Jim
1yr ago
my looks/dress probably code me as a westernized urban progressive as well so this doesn't mean they were so
Can you unpack what this dichotomy between your “looks/dress” and what you actually are? Like are too a BAP/DR chud type with blue hair or something?
Don’t mean to interrogate you or anything, I’m just genuinely curious.
Jim
1yr ago
universally mocked book
What the hell are you talking about? It literally won the Pulitzer Prize…
Jim
1yr ago
I feel like in the post Gun Germs and Steel world, that any civilizational thesis of this scale that doesn’t grapple with the enormous consequences of climate, access to resources and diseases is intrinsically weak.
Jim
1yr ago
This actually gets at how I personally define “IQ”, which is the physical level at of detail at which a being understands reality. In this sense, there is a theoretical — and arguably practical — upper bound on intelligence, where a being understands all of reality across all time — that is, the position of every atom in the universe across every temporal dimension.
I have no doubt in the near future we will have AIs which achieve a significant portion of this — the ability to perceive and manipulate reality at the atomic level across a substantial — say, galaxy sized — slice of the universe. In practice these would be indistinguishable from magic to someone alive today. You could just say “get me a beer” to the AI, it would instantly assemble atoms into a glass (ice cold with frost on it) filled with atoms assembled as freshly brewed beer.
Jim
1yr ago
That’s because these guys aren’t Twitter dissident right, they’re much lower brow working class types, some veterans, some ex-cons, some both
This doesn’t line up with my personal experiences with the types you’re talking about: the kinds of low brow toughs you’re talking about are far too disengaged from politics and history to even really understand what it means to have an ideology, let alone one imported from a regime that hasn’t even existed for 70 years.
Not to say these types can’t be every bit as provocative and antagonistic as actual Nazis. But it would almost always take the form of low level reactive aggression; think randomly attacking a brown guy “cuz we don’t like dem coloreds round here” rather than an ideology an actual fascist transported from 1930s Europe would recognize.
Jim
1yr ago
Well regardless, there’s at most hundreds or let’s even say thousands. Like, there are major cities with 10 times as many police officers. And all tacticool swat team style weapons, armored vehicles, etc.
Jim
1yr ago
If he won, he'd pardon himself from federal charges and order the secret service to physically prevent his arrest
Surely the Secret Service cannot lawfully follow orders to break they law. They are after all a law enforcement wing and sworn to uphold the law above all else. I can’t imagine there not being something explicit like “if the president orders you to break the law you must refuse”.
And putting all that aside for a moment: the Secret Service are, what, several dozen guys in suits with handguns? If a state police force truly wants to arrest Trump I don’t think trying to “physically prevent” it would end well for the Secret Service.
Jim
1yr ago
“Wagner” was apparently the call sign of Dmitry Utkin, the founder of the group, while in the Russian special forces:
Utkin, who reportedly has a passion for the history of the Third Reich, had the call-sign Wagner, allegedly in honour of Richard Wagner.
Jim
1yr ago
I hate that society has been gaslit, into thinking that there is some aspect of our mutual humanity that is served by cracking down on the police doing their job as the biggest gang in town.
Here’s the problem and here’s why it’s not “gasliting”: the second you give police free reign to “crack down” on “actual scum” is the second where the definition of “actual scum” evolves to mean anyone who is politically undesirable for those in power. In other words, straight up authoritarian tyranny. Dangerous path that.
Jim
1yr ago
Just to point out, the UK is several orders of magnitude smaller than the USA
It’s literally not even one magnitude smaller.
Jim
1yr ago
a convincing simulation of a Reddit NPC
How low is the bar for a “Reddit NPC”? Reddit is a big place, so it’s hard to know what this means without looking at specific subreddits.
Jim
2yr ago
Oh you’re right! I didn’t notice that tiny dot on mobile but see it now. Exacellent! Thank you!
EDIT: this is actually already there. It’s the tiny dot in top left corner of each message. Click it and it hides. =-)
Feature request: in Reddit there was a way to hide comments and then all the replies to that comment would hide as well. I used this to keep track of threads I was done reading by hiding them. Not sure how useful others found this, but I’m missing it hugely here. If by chance that could be added it would be amazing. Thank you in any case mod and dev team for putting this place together.
Jim
Why doesn’t Israel just blow up the wall on the Eygpt border so all the Gazans can flee there?
More options
Context Copy link