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JulianRota


				

				

				

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JulianRota


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 17:54:26 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The parent I responded to there had written a longer response with more detail that I was meaning to respond to now, but I guess he deleted it. (It was pretty long but reasonably charitable and clear IMO, so I thought it deserved a reasonably high-effort response). Oh well, I guess I'll say most of the same stuff here.


I was actually biased to think moderately positively of TK before I read his piece, as most of the areas I read seem at least modestly biased towards him. I wrote about it a bit on this site. I wrote in that thread what actually changed my mind. I had basically presumed that his ideas were too censored and too difficult to get out there such that it drove him to terrorism. But he actually wrote himself in that very essay in P96 that he did violence because he did have opportunities to put it out there, but not to be distributed to his satisfaction. As I wrote there, I reject the idea that you get to do violence because nobody thinks your ideas are interesting. If nobody thinks your ideas are interesting enough to pay attention to, you should work on improving them and presenting them better, not blow people up.


That Mr. Ellul wrote similar things I think more proves my point than refutes it (I believe you both that he wrote similar things, but I'm not sure to what extent he rejected or endorsed violence to spread his ideas) - it's perfectly possible to have such views and advocate for them in normal and peaceful ways. I think that, considering the public image TK has gained from his bombing campaign (since we're all talking about him), it's perfectly reasonable to point out the holes in his ideas and remind people that he did make the decision that his ideas were important enough to justify aggressive violence - not even towards specific people responsible for opposing him or rejecting his ideas, but people he felt were part of the industrial system that he wanted to tear down.


I also believe that part of the generous interpretation many have given to his work is due to the re-definition of freedom that he used. A casual reading of many of his sections with the implicit belief among the general public in the western world that "freedom" refers to basically classical liberalism, things like free speech, free press, rule of law, etc leads many of his ideas to sound significantly more insightful and reasonable. But once you know that he redefined it to mean the "right"/need of individuals to go through the "Power Process" of doing substantial work for their basic needs, it all sounds rather different. Whether Industrial Society is inherently destructive of "classical liberalism" freedom is yet to be determined - that could be a complex and interesting discussion. But Industrial Society being inherently destructive to "power process" freedom is trivially obvious. I have a feeling that this may have been done on purpose. An honest writer simply looking to promote his ideas rather than mislead people would pick a different word, rather than one so loaded with pre-existing cultural baggage in the West.


Parent post also seems to be accusing me of not knowing enough about nature, hunter-gatherer lifestyles, etc. Presumably this is meant to lead to an argument that such lifestyles are actually much better than I had presented them as. At least, that's the most charitable interpretation IMO, part of my issue there is that he didn't actually make an argument for whatever it is he believed, just implied that I was ignorant. If I am, please go ahead and let me know what facts you know that make the arguments less valid, don't just imply that they're there.


I could counter-argue that while I am no expert on such lifestyles, he in turn may not know much about just how complex the logistical chain is that makes available all of the modern goods that we take for granted and exactly what life may be like when they are completely impossible to obtain. I specifically mean the "safety net" concept that I mention elsewhere in this thread. It may not be terribly hard to live a lifestyle superficially similar to what is described by TK, presumably Ellul, and others - I wouldn't be surprised if the number of people in the continental US voluntarily living like that is in the hundreds of thousands. But it's only superficial if you still have the grocery store to solve any food production problems that come up, the hospital to solve any medical problems, the hardware store for any tools you can't fabricate, etc. Even if you never actually go to any of those, the mere fact that it's possible tends to change peoples' behavior. How many people volunteer to put all of those perpetually out of reach for their entire extended family for all eternity?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think your options are too limited. Right now, it seems that Russia doesn't have the combat power to push much further into Ukraine than it already has, at least not faster than a snail's pace, nor to do anything dramatic like capture Kiev, regardless of how much help we do or don't give to Ukraine.


Meanwhile, Ukraine doesn't seem to have much chance of pushing the Russians back any time soon, regardless of how much help we do or don't give them. I don't think this is going to change either aside from large-scale direct intervention from Western troops, or several decades training up Ukrainian forces.


So the only practical options are probably 1. Continue to feed men on both sides into a pointless meat grinder, or 2. Sign some sort of peace treaty giving Russia at least most of what they already captured officially.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Update - it seems this story has some legs:


The Canadian Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota (no relation) has now resigned over this incident.


Meanwhile, Poland has reportedly "taken steps" towards extraditing Yaroslav Hunka for "crimes against Polish people of Jewish origin". That story doesn't seem to have the update of Mr. Rota's resignation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think at least we can say, Nazism doesn't mean what it means to us to people who lived in Eastern Europe.


One of the more surreal things I've experienced lately was when I asked on the Motte Telegram back around the start of the war (which has a couple of actual Ukranian residents), basically, so what's the deal with Jewish Zelensky having an apparently-actual-Nazi unit (Azov battalion) serving in his army? Taking Western views at least sort of seriously, surely an actual Nazi unit would refuse to take orders from a Jewish President, and a Jewish President would surely boot an actual Nazi unit out of the army he was Commander-In-Chief of. But all the Ukrainian residents were like, yeah, so what, why do you think this is weird? Even for English-speakers who presumably have at least some exposure to the Anglosphere, the idea that Nazis and Jews might not like each other much just seemed incomprehensible to them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's a rule here for Make your point reasonably clear and plain. It's not clear to me what your point is, so why don't you just say it, whatever it is? Why are you making it all about me and my experiences? Exactly what is the "lie" that you are referring to at the end?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're mostly right. My statement wasn't meant to say "TK should go live with the Amish because they're exactly like what he proposes" - I don't think they are either. What I think is more like, the Amish are 70%-ish of the way from mainstream society to what TK says he wants, but they actually exist now, are accessible, and decent odds you could find an Amish church that would let you live with them for a while. Living with them would let him learn a lot about what it's actually like to live in such a society, how to live decently well with minimal contact with the industrial world, and get an idea about what it would be like to go further.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
He did, but it's not clear to what extent he was actually living the kind of life he advertised, which would include getting all of his own food, water, and other supplies from nature by himself and never from stores or other things sourced from the "industrial economy". At the very least, the materials required for the bombing campaign most likely couldn't have been built without outside supplies. I rather doubt he did considering how little knowledge of living off the land he started with and how much time he must have devoted to the bombing campaign.


There's also the point of safety nets. In TK's advocated world, if you fail to hunt and gather or farm enough food, then you starve and possibly die, tough shit. Living in a shack in the woods in the United States, even if you mostly get your own food, you still have the option of going to a store if you fall short, or to a hospital if you get injured or sick. Maybe he would voluntarily refrain from those options, but I don't think we know.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I started reading and thinking about Theodore Kaczynski's Industrial Society And It's Future around the time that he died and everyone was talking about it. I think everyone was talking about it in rather generous terms, mining it for the most truthful and insightful things and only talking about that. I think that's excesively generous, considering it came to be known to us thanks to a homicidal terroristic bombing campaign. I think it deserves to be cut to the core of it's true arguments that he believed justified his bombing campaign. And I also think that if you actually do so, it's pretty low quality. Here is the original text of it if you care to verify or make a counter-argument.


The core of, and most important thing to remember about Industrial Society and it's Future is the Power Process argument, as written starting in paragraph 33. TK's argument is that in order to be truly happy and satisfied with life, a person must need to exert substantial effort, labor, and creativity towards satisfying the most basic physical needs of food, water, shelter, and security. Exerting their creative efforts towards other pursuits, including art, science, engineering, etc. isn't good enough, it's got to be for core survival. Exerting substantial effort in a conventional job, earning money, and using that money to purchase the elements of survival is also not good enough, it has to be direct. This is his definition of "freedom" - one is "free" in his opinion if they need to exert substantial effort directly towards basic survival. Thus, industrial society is fundamentally destructive to "freedom" in this definition in that it enables the majority of humanity to satisfy their needs of survival very easily and reliably, usually by doing things that have no direct relation to those needs. See him doubling down on this in paragraph 94.


I believe this argument is fundamentally nonsensical. Perhaps our society is lost and missing something, but I'm doubtful that large-scale hunter-gatherer societies (or at least as large scale as such societies can be) are overall substantially happier and more satisfied with life. It may be true that some individuals who are disaffected from mainstream society for various reasons are happier in such a situation, but I don't think society as a whole is. I frankly doubt it for individuals too - how many such people ever truly disconnect fully from industrial society and stay that way? I don't think TK is has any experience in anthropology, or has spent any significant amount of time with societies that currently do live in ways similar to what he advocates. Maybe he should have spent a few years living with the Amish or something before going on a bombing campaign, or visited some primitive tribes that are still around in various parts of Africa and South America.


He has some other interesting observations, but that's the core of it and why I wholly reject the philosophy.


One of his other points is around how society tends to bend people to fit it, rather than adjusting to fit people. Maybe there's a little point in how hard it sometimes tries to bend people. But there are plenty of options out there already for other ways to live, if you are willing to go looking for them and actually adopt them. In fact, it's not really "society" trying to bend people in my opinion, it's usually the people themselves or their close family members trying to fit in. Are "we" supposed to go find the guy who thinks he should try anti-depressants to fit in better and tell him he really ought to try joining a sailboat crew first instead? Maybe it's your job to realize you don't like your place in society and change it. And however you decide to deal with your disaffection with society, what gives you the right to claim you know what's best for everyone? Doesn't the fact that you are disaffected from society fundamentally mean that you don't understand it and aren't by any measure qualified to speak for it?


Speaking of people not fitting into society, what happens when it goes the other way? If we actually adopt his supposed preferred lifestyle and it goes exactly the way he hopes it does, I'd bet anything at least a few people would think that running water, grocery stores full of food, and antibiotics are actually pretty nice, can I please go back to that? Will the result of that just be, tough shit, this is all there is, starve and die if you don't like it? Has he done any sort of research or experiment at all to determine that 100% of humanity will actually be happer living like this, even when some of them starve to death because a harvest or hunt went bad for some reason and there's no such thing as long-distance trade, or they watch their loved ones die of things that are fixable in industrial society but pre-industrial hunter-gatherers are helpless against?


I think the bigger point though is - what do you want for the future of the Human Race?


If we go TK's way, we will be hunter-gatherers chasing buffalo around and picking berries forever. Your kids and their kids as far into the future as you want to go will never live any better than you. Some day, the rising output of the sun will destroy the Earth's biosphere, or maybe we get hit by an asteroid or gamma ray burst or something, and the entire human race goes extinct. We won't have a prayer of even knowing it's coming, much less doing anything about it, because being too busy working on basic survival to notice or think about such things is apparently the correct way to live. We were given this tremendous gift of intelligence, by evolution or God or whatever you believe, and we're supposed to just throw it in the trash because some guy was sad?


Or we go our own way and take industrial society as far as it can go. Maybe we build awesome spaceships and colonize the stars. Maybe we conduct diplomacy as equals with alien civilizations. Maybe we turn ourselves into a global hive mind somehow. Or maybe we blow ourselves up with antimatter bombs or get turned into paperclips by our superintelligent AIs or get enslaved by hostile aliens. Who knows what the future holds, but it sounds a lot better than being hunter-gatherers forever.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I interpret the posts you started this thread with as making the claim that Jews as a group categorically refuse to do agricultural work because the Talmud says they aren't allowed to. But the articles that you posted seem to basically agree with the one I posted - that Jews mostly moved away from agriculture because the religion did mandate that they become literate in an age where that was rare and difficult, and there were more lucrative jobs available for those who were (though usually not lucrative enough versus farming at the time to persuade people of other religions who did not have a religious mandate for literacy to take them up). So agreed on that I guess?


This is also evidence that the mandate for literacy is actually real and recognized as so and obeyed by the great majority of Jews throughout history. You seem to be attempting to claim there is a mandate to not do agricultural work, which I can't see any evidence of historical or near-modern Jews actually perceiving, recognizing, or obeying. It may not be super-popular, but there definitely are substantial movements around Jewish Farming, and I've never heard of any Rabbis or Talmudic scholars making a claim that those movements are wrong. And you'd think they'd get rid of Sukkot too if they really did hate farming.


(this probably deserves an effortpost of its own, but indeed literacy is rare and expensive in the pre-industrial age, which includes not only the printing press, but a power source for it, plus decent-quality long-lasting paper and ink in industrial quantities, plus a way to transport large quantities of all of those supplies and the resulting books around a country)


The Talmud is a pretty complex and obscure subject. You pretty much never hear any Jews who are not Talmudic scholars talking about it or basing their lives around it. Indeed, there are college degrees for reading and interpreting it. I am not at all a Talmudic scholar myself, but all of the commentary in the site you posted on the section you linked says it's mainly about marriage and relations between men and women. It seems nobody else thinks the bit that you say forbids agriculture work (or rather, quotes a "Rabbi Elazar" as claiming it's "low") actually does so. It's a book that's existed for thousands of years and had many tens of thousands of people spend years of their life reading and interpreting, if it's actually meant as a prohibition, surely there must be more people talking about that, but I can't seem to find any.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If Jews don't farm, why do they have a major holiday for harvest season? Farming may not be the most popular career for Jews, but it appears there's still plenty of Jewish farmers, even before the Kibbutz movement.


I am also highly skeptical of people pulling quotes from the Talmud to try and make a point about the Jews. The Talmud is a large volume containing many contradictory opinions about many subjects from many historical scholars. It's meant to be studied and debated, not read as a literal book of laws. Can you cite the exact passage that you believe condemns agricultural work and why you believe the intent of that section is to order Jews not to perform it?


I have no idea what the relationship of Eastern European Jewish communities was to farming. Certainly they were strongly discriminated against and banned from it in many places. If they refused to try or ask, perhaps they knew they wouldn't get it, or were concerned that they wouldn't be allowed to keep them for long enough for a planting and harvest cycle, or wouldn't be allowed to learn how to do it well. Or maybe it's not very well documented exactly what they did or didn't try to do over the years.


In looking around the net about the subject, I did find this interesting and pretty neutral article about the subject making the case that the root cause of Jews tending away from farming in the pre-historical era was not hostile discrimination or refusal to do farm labor, but instead the religious requirement to be literate (in order to read the Torah) in an era when that was extremely difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. It seems likely that many people thought, if you've got to acquire a relatively rare and difficult skill, better to make some use of it rather than continue to farm.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The point of this place is to practice the belief that we can discuss any subject rationally and honestly. So we strongly prefer to ban not any specific viewpoint, but poor argument tactics instead. If you want to say that Jews are bad, you can, but you have to actually say it and make a rational case for why, not make suspiciously weird and irrelevant posts whose real purpose seem to be to put a eyebrow-raising number into people's heads.


I think this is a good thing - the NN's most compelling argument is usually that they're so censored everywhere, they must have an actual point that the system doesn't want you to hear. We can refute that here - here's a wide open forum for you to post what you actually think, and if it's really dumb it will get shredded just like it deserves.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Brings to mind the "What's Your Job on the Leftist Commune?" meme, where seemingly 90% of people claim to want to be some variation of therapist, philosopher, academic, or barista, while barely 10% show any interest in manual labor, farming, construction, etc. Sample picture


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Highlights From The Comments On Elon Musk
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've never worked there, so I don't know for sure. I'm inclined to think it's basically true though. For one, I don't think Musk's companies hire true juniors - indications are that they expect every employee to be highly competent and motivated. I wouldn't be surprised if getting a good idea through can happen even at the lowest level. Musk is reported to be a notorious micro-manager - that's the good side of it, that good ideas at the lowest level can be found. Of course there's a flip side to all of this too - if your idea isn't actually good or you can't execute on it, you might just be summarily fired.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Transnational Thursdays 18
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wonder what impact the amount of resources they've put into the Ukraine war has had on their ability to respond to situations on other fronts. One of the things the Russia-supporters were worried about is how worried about "big bad Russia" all of the other nearby states will be if they couldn't/didn't bring Ukraine to heel promptly. It now seems like they're in that situation anyways, regardless of whether they are able to pull something they can call a "win" out of the Ukraine war.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My first thought is, define "sorta friends". At least in my book, "friends" is people I already talk to and get together with regularly and would be perfectly normal to ask to get together with. This feels more like this is a person who you see once in a while at work or school or something but don't talk/message with 1 on 1 regularly and have never done anything together. That's more of a loose acquaintance in my book.


A bit of a long-winded way to say that it seems like you're trying to jump too big of a gap with this message. Going from basically no direct communications to an overly fawning and formal date request is 90% chance going to seriously weird her out. If you don't already have extremely flirtatious contact in some other medium, you need to start much more casually. Something along the lines of, hey [name], want to come get [a drink / lunch / dinner / a movie / whatever is your kind of thing], or invite her to some group event that you're going to. Or send a short joke or meme or something to get a conversation started, and if there's actually a fun and active interaction, do the previous. If you actually get together, things just kind of go or don't go based on how your interaction feels, the formality of calling it a date seems out of place, and like it's trying to force her into a some kind of framework where she'll be pushed or obligated to do something she doesn't want to do.


The turn-off of fawningness is pretty hard for guys to really get. Guys don't tend to understand that until they've become successful enough at some job or hobby or something to have people fawning over them. It feels pretty weird, and it doesn't make you respect the person doing it. At best, you see them as an assistant or apprentice or something of that level. It almost tempts you to take advantage of them and abuse them a little, even if you weren't inclined to do that sort of thing. All of this is basically the complete opposite of what women are actually attracted to.


On the explicit "not a big deal", see the Frank definitely doesn't diddle kids video. That's a way over-exaggerated version, but the basic idea holds - the more time and words you spend talking about how you aren't or don't want to do something that your context implies you're going to do, the more people will disbelieve you. I understand that you're saying that because you're earnest and over-thinking things and actually mean it, but that's not how most readers, especially women, will interpret it. You communicate that it's not a big deal by writing the first part like it actually isn't a big deal, not by explicitly saying it isn't a big deal. Both of your paragraphs actually communicate that it's a super big deal to you.


I've always tended to over-think things myself as well. I've found it a good rule of thumb to chop out 3/4 of everything I write. It's probably worth a try for you sometime - write a message how you normally would, then spend some more time chopping out 3/4 of it by taking out everything that you may reasonably assume your reader already knows or understands.


But all of that said, this is all pretty normal issues to have for young guys learning how to interact with women. You're not a bad person or anything, there's just a lot of stuff to learn that seems odd and counter-intuitive at first, and is probably the complete opposite of everything you've ever been told by whatever authority figures you've trusted. You probably didn't have much of a relationship with her in the first place, and it's a tall order to build that over text when you haven't already done so in person, so you haven't really lost much. Just forget about this message entirely and don't try too hard to talk to her if you happen to run into her again anytime soon.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Highlights From The Comments On Elon Musk
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I want to double-down / confirm the comment about working conditions and the ability to do things. I've worked at some Large Bureaucratic Organizations. I've seen too many times as an Individual Contributor where I or a colleague of mine comes up with a nice idea to make something work better or be cheaper or something, tried to get it done, and it gets stonewalled at the management level because the real decisions are made 5 layers up from you and there's no way to get any idea up to them through all the layers of middle management in a way they'll actually care about.


Instead, most of the project proposals that come down from on high are for stuff that people at the ground level can see is clearly unworkable, but it gets pushed anyways. When it proceeds to go nowhere, as predicted, whoever pushed it can dummy up a powerpoint that makes it look like it went great, which never actually gets checked, so they get bonuses and promotions anyways.


After a while working in a place like that, it can feel like a huge deal where a good idea at your level gets a quick "Okay, do it, here's the money", and the really dumb ideas get ruthlessly shut down. You might put up with and excuse a lot to be allowed to work at your full potential on something that's actually awesome instead of being a bureaucratic drone putting forth 10% on something completely pointless.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think I could use a ChromeOS device as my only PC either. But I've been surprised that the list of things I want to do on a primary PC that I can't do on it is pretty short. Web browsing is nice of course, but so is programming in any language I've used, messing with Docker images and K8s admin, most CLI and Linux tools work fine, etc.


The $300-range practical devices can be nice, but personally, I'm too turned off by the low quality screens and performance compromises. I got a somewhat pricier one with a nice screen and pretty decent performance. But at least there are plenty of options at all levels of performance and quality now.


The combo of first-party desktop environment with officially supported everything and best-in-class security, plus an officially supported full Linux environment where everything works, is pretty competitive in the current laptop market.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think you have to start by deciding on the OS.


If you want Windows, you have a bazillion options. Windows 10 is pretty decent IMO, though I don't have much experience with 11.


If you want MacOS, then your options are obviously constrained to Apple hardware, where the choices are pretty easy. I don't think you really need to be a part of Apple's online ecosystem, even though they highly encourage it. The hardware is certainly nice, though it isn't cheap.


If you want Linux, then you probably should check carefully for good hardware compatibility before you spend money on anything, as near as I can tell, good-quality drivers are still extremely hit or miss, especially with regard to webcams, microphones, wifi, bluetooth, video cards, efficiency and battery life, etc.


I often speak up for ChromeOS on these things - I use it for my primary personal laptop. Not many people think of it as their first choice, but it can do everything you mentioned just fine, and runs quite well if you buy decent spec hardware. Local OS security is top-notch, and there's a built-in and officially supported Linux that runs command line and X Windows apps. Google is probably tracking you, but at least they're the only ones.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think they're consciously doing it, as in literally giving money directly to Nazi groups. I do think they're effectively doing it by things like signal-boosting irrelevant Nazis through calling them out and giving them a much wider audience, organizing industry-wide cancelling of anyone who opposes them, which promotes the idea that Jews run everything, and then calling the idea that Jews run everything a "baseless conspiracy theory", accusing people of anti-Semitism and then accepting payoffs from them, etc. All of these are things they can tell themselves are supporting their cause, but effectively do the opposite.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for September 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've done LSD. It was a curious experience, put me in an unusual mindset - I somehow got the impression that, as dedicated Christians say, God has a plan. It felt like a sense of peace, like there was nothing to worry about, nothing to fear, because everything was already going to happen in accordance with the plan of a force much more powerful than any of us. But that's pretty much it though, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary at all or feel compelled to do anything I wouldn't otherwise do.


My take is that it can be a fun experience if you're open to and interested in that sort of thing. But I'm highly skeptical that it's likely to cause any long-term change in your personality, positive or negative.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Usually, at least at the prosecutor's level, if not the actual beat officers, this seems to work the opposite way. If you're an upstanding citizen CCing in full compliance with the actual published law, then you get the book thrown at you - full charges, highest bail they can get, max punishment, etc. If you're a career criminal on the way to commit another armed robbery or gang hit, then you get charges dropped lightened to where you can be released immediately.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
When the arbitrary and unconstitutional "public health orders" for things like mask mandates and business closures started coming down, many argued that it was a slippery slope towards the Government making up any orders they felt like any time they felt like it and successfully enforcing them. Well, here's us starting to slide down that slope. Make up any rule you want, call it a "public health order", and just maybe it will stand and actually be enforced.


I really hope this doesn't stand, because it will only accelerate us towards a regime of government executives actually ruling by decree without regard to the Constitution. And what'll happen if a Red team executive in a Red state copies the pattern, maybe doing something like closing down all gay bars and other meeting places as a "public health order" to stop Monkeypox or Aids or something.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's that, and it also appears that he's assuming the energy extracted comes directly and exclusively from the Earth's rotation, rather than from that as well as the Moon's orbit. But the quoted point is probably the more important one - it seems intuitively implausible even before I read the article that the amount of energy the human race uses is anywhere near the same order of magnitude as what is associated with the Earth's rotation.


Either way, I also have no confidence that any mainstream media source is capable of evaluating the claim with appropriate skepticism and performing, or even getting someone more qualified to perform, basic checking for major holes in the idea rather than jumping on what would be an attention-getting headline.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's probably a better description yeah.


The bum / not a bum perception IMO is based on behavior as much as appearance. Even before they really do anything, you can often just tell that they move differently. Most normal people out in the world are actively doing something, or appear to be relaxing or waiting for someone or something. Bums just seem to have a kind of restlessness and not knowing what to do to them.


They also seem to have a way of asking for things in excessively flowery language. Or with long explanations of whatever ridiculous situation they are supposedly in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Two problems:


Pedophiles are out there, one of their common hobbies is collecting huge amounts of kiddie porn. We think this is bad, so we spend effort investigating it and jailing people we find processing it or producing it. When we find collectors, we lock them in jail for a while and probably mark them on a sex offender registry.


Moderating big social media sites is a headache. People post huge amounts of kiddie porn and gore and other such things, and they all employ moderators to review reported content. Many of those moderators end up mentally disturbed due to viewing huge amounts of this stuff in the course of their job. Many complain about needing therapy, never being the same again, etc.


Obvious and possibly stupid solution:


When we find people collecting kiddie porn, we make them be social media moderators (of that particular type). They shouldn't mind seeing the kiddie porn since they like it. We let them keep anything they find in their private collection as long as they never share it, in return they work at checking whether reported social media posts really are or aren't kiddie porn.


What could possibly go wrong?