Grant_us_eyes
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User ID: 1156
Grant_us_eyes
6d ago
Learning that Grant Morrison was more progressive than Neil Gaiman during that time period was not on my bingo card for today, but here we are.
Grant_us_eyes
6d ago
A perfect example of the tragedy of the commons in action. Amazing.
Grant_us_eyes
10d ago
The system that most plate-scanning mechanisms utilize wouldn't be able to keep up with this volume, I think.
It's also illegal to use said system for plate-scanning, but they do it anyways. And continue to do so; who knows how that court case would work out.
Grant_us_eyes
12d ago
The left just gave up on gaming and online communities
I'm sorry, what? The left as a whole has been hammering and pushing for great and great control and censorship in online spaces and gaming for years now, both by forum admin takeover(both on reddit and elsewhere) and worming their way via DEI hiring into actually developing the games themselves.
I'm not going to argue against the rest of your point, but if it happened, it happened in opposition explicitly because of the rampant takeover of leftist ideology in a lot of online spaces.
Grant_us_eyes
17d ago
I can speak from personal experience on this.
If my current manager ever retires(and he certainly has a plethora of opportunity to do so), I won't be out the door, but I'll definitely be hunting for a new job, given that the other managers in my company are less than stellar.
Well, unless they do something like spiral me off into my own department and let me manage everything on my lonesome(which I'm already doing, but, eh.)
And atleast one other person I work with feels similar, to the point where he's given me a scare moment when joking about looking for a new job.
Grant_us_eyes
18d ago
This is a trait endemic to journalism as a whole; 'Lying via omission' is a well-worn skill that allows Journalists to selectively leave out information while allowing themselves to claim 'At no point did I give false information or lie.'
There are reasons why the public opinion on Journalism is so low.
Grant_us_eyes
20d ago
I think Caplan is the worst sort of individual; an isolated elietist living in a gated community that will never have to face the reality his choices make for everyone else, who's intent on maximizing his investments, regardless of the wider consequences.
If that wasn't clear enough, I think he's abhorrent and deserves alot of things, none of them good.
There was a documentary that someone did on the efforts of a Chinese engineer contracted to build a road in the Congo and all the trials and tribulations he had to deal with in regards to the locals. I wonder how he'd react to that. I'm sure it would be telling.
Grant_us_eyes
21d ago
Doing a quick perusal of atleast one of the authors of the article in question makes it pretty clear this is just political axe-grinding in the form on a scientific article.
Either that, or she's completely and utterly delusional.
(I'm trying to be nice here, but if you claim to be an amateur powerlifter and then turn around and say that physical differences in men and women are simply due to culture, I'm going to question your sanity.)
Grant_us_eyes
24d ago
Another one I’m trying to square is COVID.
I don't see why. The immeadiate reaction from conservatives to Covid was to move to shutdown migration to prevent people from outside the US to bring said affliction inside the borders. This resulted in Liberals being vehemently against this, accusing people of anti-asian hatred and whatnot.
Then when Covid proved to not be as horrible as some projected, conservatives basically shrugged while liberals proceded to loose thier goddamn minds, even as such luminaries and Biden and Kamala refusing any Covid vaccine that Trump created(which immeadiately pivoted as soon as Biden was put into office.)
This wasn't so much an actual political split as 'My team good, the other team bad'.
Grant_us_eyes
24d ago
Because they explicitly allow dogs in their place of business. Several places do.
I've never heard of a grocery store allowing dogs inside, which makes me question where you live.
Grant_us_eyes
27d ago
Maybe I'm completely delusional, looking at the past with distorted lenses, and/or just plain wrong, but internet/pop culture atheist activism(Richard Dawkins et al) was very popular and trendy with the terminally online set back when being terminally online was a very weird thing to be. And the Motte(and the people whom make it up), through it's various iterations, are directly born from that period.
If anything, the Motte consistently going 'Ah, Christianity as Social Technology is perhaps the best thing that can be done for a modern civilization' isn't the result of unthinking acceptance but from the various social scars and bruises we've all taken and witnesses over the past several years.
Grant_us_eyes
29d ago
I think plenty of people from all over the world can assimilate and become culturally Southern
The word 'can' is doing alot of heavy lifting in your argument.
One of the elements that cemented my current opinion on such matters - among many - was talking with a friend of mine. Ethnically Italian, his family has been here for over a century.
And yet, despite this, there's parts of his family the rest know damn well to stay away from. Why? Because they're the ones connected to organized crime. The mafia.
A century of assimilation, and they're still culturally and ethnically distinct, with problems from the 'old world' still present. Hell, there's a sizable minority that have dual citizenship!
And this is with Italians. I grew up around alot of them. Hell, my father's godparents were damn near pure-blooded Italian!
And you're going to sit here, and suggest, straight to my face, that other ethnic groups are going to be better than them?
No. You import the people, you import the culture, for good and for ill. So stop importing them.
Grant_us_eyes
1mo ago
Comparing two different nations with very different setups, society, and ethnic spread is always a bad comparison.
What works for one doesn't always work for another. I envy Japan on a level you cannot imagine for their train network, that doesn't mean I expect the same to be implemented in the US.
Grant_us_eyes
1mo ago
A good chunk of our current society has made every effort to metaphorically disarm and discourage the previous set of 'nuns with rulers'. I don't see how trying to artificially implement them from the top down is going to do anything but make things worse.
Put bluntly, if you want a high-trust society, get more Daniel Perry's and stop punishing them when they actually step up and do things.
Funny aside - while I was doing research on wells, plumbing, and septic systems(for reasons), I was honestly surprised at the author quoting a multitude of people whom bluntly state some variation of 'Yeah, I use dowsing when searching for water, and it works.' Alternatively, 'It may or may not work, but I'm still gonna use it'.
Then again, I have a dim view of XKCD and think he isn't really all that, so...
Edit: Corrected 'sceptic' to 'septic', because I am not a smart man and my fingers often get away from my brain. Though one could argue both systems handle the same thing...
Grant_us_eyes
1mo ago
Life insurance stops being a thing (in almost all cases) when people retire
Minor note - not a nitpick, more of a clarification for people who want to prepare for such things.
The majority of life insurance that gets sold is what is referred to as term life insurance - this is typically what you see advertised where they name a stupidly high number for a very small payment amount, and salesmen play this out as a lie of omission and make people assume that the stated amount is what they'll get when they die(spoilers: they won't.)
That isn't to say there aren't times when term life insurance isn't an applicable economic tool, but it's rarely sold as such.
If you want guaranteed life insurance, you want whole life insurance. This will pay out, regardless of circumstances, will often be much cheaper the earlier you get it, and often can be setup to be payed into over a certain period of time, like a mortgage. Some of them even allow for early withdrawal of the life insurance amount.
If you want to setup any type of additional economic protection for the long run, get one of these, and get them early.
Grant_us_eyes
1mo ago
This is variable. While I've personally never had to experience it(knock on wood), I've had associates deal with insurance issues, such as debating on wether repair or totaling of the car is the more beneficial option(for the insurance company). Which, if you're without a vehicle and reliant on it for a job, can be very annoying and stressful.
Personal experience, my increase in insurance cost escalated to the point where my 6-month bill came in, I calculated the cost, and it was the equivalent of paying for a second car note.
I called up the company and more or less forced them to give me a lower rate, but come on.
Then, there's predatory regulations I've seen(and had to deal with) in terms of home insurance. Wasted money, in my opinion, required by the banks as an additional cost of home ownership and much better put aside into a savings account.
I won't even go into life insurance. I've seen both sides of that fence, and it's bad.
Insurance as a whole has a roundly negative opinion from people. You could schedule a death-game with insurance CEOs as the participants and you'd probably have people lining up for miles, cheering the spectacle on.
Grant_us_eyes
2mo ago
I would have thought the culture war aspect would have been obvious.
a woman stopped and asked him if he's OK
A female sheriff from Blue Ridge
My life, over the years, has taken weird turns, and put me in contact with people are are decidedly outside the norm.
Nothing best exemplifies this by my most recent job, which has put me in close contact with law enforcement around the country, Sheriffs Office's most heavily.
What I've learned is that Sheriffs actually have a very broad range in how they can enforce the law. Complaints from constituents can result in everything from just a general wellness checkup to brushing the matter off('I know the guy, he's fine, and I know the person complaining, she does this all the time') to putting out a warrant for someone's arrest.
So when I see something like this;
Later that evening, the sheriff and a back-up came back to the house and arrested the mother
That makes me raise more than a few eyebrows.
To put it bluntly, what the hell happened here to cause this reaction? Was the person filing the complaint a political bigwig who could have stirred up a massive fuss and the Sheriff wanted it taken care of properly to quiet a reaction? I've seen this happen before, so it wouldn't surprise. Or, more unfavorably, did the female Sheriff get a particular bee in her bonnet that made her bring the hammer down? I have no idea. An uncharitable part of me wants to lean in this general direction, because this entire thing is odd, no question, but who knows?
And on top of all that, this entire commotion was brought about by an 11-year old boy walking a mile in an area where a mile really isn't that big of a deal. Hell, I walked more than a mile away from my home when I was a kid, and I certainly don't live anywhere near the Blue Ridge mountains!
What an absolute mess and embarrassment for the Sheriff's Office.
Grant_us_eyes
2mo ago
I assumed he was being sensible and complaining about the largest sources of high-speed cars - IE, interstate traffic. Hence, you focus your sound-mitigation efforts there.
Off interstate/highway, you simply use speed control to keep the sound down. Perfect? No. But hardly the dystopic landscape the video likely paints.
Grant_us_eyes
2mo ago
I did add alot of prefaces and assumptions to my argument, yes. I personally doubt we'll be seeing functioning, self-driving cars any time soon.
Grant_us_eyes
2mo ago
I'm not very enamoured with the idea of sitting down and listening to a video essay from someone that I would likely dislike to the extreme. It's times like this I come back to my ever-increasing frustration over the lack of these sorts of people not including thier actual arguement typed out, in a proper essay, so I can actually sit down and read the damn thing.
Ahem.
I mention this to put my biases up front, and I will trust that what you state is the general gist of the video essay.
That said...
causing noise pollution
This is where I can only stare and wonder if these people actually function and operate in the real world. Large-scale interstate travel already happens through what's basically suburban areas. This is already a problem, and solutions can be very obvious - just build a goddamn wall.
As for
increasing congestion
Assuming a perfect solution - or, let's say, good enough solution for self-driving cars where thier tendancy to get into a wreck is lower than a human driver - the likelyhood is that, despite the increased usage, congestion will go down explicitly because computer-derived control will allow for smoother flow and volume management.
If you follow the logical conclusion of the above, this is even better - you can have the luxury of your own personal vehicular conveyance without the need to actually park it nearby your destination! Simply roll up, get out, and tell your car to either keep driving or find the nearest parking location. Tap a button on your phone, summon your car to wherever you ended up. All of a sudden, the need for immeadiate parking is killed, and the state mandated and required need for parking that drives current urban development has no leg to stand on, and we can all go back to the wonderful idyllic standard of walkable town centers of the early 20th century. Yay.
As an aside, I've worked in one of these areas before - they're honestly, surprisingly nice in alot of ways that aren't immeadiately obvious, so I can understand why people are so enamoured with them. That said, I can't help but feel that alot of people forget the time, place, and context in which these places were built.
And yes, the above is making a large number of utopian assumptions that I honestly don't beleive we'll ever get, but hey, I could be wrong...
All told, I tend to have a very dim view of people like this; they blatantly ignore the potential benefits and instead have a singular goal; get rid of cars, whatever the cost, regardless of the potential benefits.
Grant_us_eyes
2mo ago
Neither. I finally answered my own question after going down a long train of research involving statistical probability, Bayesian mathematics, the German Tank Problem, and finally found what the term it is that I was thinking of.
For the curious, it's the Mediocrity Principle. Which is pretty much the inverse of the Anthropic Principle.
Thanks for the help, though.
Grant_us_eyes
2mo ago
I hate how my brain works.
Alright Motte, here's your odd question for the day;
There's a term that I've apparently forgotten, that refers to the idea that 'a single random sample from a data set is likely neither unique nor uncommon'.
I first recall hearing the term and phrase when reading about arguments for the likelihood of life on other planets and solar systems, utilizing Earth as the lynchpin of said argument.
So... does anyone have any idea as to what term I've apparently forgotten?
Grant_us_eyes
2mo ago
I'm being surprised by people I didn't expect to bring up the election results actually bringing up the election results.
Not sure if this is a good thing or not...
I find this statement amusing, because it's still ignoring the one elephant caterwauling in the corner. That being; Money.
If I want to indulge in some sex tourism in Thailand(or Japan), I'm still going to be throwing down a few thousand dollars just to travel there. And while staying(in Japan, atleast, I know nothing of Thailand) there is surprisingly cheap(going by a friend of mine who enjoys his trips to Japan), and supposedly white men receive alot more sexual attention in Thailand and the like than elsewhere(I'm taking this with a grain of salt), there's still that massive wall of roughly a few thousand dollars worth of buy in for getting a two week experience. And I'm not sure that's something that's worth it.
(I understand the Motte is weird, and some posters would see a few thousand as chump change, this is not the case for me.)
Now, I think the entire phenomena of and reaction to Passport Bros says alot about the current state of relationships between men and women, and might certainly be valid for some people as a solution to their relationship ills and woes, I wouldn't call this a result of refusal to deal with the 'incel problem'.
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