JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
11d ago
I'm sorry but "if you didn't personally verify the wiring layout of your phone therefore all your concerns about phone software are invalid" doesn't sound like an expert-level argument. I know "expert" doesn't mean what it used to mean anymore, but this approach is ridiculous whether the person advancing it considers himself an "expert" or not.
JarJarJedi
11d ago
I think the discussion is descending into ridiculousness at this point. No, I don't know that the whole cell phone thing is not just one giant CIA mind control operation aimed at stealing my precious bodily fluids, and I don't care about it. So I don't think there's a point to continue here.
JarJarJedi
11d ago
This is a very convincing argument about physical microphone switch being completely impossible. As somebody who never designed a phone, I have to completely defer to your expertise. Except for one small thing: phones with physical microphone switches actually exist. Example: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ Must be using some kind of unholy black magic, because is also costs less than many of those phones where there's absolutely no way to do it, both physically and legally. As people should not associate with unholy black magic, I guess we'd have to agree this is just not possible.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
Best quote in the show.
Agreed, and I think that whole arc was the peak of the show, and explains why DS9 is so great - it deals with real meaty hairy questions, that leave you thinking about them for a long time after, and it does not shy away from the sucky parts. And I think Roddenberry would probably not let this happen - from what I saw in his work, he'd find some creative way out of this Kobayashi Maru, and all others, to let the good guys win and remain the good guys.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
In my opinion, DS9 is the best Star Trek, and it's not even close. I rewatch it regularly, and it always delivers.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
you don't trust the microphone notification because you're not able to look at your notification bar
No, I don't trust the notification because I don't see any mechanism that prevents microphone from working while not displaying the notification, those are completely different systems, and the only thing linking them is software. Which is extremely fallible. If I break the electric circuit, I'd trust the laws of physics to prevent the microphone from working.
This claim requires that Facebook et al have a backdoor that's never been detected in all these years.
Doesn't have to be Facebook, could be google feeding some data into one of a myriad of data aggregators, and ad platforms just using the end result of that.
a switch which may not do anything
That's become known pretty quickly I imagine, it's not hard to open it and verify, I opened my phones several times despite being complete ignoramus in electronics. And it's easy to prove too, so for a phone manufacturer going through all the expense of making a fake switch would be pointless, especially given as phone manufacturers aren't those who profit from ads. OTOH, phone manufacturers do not control the software, and making fallible software is cheaper than making secure one.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
Why a physical switch isn't possible? Looks like very basic thing, just interrupt the circuit.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
Nobody checks any notifications bars when your phone is in your pocket or sitting on your table. A tiny green dot is hard to miss. Also, I am not entirely convinced there's no way to turn on the microphone (hardware) without showing the green dot (software). It's be very easy to lay all these doubt to rest - make a hardware microphone mute switch, that physically (electrically) disconnects the microphone hardware. I'd trust that. Nobody does it though.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
Does this difference actually matter? 99.99% of users will click "allow" on any permission a "trusted" app (like facebook or browser) would ask them for, and would never realize any of those deep technical aspects.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
I've had a bunch of "weird" occurrences like discussing some thing with my wife that we haven't ever mentioned before and suddenly we start getting ads about this exactly subject, but I can't call it a conclusive evidence, as it could be either of us looked up something related before or during talking about it and just forgot about it. I'm pretty sure it's not too hard to make a clean experiment if one wanted to, but I am too lazy to do anything like that.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
Should I mentally prepare for president Newsom to bomb shipwrecked sailors, lead trade wars, deport illegals to foreign megaprisons, and accept fantasy prizes from corrupt sports officials
Absolutely. In fact, past Democratic presidents already bombed weddings, initiated many trade and kinetic wars, deported illegals and accepted various funky prizes. There's absolutely zero reason to assume Newsom - which has already demonstrated he is at the very best no better than an average politician - wouldn't do it, if only it would seem necessary to him. And I am sure, that when it happens, you will find for yourself and excellent explanation why this time it's completely different.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
from a card issuer's perspective, you don't want to be making money off your problem customers
If you are Home Depot, sure, that's not why you are issuing a card. If you are a fintech startup staffed by people who did exploitative extraction of financial advantages their whole career, why wouldn't you want it. Ideal Home Depot customer and ideal trashy gambling card customer are not the same person.
and then eventually either consolidate or default out of your portfolio.
Yes, the trick here is to extract more value than the difference between his debt ab initio and his debt sold to collectors is. However, I'm sure they think they can do it. And given as, again, the whole industry catering to bad-credit people exists, it's not impossible. It's not a nice business, for sure, but life finds a way.
Do you want to get a banking license? Because, if you don't want to partner with an existing bank, you need a banking license, and to get that you essentially need to buy a bank.
I haven't worked in fintech, so I don't know how, but this problem is for sure solvable - there are tons of credit cards around, and also tons of gambling outlets, including online. Somehow they find a way. You don't need all the bank license holders, you just need one.
JarJarJedi
15d ago
which is like $800 for the American Express card now
Amex gold is $325, Amex Platinum is $825. There are way more expensive ones. I regularly get mailers where they confuse me with somebody who would pay such amount of money for a card. And tbh, if I were twice as rich and led a completely different lifestyle, this kind of annual fees make sense - the value of the benefits, if bought at retail, and if I would actually use them, usually several times over the annual fee. It's just I wouldn't even need it. Though I do have a couple of $95 cards, because I do get over $100 value per year out of them. But this is completely different model - that's just prepaying stuff in bulk.
but having that because your business is lending to them is, as you say, less valuable.
Well, it's a different business, of course, but there is a whole industry built on exploiting people with bad habits and bad credit. Payday loans, subprime loans, title loans, all that crap. This is just the same business, but 2.0 with cellphones and algorithms.
JarJarJedi
15d ago
The part you are missing here is that interchange fees is not the only money maker. At least equally important, maybe more important, money are in people that over-consume credit, and pay absolutely humongous credit rates. You need to lure in those people, and abuse them to the max. Adding gambling addiction component fits very well - this is exactly the sort of people that tend to overconsume their credit in the hope of one day winning big. And unlike traditional gambling industry, which is by now pretty heavily regulated, you can put in whatever technology with whatever winning chances and algorithms optimized for maximum addictiveness, at least until the regulators catch up. That's the whole point - it's not targeted for regular "get my 2% and pay off the card each month" consumers. It's exploitative from the ground up.
because launching a credit card is an extraordinarily expensive endeavor.
That part I am not sure I understand. I mean, marketing expenses, sure. But otherwise, it's just bits in some config files somewhere in the existing systems. Why is it expensive? It's a mass industry by now, everybody has their own CC brand.
"yeah we have a credit card which is exclusively designed for gambling addicts, would you please underwrite us?"
Sure, a traditional bank probably won't want to be associated with a gambling business. But somebody runs all those gambling businesses, and they have money too. A lot of money, probably, so convincing them to invest into yet another way to exploit gamblers wouldn't be impossible.
JarJarJedi
15d ago
Combining shopping addiction with gambling addiction? That's not dumb. They don't need many people to sign up, marginal costs are near zero, and technically it's not even a casino. Or at least that's what their lawyers told them to tell the regulators. Whether or not regulators would believe that BS is entirely different business, but until they wake up, there could be some money to be made.
JarJarJedi
16d ago
Created by problem-solvers with expertise in derivative pricing, high frequency trading, and software engineering from Morgan Stanley, Hudson River Trading, Google, and Meta
If there is any group of people that I want to trust with my money and that I would absolutely believe do not want to exploit my weaknesses for financial gain, it's a bunch of people from HFT, derivative trading and Google/Meta.
JarJarJedi
16d ago
the Israeli Arabs aren't enthusiastic participants in the Zionist project.
Depending on what you mean by "Zionist project". Majority of Israeli Arabs are very happy to live in a relatively well-off Westernized country, with working courts, police, social lifts, opportunities and, not to forget, welfare. Now, they may claim they don't get a fair share of the pie (whatever that may be) and in some cases, they'd be correct (and in some other cases, it'd be their own fault). But they still are getting much better deal than many of their peers in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan or PA, to say nothing of Gaza - and they know it. Now, do they identify with the dream of Hertzl and Ben Gurion? Nah, not so much. But they are willing to work with what they've got. Of course, there are others that want Israel destroyed - but even of those most, if examined, would in fact wish something like "we'd like things to stay mostly the same, but with us in change instead of the Jews". Not many want to become Gaza or Lebanon.
I don't think many leftists actually want it. Not least because the Palestinians would lose.
That's the point. They want the war which Palestinians would not lose. And this war can only look one way. We saw that way on October 7, 2023. And the left massively confirmed, by their own volition, that this is exactly what they wanted.
JarJarJedi
16d ago
I wish... I am much-more-that-sixteen-years old, in perpetual self-doubt and have very limited free time. Sigh.
JarJarJedi
16d ago
I'm not sure how that works. If somebody drove by my house and called me anything, I'd never know - it's impossible to hear such a sound from inside the house, especially from the driving vehicle. And my house is pretty modest with a small front yard. If the Governor's house has a front yard even a little bigger, and Waltz is not spending his days standing at the edge of his property attentively listening to whatever people in cars passing by might say, this is physically impossible.
This is Governor's residence: https://mn.gov/admin/governors-residence/ - I don't think it's even possible to "drive by" it it a way that somebody inside would even notice you. I assume he also might have a personal house, as he must have lived somewhere before he became the governor? I am not sure how to find how it looks like, but he should not be there now anyway I assume?
Of course, the simplest version remains that he is lying, and not even bothering to make it sound plausible? Why bother? His tribe will believe anything he says, and the other tribe will believe nothing. No reason to spend extra effort polishing a lie.
JarJarJedi
17d ago
derives solely from their overall anti-colonialist tendency
Not solely. "Anti-colonialism" is part of it, even though the idea that Jews, who lived in that land literally before recorded history became a thing, are somehow "colonizers", and Muslims, who arrived much recently, many - more recently than Europeans arrived to Americas and Africa - are "indigenous", is supremely idiotic and counter-factual. But that has never been an obstacle for the Left. However, Israel and Jews are subject to a special type of vitriol which is not seen towards, say, Belgians or English or French or Dutch. Who actually colonized and subjugated massive amount of people and countries, and some of them continue to keep colonies (same can be said about the US, tbh, I mean Puerto Rico? Hawaii? Samoa?) - and yet you don't see Belgians demonized around the planet because of that they did to Congo. You don't see Japanese vilified because of what happened in China and Korea. I'm not calling for all that to happen - I am just observing, that Israel is definitely being singled out, and any Jew who is not actively working for the Party - and some that do - is subject to attack for it. And the conclusion is unescapable - the "anti-colonialism" is at best a convenient excuse. The reason must be deeper.
JarJarJedi
19d ago
another way I would formulate their point is "the 'trans cult' is not relevant to the average trans person
Trans cult is relevant to the society and thus to the trans person as part of that society. Yes, "internet crazies, goofy academics" etc. are not the only part of the debate - but also the "trans cult" is way bigger than a couple of crazies and some goofy professor in some obscure classroom. It's something that dictates day to day policy on the ground - and very successfully at that, I am not seeking that stuff out specifically and yet I read about various scandals related to trans issues pretty much every week. If I were a female, the question of "if I go to a locker room, will I encounter there a bearded man with his penis out looking at me undress" would be a very practical question for me now, and a question of "if I am a female athlete, is the second place the best I can hope for now, and how soon before it becomes fifth place or I get seriously hurt" is a practical one too. And none of these questions are really answered by "yes, there's such a condition as gender dysphoria".
JarJarJedi
19d ago
A lot of the debate around being trans - e.g. are trans women truly women? Do people have an “inner gender identity”?
I'm sure some of the debate concerns these points. But the trans debate includes much more than that, and the "trans cult" demands much more than agreeing about "inner identity".
But debates like “a woman is an adult who produces large gametes, so trans women aren’t women” versus “no, a woman is anybody who identifies as one”, would have no bearing on the above
On the above no, because people are free to have "inner identity" completely untethered to any real events or facts. I could think I am actually a teapot, and nothing in medical science would convince me otherwise. There's no argument that may prevent me from feeling this way, and there's no argument that can prove I am not, in my deep inner thoughts, consider myself a teapot. There's nothing to debate here - either I think this way, or I don't, and if I do, then I do, there's nothing to debate. The debate is about what does this mean and what consequences and actions are appropriate for the society to take in this situation. And to that debate, of course, a lot more things than "could some people in their inner thoughts think they are other things than they are" have bearing. We know for a fact that yes, people can have "inner thoughts" that disagree with objective reality. The question is what to do about it. And to that question, saying "yes, could be are such thoughts" advances us very little towards the answer.
it wouldn’t matter to the practical reality of treating gender dysphoria
Of course it would matter, since there are multiple ways to treat a medical condition. But also you just said that "average trans person" and "person having gender dysphoria" is not the same thing, so if we talk about the whole debate, it would of course also matter whether or not we are dealing with actual medical condition in a particular case - even while we recognize the actual medical condition is real.
JarJarJedi
19d ago
I doesn't disprove 1, it does disprove the claim that GD being a medical condition has relevance on the discussion of "trans cult" and "average trans person".
JarJarJedi
19d ago
The claim I am addressing is:
Gender dysphoria is a genuine medical condition and even you write a the perfect rationalist takedown of the “trans cult”, it wouldn’t change anything for the average trans person
If you are only arguing point 1, then gender dysphoria being a genuine medical condition does not support the "trans cult" and has little bearing to the discussion about the cult and the "average trans person", because as you yourself said, the cult's claims go way beyond medical conditions, and they also do not identify "average trans person" with one having the condition. So it's like saying "vitiligo is a real medical condition" and arguing that is a very important insight into racial relationships in the US. Yes, it also about skin color, but it's completely different issue.
I don't see the point in this rule-lawyering. They are sovereign countries. They want to take Russia's stuff because Russia is behaving badly and Russia already took their stuff. As sovereigns, they can. Of course, other sovereigns may dislike that and this may cause problems - like them in turn taking European stuff, or behaving toward Europeans in a hostile way - but Russia is already doing all of that, and nobody else is seriously threatening that on behalf of Russia. So while it is in a good taste to sign proper papers in proper places before taking stuff (to limit agent abuse, corruption, etc.) I don't see where there's an actual problem with that.
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