Felagund
3mo ago
I know McWhorter's argued that there's been substantial celtic influence as well.
I don't expect it to drop inflections any time soon (at least, in American dialects. I imagine there are places which have already lost them). I think most of the loss came as a result of cross-contact between various cultures—Britons, Saxons, Norse, French—leading to a variety of dialects, with features from simpler dialects winning out over time. On the other hand, English now looks more standardized and stable, and I imagine the influence of online media to be a force gravitating people towards more standard dialects.
That's mostly conjecture, don't take what I said too seriously.
Felagund
3mo ago
Preserving a more formal and technical dialect is useful. It makes more sophisticated conversation a little easier, and keeps the past accessible. At the very least, it's important to maintain technical vocabulary within fields.
The actual motivation, of course, is so that you don't look stupid.
Felagund
3mo ago
This is probably the best definition of evangelical that I've seen. (And accurate regarding dispensationalism.)
Felagund
3mo ago
I don't know if anyone else of you like to read /r/supremecourt, but if you do, does it feel at all like it's drifting leftwards? They do their best to be fair.
Felagund
3mo ago
Okay, I find it fairly believable that women who choose to go into math might have a higher floor. My sense is that the cliche that women like people more, men like things more, is, generally speaking, true, and accordingly, at an equivalent level of ability, differences in tastes would produce the effect you describe (under the simplistic model of people going into a field based on how much they like doing the thing combined with how good they are at it). I don't expect this would carry over more broadly, in other fields and with other groups? Surely a lot of the discrimination going on elsewhere is wrong?
I think I don't have a good enough picture of what harms you see affirmative action as repairing.
But let's consider this from a different angle. Instead of what we have been doing—looking at efficiency, or those discriminated against—now consider the social effects upon those in groups which have been favored. Now in their every achievement, their bosses, colleagues, customers—no one is quite sure whether they earned it, or whether they were merely the beneficiary, at least until they show themselves manifestly worthy. (And so racism becomes warranted.) And themselves, even. Should they not themselves hold a touch of skepticism as to whether they are the equals of their colleagues, whether they are there on the merits, until it be proven? Their social accreditation, whether that be degrees, whether that be hiring, whether that be accolades, whether that be promotion—all of this is of less probative value. Why infantilize these people in this way, instead of treating them as your fellow men? Why treat these people as tokens, rather than as equals?
Regarding immigration, I don't think it's quite hereditarianism (in that it's not necessarily racial, but rather in reference to set of American people). It's more nationalism. But point taken, immigration is a big deal.
Felagund
4mo ago
Free Speech is a spook, an incoherent concept that collapses the very instant it drifts outside the bounds of a rigidly-coherent values environment. To the extent that it has significant meaning, it has never been tried, and to the extent that it has been tried, it has had no significant meaning.
Can you elaborate?
Felagund
4mo ago
And especially his critics will be sensitive about COVID, it's not like he's fighting Republicans at the moment.
Felagund
4mo ago
Could the concerns about Iran have distracted from Crooks? That is, he's clearly not Iranian, so maybe don't waste too much time and effort on him if that'll cause you to miss out on the Iranian threats? Combine that with general incompetence, and that seems not a crazy explanation, maybe?
Felagund
4mo ago
Who cares if the model is accurate?
A lot of people. For one, everyone who is outside the organization and thinks it is accurate, and depends on it as a guide to truth. For another, those in the organization who visualize themselves as trying to predict, which, there are undoubtedly some.
Felagund
4mo ago
I suppose I was asking something closer to foreign policy, not domestic policy.
Felagund
4mo ago
I only read through them once some years ago.
Book 3 was generally pretty good, but I disliked the time travel, because I wanted things to make sense (in retrospect, a little odd of a desire, given, for example, that quidditch exists). I didn't especially care for book 5. I didn't like the hallows in book 7. Book 6 was probably my favorite overall.
Felagund
4mo ago
A war would be more serious; fair enough.
I'm not dazzled by his flirtation with edgier corners of the internet; radicalism has a lot of downside risk.
The Thiel network
Does this mean you're a follower of Fuentes?
Felagund
4mo ago
even the most ardent Trump supporters don't really like Pence.
I think this is tied to some specific events in January of 2021.
Felagund
4mo ago
Many of us have been pointing at NRx for being esoterically or even exoterically Zionist for some time,
Why are the jews your only issue?
Like, objectively, there seem to be far more important things to life in the US than whatever minor portion of the budget gives aid to which parties in the middle east.
The western form of linear time does not solely see it in such things. If the point is merely the linearity (as opposed to cyclicality) of time, you see that in the sentence immediately prior to that I quoted before. If the point is that it's linear with a good ending, well, that is a little better of a match, but Christianity is decidedly unclear about whether things will be getting better or not prior to the return of Christ. On the other hand, you can see a sort of enlightenment-style linearity in Aeschylus' Oresteia, several hundred years before the coming of Christ, where the cyclical vengeance of the furies is tamed and put an end to by the enlightened and civilized gods of Athens.
Of course, I don't imagine Aeschylus was the direct precursor of modern progress—I think that's probably closer to being a result of technological growth and advances in scientific knowledge giving people the often accurate sense that they knew more and could do more than all who came before them.
More options
Context Copy link