Crowstep
5mo ago
Patent laws are national, not international.
My understanding is that once a variant has been donated to say, Bangladesh, it cannot be 'undonated' unless Bangladesh's government decides to issue a patent there.
Crowstep
5mo ago
Golden rice was developed by a non-profit in collaboration with universities. It doesn't have terminator genes (indeed, no crop with terminator genes has ever been sold, the technology was essentially abandoned in the early 2000s).
It does include patented genes, but patent law is national, not international. Only 12 of the patents are applicable outside of America, and all 12 have been waived by their owners. Any farmer who buys golden rice seeds can replant them forever.
Greenpeace isn't opposed to Golden Rice because they're worried about farmers' welfare. They're opposed to it because of their knee-jerk technophobia.
Crowstep
5mo ago
My expectation is that the illegal immigration situation will continue to be as dysfunctional as it has been under the Conservatives. I think Labour's plan was to swap our boat people for France's boat people, though it isn't clear what the purpose of this is exactly.
As for legal migration, probably we'll see a more liberal visa regime, followed by public opposition, followed by tightening up, followed by party revolts in favour of looser rules, and so on in a circle. Basically what we've had for the last decade.
Crowstep
5mo ago
That is precisely why so many former Conservative voters are voting Reform. Conservatism just meant Blairism with right-wing rhetoric.
Labour will win, of course. My hope is that the Tories will see how many of their voters went to reform and will choose an actual conservative as their leader.
As for what Labour will do, Keir Starmer has been very careful to not reveal anything of what he actually believes. He'll mock the government for tripling immigration after promising to reduce it, but he won't say that reducing it is actually a good thing to do. He'll criticise the government for being unpatriotic, and then give a job to a woman who is most well known for mocking the national flag.
My hope is that he's a Lee Kwan Yew-style pragmatist. Hell, I'd settle for rainbow flags on every town hall if he makes it possible to actually build houses.
Crowstep
6mo ago
I've seen enough Youtube polyglots to be convinced that you can probably learn, if not an arbitrary number of languages, then certainly a large number without it 'crowding out' anything else. I suspect the same is true for physical skills, like playing instruments (loads of musicians can play multiple) and sports (or sport-like skills such as juggling).
I guess it depends how much time and energy you've got to spare.
Crowstep
6mo ago
The only two anorexics I ever knew in real life were my grandmother in her final years and a boy I went to school with. The meme when I was growing up was that teenage girls caught anorexia from reading fashion magazines. It jarred so much with my own experience that I always figured there must be more to to disease than 'I wanna be skinny so boys will like me'.
Crowstep
6mo ago
For television the sound engineers did amplify applause and mute the boos which also gives a nice discussion about truth and Orwell etc. It will be very interesting what sound from the audience will be broadcast at the final show today.
From what I recall there was no notable booing during Israel's performance, but lots while the head of the EBU was on screen. I'm guessing they assumed there would be booing for the Israeli entry and planned accordingly, but didn't think that the audience would boo the inoffensive bureaucrat who's technically in charge.
It's worth noting that the people's favourites were, in order:
- Croatia (an energetic, rock-adjacent anthem written in broken English)
- Israel (a standard Euro-ballad that was originally called 'October Rain', forced to change by the producers)
- Ukraine (a vaguely ethnic, vaguely religious ballad with light effects very reminiscent of bombs)
- France (a minimalist love song by an established French singer with an impressive voice)
- Switzerland (the jury winner)
The juries came with a similar list, but put Switzerland much higher, and gave very few points to Israel. So either Israel's song was great, and the juries were biased against them, or it was meh and the public were biased in favour of them. Also the juries love a man in a skirt.
Other highlights include:
- Finland - A comedy song by 'Windows95Guy' which involved him running around on stage wearing nothing from the waist down, his skin-tone pouch strategically blocked by scenery a la Austin powers.
- Ireland - Another non-binary (a woman this time) seemingly trying to summon a literal demon.
- UK - A gay guy sings while buff male backing dancers gyrate on eachother. Somehow not the gayest entry this year.
- Audible booing every time the head of the European Broadcasting Union appeared on screen (for letting Israel compete).
- Several coded anti-Israel statements from national representatives (ostensibly talking about peace and love).
- Plus lots of 90s throwbacks, obscure ethnic instruments and young women in Beyonce-esque bodysuits.
Altogether a fairly standard year for Eurovision.
Crowstep
6mo ago
'Since forever' was hyperbole on my part, but this article suggests that Jews have been conservative for most of the post-war period. While they started off as poor, Eastern European immigrants (and voted left), they moved up the class pyramid and switched to voting right. This report suggests that the preference for Conservative voting was well established by 1995 but I couldn't find any data from earlier.
Plus the Victorian Britains elected the extremely Jewish-sounding Benjamin Disraeli as Conservative Prime Minister in 1874, although he had converted to the Church of England as a child so his Jewishness was ethnic if not religious. The end of (limited) legal discrimination against Jews is usually dated to 1858, when they were allowed to become members of Parliament without taking a Christian oath of office.
Crowstep
6mo ago
The British Jews have been solidly conservative since like, forever. Continental European Jews also tend to be right wing.
I'm pretty sure American Jews vote left wing because the American right has a history of racial discrimination, which Jews pattern match to Nazism.
The (global) Jews aren't opposed to western civilisation. The anglosphere left is opposed to western civilisation, and the American Jews have integrated into that.
Crowstep
6mo ago
If that were true, we would expect traditional societies to be more willing to allow women to suffer and die in place of men, because they have less value.
Except we don't. Every human society treats men as disposable relative to women.
However human psychology shakes out in any particular society, I think 'high status vs low status' is simply an inappropriate measure to use when comparing the stations of men and women. Men and women are not competing ethnic or religious groups, where power and status differentials can be clear, deliberate and explicit. The relationship is more complicated than that.
Crowstep
6mo ago
That 12% gap seems pretty large to me (presumably it's mostly driven by motherhood). But OP was talking about working in a particular field, not employment more generally. We should expect college graduates (who are smarter than average) to mostly be gainfully employed. That's different from studying Psychology and actually getting a job as a therapist or whatever.
Crowstep
6mo ago
The Open Society Foundation isn't a 'Jewish' organisation, it was just founded by a Jew. George Soros may love multiculturalism, but that doesn't mean that Jews love it.
'Every mainstream Jewish organisation in Europe' - The fact that you haven't been able to name a single organisation here suggests that you don't actually have any examples.
Barbra Spectre is an individual, not an organisation.
The JIDF is, as far as I can tell, an Israeli nationalist group. I can't see any examples of them promoting multiculturalism outside of Israel.
As far as I can tell, the ADL is the only thing you've listed that is a Jewish organisation and promotes multiculturalism.
Look, there is a world outside America. American Jews may be left wing, but that doesn't make global jewry left wing. One of the most influential French anti-immigrationist is Eric Zemmour, an Algerian Jew. Britain's only Jewish Prime Minister was a proud British imperial nationalist. I could go on. This idea that western countries invited millions of third worlders because the Jews made us do it is a cope. Our own political class did it to us, not the semitic enemy within that you're imagining.
Crowstep
6mo ago
while promoting multiculturalism everywhere else
Do you have any evidence of this? Ideally from countries that aren't America.
Crowstep
6mo ago
can.
Food has been getting cheaper, we're growing more of it on less farmland since the 1990s, and malnutrition is declining rapidly. There's no reason to expect that all of the trends that have been occurring since the industrial revolution will suddenly reverse, especially since global birth rates (gross) peaked in 2016 and global TFR is about to fall below replacement (if it hasn't already).
Crowstep
7mo ago
This article seems to have details about going about it.
Crowstep
7mo ago
I believe there are malicious, intelligent, competent agents
Looks like the present tense to me. I assume that you're retreating from your original claim then? Unless you're willing to be even a tiny bit specific about who you're talking about I can't see how it is possible to have a meaningful discussion.
Crowstep
7mo ago
Well, we don't live in pods, nor do we eat bugs. I'm not sure how being able to walk to work counts as a 'cage' but whatever. Falsified, I guess?
But you haven't answered the key question. Who are these malicious actors? What evidence do you have for their exitence or motives?
Crowstep
7mo ago
I think it was pretty clear from the context that the first part was a summary of your views. Plus, I did literally quote you later on with a far stronger claim.
Your prediction isn't predicting all that much. Birth rates are plummeting and have been for decades. Global births peaked in 2016 and the world's TFR is about to fall below replacement. That the global population will shrink significantly is mathematically certain.
The second part is stronger (at least the 'absolute' part if not the 'relative' part), but seems very unlikely to me.
However, we weren't discussing whether or not the average human will be poorer in 2100 than they are now. The discussion was about the 'malicious, intelligent, competent agents'. Who are these agents? Where is your evidence for their existence and motives? What would you accept as falsification of these claims?
Crowstep
7mo ago
I think the accusation of Bulverism is unfair. 'Me and people like me are being oppressed by shadowy, unnamed forces' is impossible to falsify. The onus is on you to prove it. If you can't or won't do that, then speculating on why you might believe that there are malicious, intelligent, competent agents which plan for humiliation and elimination of large masses of populations is a reasonable thing to do.
Crowstep
7mo ago
Many people who would laugh at the idea of the Aztecs believing the conquistadores to be emissaries of the Aztec gods also themselves believe in the literal truth of the Jewish covenant, that Jews are a people Chosen by god and they are a race of god-creators vis-a-vis the ancestry of Jesus Christ.
I wondered how long it would take for this to be about Jews. You never fail to disappoint.
As far as I can tell, you are upset that Rationalists regard high-IQ Jews as superior to Kurt, despite his noble physiognomy and the fact that they are 'short, weak, ugly nerds'. Am I getting that right?
I would worry about this being an uncharitable take, except for the fact that you cannot stop posting about how Jews are bad.
Have I misinterpreted the post? Could you summarise your thesis in a sentence?
Crowstep
7mo ago
I wouldn't put too much stake on 'the realities of CICO'. No matter how much the public hears 'calories in, calories out' the obesity epidemic continues unabated. If it was as simple as choosing to eat less, we'd see far fewer fat people than we do. Nobody wants to be fat.
Maybe your wife will be able to reverse her expanding waistline, but if she does, it might be because she's started taking ozempic rather than through sheer force of will. Hoping that the latter will work has a good chance of disappointing both of you.
Crowstep
7mo ago
If the annexed territories are ‘officially’ part of Russia, why hasn’t Russia nuked Kiev for invading its sovereign territory?
It’s a bluff, it always was. If NATO tanks roll in from Poland, Russia will choose retreat over nuclear Armageddon.
Crowstep
7mo ago
What's bizarre is the Western world asking Ukrainian men to bear nearly the entire brunt of this conflict as if their lives have no value.
The 'Western world' isn't asking anything of them. The Ukrainian people and government want to fight, and want the west to support them. If the Ukrainian government wanted to surrender, they could do so tomorrow without asking for anyone's permission.
Other countries have agency too.
A few years ago the UK had a brief moral panic about 'needle spiking'. The idea that sexual predators were walking around with syringes full of rohypnol and stabbing unsuspecting women on nights out. Needless the say, the police didn't find a single case of it actually happening.
That said, our country's most prolific rapist actually did use GHB to rape over 200 young men, so it's not as if it can't be used for that purpose.
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