Jiro
6mo ago
I would consider dodging this question by saying that the walrus can not be a moral subject to be a copout.
"Answering the question is a copout."
You can't just declare something to be a copout and thus make it so.
Jiro
6mo ago
Is NYC antisemitic now
I mean... yes? The left has a strong antisemitic contingent, and NYC is on the left.
Pro-BLM protestors and pro-Hamas protestors are, broadly speaking, on the same side. It took billionaires to stop pro-Hamas protests for the same reason that nothing could stop BLM protests--it's very hard to stop protests that are tacitly approved of by the establishment.
Jiro
6mo ago
My argument is simply that America's actions re: the ICC demonstrate once again that it has no interest in submitting itself to such a system
This implies that the ICC is such a system. This is, to put it mildly, in dispute.
Jiro
6mo ago
Even the most dedicated pro-Israelis concede that Palestinian casualties have always far exceeded Israeli ones, but Israel's war is the "extremely restrained" one?
Being good at defense does not mean you're not allowed to kill the enemy. Palestinian casualties have exceeded Israeli ones because Israel's defense is good, not because they're going light on trying to kill Israelis.
Also, Israel doesn't build military bases in hospitals in order to increase its own casualties. A lot of the Palestinian casualties that "exceeded Israeli ones" are a result of deliberate Palestinian action.
Jiro
6mo ago
"Disproportionate" does not mean "the enemy gets to kill as many of us as we do of them, or else it's disproportionate".
Jiro
6mo ago
Why shouldn't I generally be allowed to conceal myself, as long as I'm not doing anything wrong?
Because we tried that and it didn't work. These laws were often meant as anti-KKK.
Jiro
6mo ago
We don't have any obligation to keep them from being executed by their home country under other circumstances. Requiring that we keep them from being executed if they commit crimes against us is Copenhagen ethics.
If a lot of people complain about Jews who eat Christian babies, it's fair for Jews to feel targeted even though they don't eat babies.
Whether someone is attacking the outgroup doesn't depend on whether they are accurately characterizing the outgroup. It can be simultaneously true that 1) southerners don't have the values that Confederate statues represent and 2) they consider attacks on the statues as attacks on themselves. They can figure out what's in the minds of the people attacking the statues, and that's all that's needed.
Jiro
6mo ago
You can't compare the cost of food in other countries and meaningfully say "the food prices are better there"--you're implicitly comparing them against your US salary. If food costs 1/x, but if you lived there you'd be making 1/x your salary, it's not really cheaper at all.
Jiro
6mo ago
People literally say "I am planting this bomb to fight for the oppressed". They don't say "I am planting this bomb to get cool uniforms". There's a big difference in how direct the connection is, even if both of them can be classified as increases in Bayseian probability.
Jiro
6mo ago
The "connection" is that someone saw the news and thought "That's an idea. Terrorism!"
Jiro
6mo ago
That's what I thought too, at least the carbonite reference. It looks as though he's embedded in some substance.
Jiro
6mo ago
Apparently that has all this special Christian symbolism
"Jesus went to Hell" is not really particularly hard to understand.
Jiro
6mo ago
With regard to the so-called ethnic campaigns I think it's necessary to point out that the ethnic minorities who were targeted (in a loose sense) in the purges all had ethnic homelands of their own which bordered the USSR and were either hostile states, former wartime adversaries like Poland or Finland, or colonized by a hostile state, such as Korea under Japanese rule.
It's very hard, without large scale immigration (either of you versus the equivalent of the native Americans, or of the minorities), to be in a situation where your country's ethnic minorities are not one of those.
Also, by this standard, the internment of Japanese-Americans in the US wouldn't count as anti-ethnic because the US was at war with Japan.
Jiro
6mo ago
A. Woke implies an agenda of defending the oppressed, mass murdering tyrant also implies an agenda of defending the oppressed. In this case, there is very little to link wokes to tyrants -- if we observe that Nazis frequently wear uniforms, and postmen frequently wear uniforms that tells us very little if there is any unexpected overlap between Nazis and postmen
To be fair, "defending the oppressed" inspires and excuses actions. Uniforms do not.
Jiro
6mo ago
I'd be surprised if equal numbers of men and women like hunting and golf. "We have to do this boring and maybe gross thing to network" is still a barrier, if a porous one.
Jiro
6mo ago
Define powerful. Not going to instantly get fired for supporting Trump? Sure. Having influence, though? That's much harder.
Jiro
6mo ago
Functionally though what is the difference between paying a company to do x or fining a company of it doesn't do x?
Paying it is limited by budget. Unfunded mandates aren't. This prevents many abuses.
Jiro
6mo ago
But if it IS doing a thing (like the ADA currently), then presumably we can still explore what would be more or less effective, even if we stipulate that you might not think it should be doing that thing in the first place?
But I don't think the government should not be doing that thing. (Defined nontrivially.)
Helping disabled people isn't bad. The problem is that doing so through lawsuits creates problems that don't happen when the government just taxes people and pays businesses $X to have disabled accommodations.
Jiro
6mo ago
Multiple people referenced the exact same remark shortly after the meeting was over, so I think it's safe to assume he really said it.
But it can't be a PR strategy if it was said in private and not meant to be publicized.
Jiro
6mo ago
Leave aside whether the government should do A or B, I am saying ONCE we decide A or B, then it's inefficient to have it coordinate one part (gathering the resources) but leaving it up to individuals to target the entity.
That allows you to characterize the act any way you want just by dividing it up into steps and saying "leaving aside the first step...."
You can't separate whether the government should do A or B from the government's role in the transaction of which A/B are a part.
Jiro
6mo ago
Well in both cases the government is putting an obligation on the entity right? To stick to a contract or to make accommodations for those with disabilities.
A company would be expected to have contracts, and would commit itself to some method of enforcing them, even in the absence of government interference; this isn't true for the ADA. It's the difference between the government enforcing better coordination on something that would exist regarelsss of the government's presence, and the government enforcing something that it imposed on its own.
Your framing is that the government's major role is to coordinate an existing transaction. That would be true in an actual contract; that would be false for the ADA.
If the government said that Bill Gates had to bow down to me, it would be misleading to describe that as "the government is there to coordinate what you and Bill Gates do" or to say "the government is just letting you negotiate with Gates, who's less powerful than a government but more powerful than a normal person".
Jiro
6mo ago
In other words your solution removes the advantage of government force against entities that are less powerful than a government but more powerful than a normal individual.
"Government force against entities" assumes that the entity did something, and that the government force is being used to stop it. On the contrary; the entity didn't do anything, but the government imposed an obligation on them.
It is obvious enough that having protestors surround your car is a threat to your life that nobody should be required to testify that they think it's a threat.
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