FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
No bio...
User ID: 1739
Slaughtering herds does not create calories, it destroys them. Pig herds in China are not competing with grain production, they’re adding to the food supply by turning imported feed into pork. It is not like you kill all the pigs and then you can turn those pig farms into rice farms: just about everywhere in China that can be farmed for rice is currently being farmed for rice. There is a shortage of undeveloped arable land in China right now. If you slaughter all the pigs you don’t reduce the caloric needs of the nation: the caloric need remains the same, and the supply of calories has gone down.
What’s more, China’s agriculture depends in part on foreign imports of fertilizer and farm equipment. With those cut off (by sea, the most efficient way to transport bulk goods) you can’t expect Chinese grain production to stay the same.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
You know who else is a net importer of food? Mainland China. Which is one reason a war with the US would be disastrous. The US and Friends are quite capable of stopping sea trade to China in the case of a hot war, and if they do China starves.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
I don’t think China is likely to catch up with America. Their GDP growth rate is decelerating, their population is declining, and Xi seems to care more about his political security than economic growth, since he’s been snuffing out billionaires as rivals. Their GDP annual growth might realistically fall to 2% within 15 years. Considering their current GDP per capita is comparable to Malaysia or Argentina, and their GDP growth is stalling, I don’t see how they can catch up to the US. If anything, I predict the gap will grow wider.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
If builders are confident they'll actually be allowed to build, the market price will be high enough that most people will want to sell. Those that don't won't, but many will for the right price.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
The space is above the map. Open up Google maps and plop yourself down to street view just about any residential area of San Francisco: the buildings are three stories tall at the highest with the vast majority being two stories. Plenty of space if you go vertical.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
Right now my process is to pick a book that I have already read that excites me in some way: a book I want to talk to people about. Almost always non-fiction, because then you have a lot of information from the book that you can summarize and interpret. It has to be a book I've already read and am very familiar with; the first time I tried entering the contest I picked a book I hadn't read yet that I was very interested in, and I ended up not finishing it by the time the deadline comes. No need to make it harder for yourself! Go with a known quantity.
Once I've picked the book I reread it, taking notes as I go. I put in bookmarks on places that have quotes I would like to put in the review, and as I go I have a document keeping track of all the ideas I get as I read: that it would be neat to talk about this, or about how this connects to that, etc. Just reading the book with the review in mind. I feel free to skim, it doesn't have to be a thorough reading. Just enough to get the juices going and find quotes. Once I have enough ideas written down to fill a report, I start writing.
First I outline, which is just taking the reading notes I made and then organizing them into a structure that makes sense. I always cut a lot of ideas out here, if they don't fit into the report very well. Ideally all the ideas should flow together and be cohesive, not random.
Then I write. That's the hard part for me, actually saying "this is the time I am going to write" and then doing that. But the writing itself isn't hard, I follow the outline and then either stick to it or diverge from it as the muse pulls me. I often find out halfway through writing it that it would be better to jettison sections of the outline, or add bits in that weren't planned. Just like re-reading the book gets the ideas flowing, writing the report also gets your mind making connections you didn't notice earlier.
Then ideally I would wait a couple days and then review and edit. This time I had to edit it the next day, which is not ideal: you want to forget what you wrote so when you read it you see what you actually wrote instead of what you remember writing. Ideally I'd do two or more editing passes like this. Then the deadline comes and you have to ship it.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
I think it’s mostly funny because it’s kind of what you expected, but not right. Subverted expectations is the foundation of a lot of humor. Like with the Hook Hand meme, if you’re familiar with the urban legend then you expect the ending (she opens the door and sees a hook hanging off the handle) and instead of getting that you get a jumble of nonsense that contains all the elements you expected but in an order that makes them semantically meaningless. That surprise is funny to me.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
Thanks, though the sad thing is I know I could have done better last year if I had more time: and then I went ahead and did it at the last minute again! This year I’m going to try to write next years entry now, maybe then I’ll learn.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
I didn’t think I’d make it, but I submitted my entry for the ACX book review contest.
I’m a terrible procrastinator. I have been planning to write my entry since the contest was announced several months ago, and I’ve been intending to enter since the last contest ended, but beyond putting together an outline I didn’t actually start writing until this last Monday, a week before the due date. Still, better last minute than never!
Anybody else enter this year? I don’t have much hope of being a finalist, but I’d like to improve on my performance last year (54th out of 145).
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
Being out of order is what makes it funny. If the punchline was "the gas light gate keep girl boss" then it would be mildly funny, but rotating the word pairs so that they're exactly one off, and all in the same direction, makes it hilarious. Like "man door hand hook car door"
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
I love it!
I had thought that ADHD just means "you have a harder time focusing and getting work done"
There are some researchers who believe ADHD primarily involves a defect in emotional regulation, working memory, and time projection. Which adds up to having a harder time focusing and getting work done, but the emotional regulation part is doing a lot more than that. If you have ADHD, you may have less capacity to make yourself feel something different than you are currently feeling, or to blunt the edge of a strong emotion. That could explain the strong desire not to do any work.
EDIT: Also, to your main point, I do find it interesting that you have an aversion to taking your Adderal. If I'm off my Dexedrine then I'm miserable. Irritable, unproductive, lethargic...mostly irritable actually, I snap at people a lot more when I'm off my meds, which is usually ever weekend because I don't want to build up a tolerance.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
Actually, Christian observance in America reached a new high in the postwar era. The height of weekly church attendance in America was in the 1950s.
No atheists in foxholes indeed.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
See though, that strikes me as much more probable than the university statement thing. That fits within my understanding of how the world works. American sports has a recent history of doing stupid stuff, and people freak out about criminals being killed by police all the time. When was the last time a statement from a university affected anything?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
It's unlikely, but theoretically possible. It would be less crazy than the stuff that happened in 2020.
...a university putting out a statement that causes a chain reaction that leads to the President of the United States and a majority of Congress to change their position on providing military aid to Israel?
What happened in 2020 that was crazier than that?
I don't see a world where the US decides to stop providing military aid to Israel within the next decade, let alone in time to have an effect on the current conflict. Even if literally all the universities put out statements saying that they should! In my experience a university statement on a hot button political issue has never come close to anything like that kind of impact.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
6mo ago
My intuition is that people should not be allowed to turn public spaces into de facto designated areas, only de jure ones. And keeping people out of areas they have a right to be in because you disagree with their politics, or don't like the way they look, is harassment if anything is.
If we're concerned about confrontations then the protests themselves should be discouraged, because that's how confrontations begin.
Yes, obviously (assuming that harassment is a chargeable offence, which I don't think it is).
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
7mo ago
They're going to pull US military aid out of Israel...by protesting at Columbia?
Even if their protest is successful, how is Columbia University going to pull that off?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
7mo ago
So you're saying that refusing to let students enter common areas that they have a right to be in is not harassment, but recording video in a public area (as is your right) is harassment?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
7mo ago
I find your comments intriguing, because I have the opposite reaction you describe. To me a well rendered painting or drawing of a landscape is often more attractive than an actual landscape. Or if not more attractive, more pleasing in a slightly different dimension. Have you ever felt a desire to be inside a picture: not literally, but to be in the place the picture is depicting? That the art is trying to communicate something higher and better than anything we can actually find our our normal existence? That the artist is taking what is beautiful and good about a landscape but crafting it in a way that no real landscape can match up to, throwing out the small bits of ugliness that is inherent in any landscape we can actually see and replacing it with the ideal? Because that's something like 70% of my aesthetic preferences. I want art to be more beautiful than life, more transcendent, more glorious and inspiring.
What do you see attractive about something like Miro painting? To me there's no real attraction at all. It does not show me anywhere I would want to go, any emotion I would want to feel, any state of being I would want to inhabit. I don't find it repulsive, but I don't see the point of it at all. What's the draw for you?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
7mo ago
I was wondering why my avatar was suddenly an anemic 12 year old boy! Did not expect to find the explanation for that here at The Motte.
There's definitely a non-binary bent to it. I got three options of faces, one of them is boyish and the other two are feminine. I thought maybe trying a slightly bulkier body style would make me look less like a tween, but while my body bulked my head remained the same size, making me a microcephalic.
I don't think I've ever played a game before where I actively hate seeing my avatar's face.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
7mo ago
So, your claim is that the gas chamber at Dachau was not designed to execute humans, but merely to delouse. As proof of this you cite a source which claims the gas chamber at Dachau was designed to execute humans, but was never finished and so not used. This seems to support the fact you dispute, that this was a 'homicidal gas chamber' designed to execute people. This source makes me believe that perhaps the 7th Army's report was wrong about people being executed in the Dachau gas chamber, but does nothing to make me believe the ludicrous notion that it was designed for delousing. A delousing chamber labeled as a showering facility, with fake shower heads that lead nowhere. You know, to take the lice by surprise so they wouldn't be tipped off.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
7mo ago
I will believe the report of the 7th Army over your no sources cited whatsoever.
My mistake, when I said 'gas chamber' I meant 'homicidal gas chamber'. The camp had a 'gas chamber' but it was never used to kill anyone.
The Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment of the Seventh Army disagrees. Page 33 of the report:
"The internees who were brought to Camp Dachau for the sole purpose of being executed were in the most cases Jews and Russians. They were brought into the compound, lined up near the gas chambers, and were screened in a similar manner as internees who came to Dachau for imprisonment. Then they were marched to a room and told to undress...There were 15 shower faucets suspended from the ceiling from which gas was then released. There was one large chamber, capacity of which was 200, and five smaller gas chambers, capacity of each being 50. It took approximately 10 minutes for the execution. From the gas chamber, the door led to the Krematory to which the bodies were removed by internees who were selected for the job. The dead bodies were then placed in 5 furnaces, two to three bodies at a time."
So we have, on the one side, an SS document (which you haven't produced, though I have been so kind as to produce my source for your to examine) that says that the camp had a gas chamber but that it was never used to kill anyone. On the other hand you have a US report claiming that it was used to kill people, with photographic evidence, and the fact that the gas chamber is still there and can be seen today, and was clearly designed to administer poison gas for the purpose of killing people. Do you have any evidence that the execution device was never used to execute people? Something that would cause me to doubt the fine men in uniform of the 7th Army?
PPP is a bad indicator when you’re talking about strategic power, and it’s not even a particularly good way to compare relative economic power.
As far as integrating rural residents into the economy: they have. There are more Han twice as many urban as there are rural Chinese these days, and there’s a point where you hit diminishing returns on taking rural peasants and turning them into factory workers. At the moment China has a significant unemployment problem, and already “integrated” workers are having trouble finding jobs as it is.
More options
Context Copy link