among them? The Chinese suffered terrorism too, I believe, does that render the Xinjiang internment camps justified?
To some extent your beliefs seem to be based on the idea that Israel will sooner or later be destroyed if it's not permitted to bomb Gaza. I disagree, as I said. It's certainly not happening now. If in the future it looks like it's going to happen, then fair enough! That changes the calculus. But it doesn't mean that the Israelis get to massacre vast numbers of Gazans now just in case.
"Made good" is a turn of phrase. He married her. They were (supposed to be) in a committed, monogamous relationship for several years. There was some tension there, it's true, but he also did his level best to get her back on her feet and help her build the financial independence and social life she'd never been able to achieve on her own.
I think you have a very idealised view of 'sex workers'. This particular girl wasn't a free spirit being imprisoned by her awful sex-negative husband, she was a sweet, lonely girl who lacked the innate sense of self to turn down anything that made her feel good in the moment. She had been doing this since she left school, and it had left her physically broken and worn out in certain important ways. The cosmetic alterations she got, or had been encouraged to get by her pimp, had long term consequences that ruined her health. I can't say for sure, but I think she realised that she was rapidly running out of road, tried to escape, and kept getting dragged back in by drug addiction, criminal family members and chronically low time-preference.
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