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DuplexFields

Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.

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joined 2022 September 05 05:51:34 UTC
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DuplexFields


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 05:51:34 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No direct culture war implications, at least not directly left/right. However, this was easily predictable by readers of Michael Crichton or Ayn Rand, both names in the “up/down” culture war (to coin a phrase).


Crichton’s most famous work, Jurassic Park, was largely about chaos theory. When working with a complex system, that is to say one driven by logic and rules, an outlier can bring down a house of cards through emergent effects. John Hammond not paying for a team of programmers led to dinos eating people. Today’s a mundane version of that.


Rand had a lot to say about innovative producers versus free riders, and apropos to today, about smart people who can create or repair machines versus everyday people who can just use their interfaces until something goes wrong. When it does,  the cynical cry of, “Who is John Galt?” escapes their lips.




In the classic book “Atlas Shrugged”, the phrase Who is John Galt is a cry of despair and hopelessness. It describes a situation wherein the pistons are removed from an engine making that whole metal mass of a car useless.






The pistons form a small part of a vehicle’s mass, but provide the entire reason for a (petrol) car’s existence. Similarly most great organisations and societies are moved by a small group of people — the innovators. When those are removed, the entire thing falls apart. And the engine is usually among the last parts of the car to give up. And when the engine gives up, usually you don’t find a replacement — you just sell the vehicle to scrap. When the small minority of truly creative, entrepreneurial, risk-taking people are removed from a society, the society completely falls apart.






John Galt is a symbol of that risk taking, entrepreneurial guy. And when he gives up, the despair sets in. “Who is John Galt” is a cry from the masses who are confused about what is happening and who are despairing to get back the people in charge [the people who can take charge of reality through reason and bend it to their will].






And the truly creative, entrepreneurial guy need not be a rich industrialist. He can be a worker. He can be an artist. He can be a banker. He can be a professor. It is not about their wealth, but about how much they move the status quo.




The American IT industry was hit hard by COVID. Businessmen, C-suite execs, saw their people remoting in from home and trying not to return to the office. These execs, many of them free riders, realized they could halve their costs by hiring remote MSPs from out of country for IT and relying on Crowdstrike to be their security bottom line. A flood of IT layoffs happened this past year, deflating IT wages and making entry level jobs scarce.


Then today, only people with the admin password or a modicum of critical thought could restore the most well-protected systems. Today, companies across the globe learned who their John Galts were, their Eddie Willers, their Dagny Taggarts.


Although, as to the left/right culture war, imagine if this or worse had happened on Election Day and all the votes had to be hand-counted.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I disagree. Crowdstrike Falcon Sensor is meant to keep ransomware from happening, especially to (or through) the Internet of Things. Without it, at least some of the dozens of hospital systems which went down today would have already been hit by sophisticated unscrupulous organized criminals.


I feel sorriest for MGM, who got BSOD’d by Crowdstrike after getting ransomwared last year.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If your system was up when the update rolled out in the afternoon, and you turned off or reset your computer before the rollback patch, you got a BSOD easily fixable by anyone with the admin privilege.


Part of security is a monopoly on force — sorry, on access — so nobody dumb can infect the system, and few people had the privilege. I was one of the clever few who could boot with a Windows installation USB, delete the affected files, and be back up in minutes. Whereupon I was asked to get other PCs up in our building, which I gladly did.


On reddit, someone said they’d been speaking with their crowdstrike security rep the previous week, who said they had a beta for the new version which was getting BSOD on some windows systems, so they weren’t going to push it out until the bug was squashed. It’s assumed in IT the bad update accidentally got into global distrib.


Who is John Galt?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How many votes were the various fraud hunters allowed to look at by election officials and officers of the state, versus being tol they’re not allowed? How many of the trials went to discovery, versus being thrown out of court for not having standing? How many ballots were kept for the required number of years, versus being deleted from tally scanners with a “whoopsie! aren’t we clumsy”?


Sometimes, all a cover-up requires is to simply refuse investigation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’d just like to add that the Christian ethos is forgiving people for sinning against you if they repent of their sin. We’re also to love our enemies and do good to those who spitefully use us.


But that’s also in context of our relationship with God, who forgave us without demanding any cost other than repentance. We’re also to be gentle as lambs but wise as serpents, and that means not being idiots in the ways of the world.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I just finished Jon Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. I’ve bought three copies and I’m going to try to give them to the right people.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
From your first link, the species an otherkin believes themselves to be “may range from mythical species like demons, dragons, elves and faeries to wild animals and domesticated pets.” In my experience, these are the ferals, would-be quadrupeds instead of bipedal anthropomorphs.


Usually it’s true, the furry fandom and fandoms of mythical humanoids don’t overlap much (though the Elder Scrolls fantasy RPGs have two furry species alongside green orcs, three races of elves, and four races of humans). The biggest thing they tend to have in common is a dislike of humans, disavowing their affiliation with this species in a frankly stunning display of the human capacity for outgrouping.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Dysphoria doesn’t care what’s fulfillable, feasible, affordable, or possible. It rejects one’s current body plan (that’s the dys) and usually says a different one would be proper.


If you were wearing an uncomfortable shirt, it would be uncomfortable whether it was a comfortable shirt worn inside out, in need of tailoring, or just badly made. The rate of suicide among dysphoria sufferers is high primarily because of the discomfort; whether or not the shirt can be reversed, there comes a point you just want to take it off.


I do have a theory as to why the anthro animal body plan is so often approximately a dog-snouted humanoid, though.


While humans domesticated dogs, dogs were domesticating humans, both species’ brain sizes shrinking as we grew to rely on each other for survival. Dogs have neural circuitry, mirror neurons, for responding to human verbal and facial cues. Dogs can’t point their fingers (instead pointing using their whole bodies), but they’ll follow a human’s pointed finger, something even the best trained cat never does.


We aren’t just Homo sapiens and Canis lupus, we’re Canis lupus familiaris and Homo sapiens canofilia. Both of our species are conditioned by evolution to enjoy looking at each others’ faces and reacting to emotions.


Here’s where the theory all comes together. As a young boy with autism, the family dogs’ faces were more comprehensible and familiar than my human family’s. I, like many people with autism, had mild prosopagnosia: I recognized human faces but couldn’t imagine them. Not so with dogs, and to an extent, any besnouted mammalian cartoon face. I could easily imagine them expressing any human emotion.


I believe autism dampens instinctual ability to understand human facial expressions of emotion, but often leaves instinctive comprehension of animal faces untouched, thus the high incidence of anthropomorphic animal appreciation among the autistic.


At that point, picking the European wildcat or a My Little Pony as one’s fursona (furry persona) instead of the golden hamster is like finding one’s favorite sushi restaurant out of all the seafood restaurants in town.


/images/17209932386595678.webp


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Climbed a nearby building: https://www.themotte.org/post/1070/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/229040


And incompetent? Guy just drew blood from outside the Secret Service cordon. The wind is the only thing that saved President Trump.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Three aimed shots, then mag dump. https://www.themotte.org/post/1070/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/229040


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Here’s better sound. https://www.themotte.org/post/1070/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/229040


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There’s video of a forklift getting hit in the hydraulics by the sniper: https://www.themotte.org/post/1070/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/229040


Forklift was holding up speakers for the rally.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You see his performances, not his daily life. It follows that you have the impression of him he wishes you to have.


The man is an actor, a consummate performer. Even on the video of the shooting, you can see him grimace, then realize he’s being photographed/recorded and compose himself to raise a fist and shout “Fight! Fight! Fight!”


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Babylon Bee headline satirizing the bias: “CNN: ‘Clumsy Trump Hits Head On Bullet’ ”


Videos of the incident and the shooter: https://www.themotte.org/post/1070/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/229040


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Someone on a nearby roof got off seven shots with a rifle:


Footage of the shooting with fantastic audio: https://www.ntd.com/video-the-moment-shots-are-fired-at-trump-rally-in-butler-pennsylvania_1004827.html


Footage of the dead gunman: https://x.com/SharpFootball/status/1812273434510143554


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One rallygoer was killed, one wounded.


There’s spectacular video from NTD.com which pans over to a forklift holding up speakers. The lift’s hydraulics are hissing and spraying fluid as the lift collapses, lowering the speakers to the ground. You can hear, moments after panning back to the lectern, another shot.


There’s later video footage on Twitter of a camo-wearing person on a shed roof, unmoving. The BBC has an eyewitness interview that several people told Secret Service of a man on the roof but were ignored.


EDIT: both videos are linked in my comment here: https://www.themotte.org/post/1070/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/229040 <—


I imagine it was three aimed shots and four panicked shots from the would-be assassin, a single shot from a Secret Service sniper which disabled him, and a second shot to keep him from going for the gun again. That’s how I’d write the screenplay or episode of 24, given the footage I saw.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You'd rather pay 500 dollars a month for a weight-loss drug when you could just... organize your life better?




Imagine someone saying to a homeless person “you’d rather wait for the city to give you a tiny home in three years when you could just… organize your life better?” We fatties didn’t choose phantom hunger and akrasic mindsets. Obesity is as NP-hard a problem as chronic homelessness, and we probably share some neural miswiring with those unfortunate folks.


CICO works, indisputably, for anyone who can control their arms and legs against the will to consume.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I suffer from cravings. I can start wanting food, and despite a running monologue in my car about how not hungry and already full I objectively feel, I find myself ordering food in a drive-through or finding food at my destination.


It’s phantom hunger, as pervasive and obsessive as the phantom pains of fibromyalgia sufferers or the painful sensations of a phantom limb.


Currently the science says this can be treated with GLP-1. I dutifully took Ritalin in my youth for ADHD on shakier science saying it would medicate away my distractibility, so I have absolutely no qualms about medicating away my phantom hunger. Except the cost.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But many doctors know that patients don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear the science; they don't want to "follow the science" (i.e., actually do the thing). He also mentions that even though they try to drill this into patients, many of them still just don't do it.




I want to hear the science. I want desperately to do the science. But opportunities keep disappearing. I’ve become quite bitter, actually.


In early 2000, I had a job where I could eat as much salad as I wanted, for free. I got a Torso Track from late night TV and dropped from 210 to 190 in a single summer. I was in the best shape of my life. Then I moved on from the dishwashing job with free salad to custodial at a gym. I wasn’t allowed to use the equipment, and ironically, I got bursitis of the knee while kneeling to wipe the floor mats under the machines and impingement of the shoulder from all the mopping. I could not use my Torso Track anymore. I went over 210, because I now had muscle weight and a bigger frame to hang fat on.


I had a nightmarish two decades of codependency and sedentary jobs, piling on the weight of another small dog, never making 25% more than minimum wage for Albuquerque despite the dollar amount of my wages rising; trapped in the inflation trap.


I joined a gym with a pool in January 2020, free to me because of the ACA’s gym benefit, planning on swimming my way down from my now larger weight. Then COVID LOCKED THE GYM DOORS.


When I got a new job after the lockdowns lifted, my new schedule included time on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work to go to the YMCA, and I started doing so. Then my schedule shifted again, and I couldn’t anymore. My membership has languished.


Then I saw the 2022 film The Whale in theaters, directed by Darren Aronofsky and adapted for screen by Samuel D. Hunter, the original playwright. The film stars Brendan Fraser, an actor I admire, whose struggles I’d read about. It was like a punch in the gut. I joined an anti-obesity twelve step program and started learning why I had spent twenty years making excuses and drowning my sorrows in calories. I was actually doing things differently with my food consumption, and moving away from seeing overeating as an inevitability.


I had developed an eating plan and started to use it. Then I got a medical issue because I was trying to help someone move a cabinet, and I could no longer use that eating plan, nor is it safe for me to exercise much.


Oh, and I could have afforded GLP-1 after I finish paying off my car this autumn, but my living situation is going to change and the cost will rise by the amount I’ve been paying for my car.


I can’t hear the science over the racket of all my spoons being constantly taken.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Triessentialism: My Post-Objectivist, Re-Modernist Philosophy
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
From a discussion I had with Bing combining Triessentialism and the writings of Ayn Rand:




"Attention, government officials and citizens alike. This is Ragnar Danneskjöld, speaking to you from the high seas. You may label me a pirate, but I stand as a defender of justice and reason.


You, the government, have taken it upon yourselves to redistribute wealth under the guise of foreign aid, claiming to help those in need. But in truth, you are robbing the productive to reward the unproductive, perpetuating a cycle of dependency and stagnation.


Opportunity (What): You seize the fruits of others' labor, the tangible wealth created by the minds and hands of the industrious. I reappropriate these shipments not out of greed, but to return opportunity to its rightful owners. The wealth you confiscate is the physical essence of choice, the 'What' that drives innovation and progress.


Means (How): Your methods are those of coercion and force, devoid of logic and reason. I, on the other hand, employ means that are rational and just. By intercepting your shipments, I disrupt your illogical processes and highlight the importance of rational means in achieving true prosperity.


Motive (Why): You claim noble motives, but your actions betray a deeper truth: a desire to control and manipulate. My motive is clear and unwavering: I fight for myself, to see a just world free of governmental parasites. The emotional essence of choice, the 'Why,' is what fuels my actions. I fight not only for the sanctity of human potential but for my own vision of a world where individuals are free to pursue their own happiness.


To those who understand the true nature of choice, I say this: stand with me in reclaiming our world from those who seek to diminish it. To the government, I offer this warning: your days of unchecked power are numbered. The tide is turning, and justice will prevail."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not quite single issue, but the COVID-19 vaccines are still a no-go in most of the Trump crowd. The phrase “turbo-cancer” has joined “died suddenly” in the vocab of people convinced the jab is the greatest threat to public safety since AIDS.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Gender dysphoria is significantly higher among people on the autism spectrum. Tech work and engineering of all sorts are a natural fit for the computer-minded person with autism. Tech fields also tend to gather blue-tinged grey tribers.


Anecdotally, you’ll also find tons of people with autism who have species dysphoria (identifying as a nonhuman, aka furries and otherkin) or another dysphoria. A porcupine I know once told me she’s never surprised when someone in tech comes out as trans and a “furry lifestyler” (early 00’s term for species dysphoria).


I do wonder how many red tribers suffer silently from dysphorias because they don’t have culturally acceptable words for them. I’m a red-tinged grey triber due to my autism and family, and while they know I’m a furry, they’ll probably never understand about my species dysphoria or how it was cured in an instant in 2009.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If Obama had been brought up on criminal charges following his terms (let’s say serially for Benghazi, Gaddafi, and Operation Fast and Furious, off the top of my head), the public would absolutely care.


They’d be worked into riotous fervor by the media: “How dare they try to make the first Black President into a felon! This is a banana republic! Obama did nothing wrong! He was just doing his Constitutionally mandated duties, no matter how things turned out!” And so on, and so forth.


The “public” doesn’t care because the progressives want Trump to die in prison and the conservatives don’t have time in their workdays to go protest.


EDIT: I realize you said “public interest” as in the stakes the country has in each scenario. I disagree, because of the spectre of an end to the peaceful transfer of power, the very thing constantly hung around Donald Trump’s neck re Jan 6.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But once criminal prosecution and jail time are on the table for official acts allowed by the Constitution to the President, either in office or once he leaves, harassing lawfare gains teeth it didn’t have before. Hence immunity.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So then any DC prosecutor with a taste for power can try making his bones by filing grand jury indictments against the President. Even if they’re frivolous charges, the President’s staff and lawyers would have to respond, comply with subpoenas, etc. And considering the District of Columbia has such a liberal body politic, Republicans would stand no chance if the case proceeds to a jury trial.


The constant filing of trivial and/or frivolous ethics complaints is what drove Sarah Palin out of the Governor’s office in Alaska. The cost in time and money were a form of legalized harassment, a sort of Denial of Service attack on her ability to govern. Avoiding the same thing happening to the President should be a priority, given that his duties include things like wars, treaties, and emergencies in and outside the country.