Mer
1yr ago
You know, I actually looked up the meaning of the phrase because I was also sure it was gibberish, saw that it was gibberish and decided to use it anyway.
It seems that I'm actually just an evil man.
Mer
1yr ago
Yet men-as-depicted-by-women are still recognizably male and deeper than men's men – if sometimes unrealistically sensitive and vulnerable, even absolute brutes
I've not read much written by women in my life, but on the occasions I have I have to say that I've always found the way they write men to be jarring. There have even been times when I've read something without knowing anything about the author, come away thinking that something was off (everyone seems kind of gay? - my inner thought process at the time), lo and behold it's written by a woman every time. This was really the experience that lead me to believe that women as a group have a somewhat over-inflated view of their own understanding of the inner workings of men. I do think this street runs both ways, with the men that bother to try and understand women that is.
Mer
1yr ago
That would be the exception that proves the rule I'd say.
Same way I'd be pretty confident in guessing that warhammer fanfiction is primarily written by and for men.
Mer
1yr ago
Depends what they're reading and what they're playing, I'd rather have a child playing Vintage Story, an RTS or something similar over quite a lot of the crap that gets put to paper. Growing up I read a lot of books and played quite a few games, I enjoyed both and looking back I don't really see one being more valuable than the other. In a practical sense I probably got more out of playing Age of Empires than I did from reading Redwall for example.
Mer
1yr ago
It's pretty clear that the desire to have kids is not universal. My source: the many people who never have children or express a desire to have children and in fact go to great lengths to avoid having children.
Mer
1yr ago
Nuclear power has a lot of benefits, but it takes a significant amount of time and money to get online, with the benefits being generally diffused. The number of organisations that can actually get a nuclear power plant online for long enough that they can start to make a profit is quite small.
AI is comparatively cheap, the changes are quick and easily observable and the pay off for an individual willing to utilise it is substantial. As a class medievial European nobility may have benefited from a complete ban on crossbows and handguns, but the ratio of costs to return of employing these weapons meant that anyone who chose to defect and take up their use would out compete those who did not. The same is true of AI, it cannot be ignored.
Your appeals to a reasonable nation performing certain obvious reasonable tasks are pointless. This is clown world. You need to think dumber.
I'm appealing to human greed and desire for power. You need to think smarter.
Mer
1yr ago
I am strongly of the opinion that since neoliberal PMC jobs are the easiest to automatic with AI, there will be incredibly strong regulation banning AI from taking the jobs of the PMC. The power to regulate is the power to destroy, and as incapable of actual productivity the PMC and their legion of bullshit jobs are, they know how to run a grift and bask in their own self importance.
This is exactly why the crossbow and handgonnes never took off and why we still live under a feudal system ruled over by our lieges and ladies.
More seriously, this technology is too valuable to not use, anyone who does use it is going to gain a massive advantage over anyone that doesn't, its use is inevitable.
Mer
1yr ago
If you would murder someone from another tribe regardless of their personal beliefs, then you're murdering based on identity
But their beliefs are their identity, it's the only way in which they are different (from a modern first world perspective). Identity is a question of what individuals believe to be important, both in themselves and in others. You can take a Hutu baby and a Tutsi baby from their respective homelands, raise them in a black american ghetto without any information about where they came from and they would not identify or be identified as Hutu and Tutsi, they're just black. Yet raise these same babies in Rwanda and one may very well end up dismembering the other with farming implements in a wide ranging genocide based solely on their identity.
To give another example that you keep banging on about, being gay. There are plenty of examples of cultures throughout history that do not share the modern concept of "being gay". I'm massively over-generalising here, but for ancient greeks, having sex with men was something that you did, not something that defined you. If you showed up to ancient Athens and insisted that having sex with or being attracted to men was this incredibly important, immutable part of who you were, they'd probably consider you to be strange and childish.
In both the cases above, the cultural context informs the identity of the individuals involved far more than their genetics.
The trend is obvious. Liberals will frequently eat their own based on failures of belief regardless of identity, like with Al Franken. Conservatives will frequently support their own based on identity and regardless of belief, like Donald Trump and his history of cheating on his wife with a porn star.
How exactly does Justin "Minstrel Show" Trudeau fit into this? And what intrinsic genetic traits does Donald Trump share with his fellow american conservatives that is shielding him from harm? As far as I can tell, there is no genetic link between conservatives (if there was then by your logic it would be haram for liberals to oppose them based on their conservative genetics anyway).
This is evident in one of the other replies to me that claims that blue collar hostility towards gay men is justified because gay men are intrinsically likely to sexually harass straight men. The poster linked an identity, being gay, with an inevitanle political action, sexual harassment, to justify the hatred of gay men.
It is strange to me that you consider sexual harassment to be a political act. I would say it's pretty reasonable to assume that gay men are more likely to sexually harass straight men than a straight man is. Ergo, if you're afraid of being sexually harassed or assaulted by a man, you would be wise to focus your defenses towards gay men. From the perspective of our hypothetical blue collar worker, the problem is not the immutable characteristic (attraction to men), the problem is the increased risk of the bad things he doesn't want happening to him.
I wouldn't blame a woman for being more frightened of being sexually harassed or assaulted by a straight man, why would I fault this hypothetical blue collar worker for drawing the same conclusions?
This whole website is based on the idea that it's better to object on ideological rather than tribal lines, even if tribalism is powerful. Conservatives are clearly the side of power through tribalism, and liberals are clearly the side of power through persuasive ideology.
Ideological lines are tribal lines. The very next sentence you accuse the enemy tribe of being the bad mean people who are ignorant (perhaps they are also smelly?), whereas your tribe are the good virtuous ones who seek to rise above such petty nonsense. You would have to be willfully ignorant to end up on a site like the motte and not have been presented with an abundance of examples of those from the liberal tribe acting solely out of opposition to the conservative tribe.
Conservatives would like to pretend they are hating people for their beliefs, rather than their immutable characteristics, so they recast immutable characteristics as political beliefs so they can justify their identity based hatred.
They're smart enough to pretend that it's just harmful beliefs and actions from gay and trans people that they object to, like drag shows for children, surgery for children, and men in women's sports.
This commercial cleverly displays that this is just a facade designed to persuade moderate liberals such as myself that they are looking for any compelling reason to attack gay and trans people because their hatred is based on identity.
I honestly can't tell if you're trying to rile people up here or if you're just that arrogant and close minded. I would say that you started from a fundamentally flawed understanding of identity and have developed a self-serving explanation of why your team are the goodies and the other team are the baddies from there. How does your mental model account for the existence of gay conservatives for example? Trump is probably the most pro-gay president ever, he was publicly pro gay marriage while Biden and Obama were still saying that marriage was between a man and a woman.
Mer
1yr ago
They're not equivalent. Conservatives engage in hatred based on identity, and liberals engage in hatred based on beliefs.
I would say that's a pretty bold statement to make about two very broad groups of people. I've personally observed both groups hate people for both reasons.
Putting aside the excessive generality, I would say that I object to this rather glib slogan on the grounds that beliefs are quite often an integral part of a persons identity and that in fact the lines between identity and belief are often so blurred as to make the distinction meaningless.
If I, a member of the Hawkmanii tribe, attack and murder a member of the Boarmanii tribe from the next valley over based solely on him being a filthy Boarmanii (who had it coming because you can't trust these "people"), would I have killed him based on his identity or his beliefs? By modern standards we would be considered to be members of the same ethnic group, distinguished only by our styles of dress or perhaps how we choose to wear our beards. Yet both of us would become murderously violent towards anyone implying that there is anything even remotely similar about us, I was born a Hawkmanii, I will die a Hawkmanii.
This ad campaign is just a reminder that conservatives still view being trans or gay as a political choice first, and a personal characteristic second.
So these hypothetical conservatives consider gays/transgender types to be repugnant because they perceive them as making an incorrect political choice, not because they perceive it to be an immutable characteristic? This seems to undermine the argument you made in the very line above.
Mer
1yr ago
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, if you don't like sexuality permitting everything then the way to do that is stop putting sexuality in everything.
Now I'd personally be quite happy with the proposed arrangement, sounds like a damn good deal to me, I don't care for how sexualised mainstream culture is. But I'd point out that there are actually some other options. Number 1 is to just suppress minority sexualities and continue allowing the promotion of the sexuality of the majority, in fact this is substantially easier than simply suppressing sexuality all together.
Mer
1yr ago
I'm not saying I want anything, I'm saying that it's not a question of "can't" but "won't".
There are a few different ways to approach the problem of "insufficient houses to meet demand", ranging from building commie blocks/pods all the way to just dropping regulations and allowing shanty towns to spring up.
I really hate when someone says they can't do something when they actually mean they won't do something.
Mer
1yr ago
You can’t
That's quitter talk, you absolutely can build enough housing, it's just a question of if the will to do so exists and what we consider to be adequate housing.
Mer
1yr ago
What I've heard was that it was pro-russian posters online that edited the document, presumably to own their online pro-ukrainian opponents, not the actual Russian government.
I'd say that's entirely believable.
Mer
1yr ago
Having a shared set of societal ground rules is a good idea and that's pretty much what everyone in the culture war is actually fighting over, last man standing gets to dictate what is normal and what is acceptable for debate.
So I guess you can join the battle royale and hope to be that last man standing as well.
Mer
1yr ago
I can chime in and say that I've also noticed no change to my imagination or creativity while on meds, in fact my creative output has increased as I can now actually get things done and then move onto new creative enterprises.
My experience with medication and the discourse around adhd medication in particular, seems to be that there is a fairly broad spectrum of experiences that people have with these drugs and that people really like generalising their own experiences as The Golden Standard (other people are clearly lying, or are taking their drugs wrong) and from there it's a coin flip if they'll then start to morally grandstand.
It is also my experience that most discussion around adhd medication is one of morality and virtue instead of practicality and utility. All those who have an interest in transhumanism and human augmentation should take note, this is one of the tributaries of that later torrent.
Speaking as someone who's lost quite a lot of weight, gained most of it back and then lost it again, I can say that it's really a case of needing to be persistent and recognising that you're not "going on a diet", but actually making a sustained change of lifestyle and building better habits. I also find that it helps to not allow yourself to be too discouraged by stalling or setbacks. Often times it feels like you're just rolling the dice again and again, always coming up snake eyes, until finally something clicks and the weight just seems to fall off.
Best of luck with the weight loss and remember, we're all gonna make it brah.
Mer
1yr ago
Yes. Because everyone uses dating apps now
I'd like to see some numbers to back up that claim, I know nobody that has used dating apps for anything more than hook ups and even then, that's not exactly common. It's my experience that people find relationships through work/school or mutual friends.
My experience in general with how people talk about relationships and dating online has been one of bafflement. It's always this sturm und drang about how dating is impossible for the average man, women are ruthless harpies and the dating world has become this mad max style post apocalyptic wasteland ruled over by the new supermen. Then I look out the window and everything seems fine, people pursue relationships that aren't much changed from the kind that their parents would have pursued.
I've increasingly come round to the idea that talking about relationships online attracts a certain kind of individual, with a certain kind of world view and experiences and that this lends a certain tint to the discourse.
Mer
1yr ago
I have no strong opinions on the role of space in future warfare, but I would raise a note of caution that reading your post really reminds me of the early 20th century air power advocates and the apocalyptic visions they conjured of entire nations reduced to rubble and madness by bombardment from the air.
Control of space may prove to be decisive in future conflicts, or it may prove to be just another theatre in war. It's far too early to call it either way.
Mer
1yr ago
Fringe loonies will do what fringe loonies do. I wonder if the usual suspects over on /k/ are still fervently denouncing Ian as a dirty commie for disabling comments on videos related to Rhodesia.
I have a huge amount of respect for Ian for staying the course by remaining professional and basically apolitical. The man just wants to talk about guns, their workings and their history.
Mer
1yr ago
Drinkers will also smash glass bottles into each others heads over imagined insults, frankly you sound like an addict trying to excuse their drug of choice.
Mer
1yr ago
It’s almost like you get incredibly bored without alcohol to distract you and need to find major goals to carry yourself.
This is certainly a creative way to spin what would seem to be an unalloyed positive into something that sounds vaguely negative.
And fwiw I think a non-drinking potus is a bad thing. I think people are far more chill and get along with each other who do. It’s like being an alien who doesn’t follow the normal cultural rituals.
This to me feels like it fits in the same camp as people who say they'd be more likely to vote for someone that they could have a beer with. I get the sentiment, but it just seems to be a pretty terrible way to think about national leaders. I've had drinks with many people and not once during (or after) those encounters have I thought to myself that the person I was drinking with should be given control of a nuclear arsenal, or the ability to alter the fate of nations. I would in fact be much more comfortable handing that responsibility off to some sort of hypothetical stone cold sober ubermensch, whose only joy in life was found by bettering the lives and futures of his people.
Mer
1yr ago
Simply having more children is (or should be) a part of the greater goal, which is to raise fertility and produce functional families. Improving fertility just so that you can have a generation full of ticking time bombs raised in dysfunctional homes is only a marginal improvement over the default of people having fewer kids.
It seems odd to me to classify following the rules of the benefits / incentive program as 'gaming' . If you follow the rules and have the children, it seems like it's producing the desired outcome.
I think this would come under following the letter rather than spirit of the law.
That said, I don't think any government currently extant understands how to set up a system immune to this kind of thing, they're rather unimaginative.
In my experience you've got two different categories of productive arguments with those of a sufficiently differing political alignment.
-
You know the person reasonably well, have an established relationship that they value and they have some respect for you
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You have no strong links to the person you're arguing with and there are less ideologically committed onlookers
In the first situation I've generally had success by being assertive about what I believe to be true, giving the reasons for why I hold said beliefs and generally emphasising my good intentions. Your mileage may vary however. I don't attempt to "convert" people I've got good relationships with, just respectfully disagree when they say something I feel to be particularly egregious. My strong/assertive personality also probably colours all these relationships and influences how these things go. Or maybe I'm just lucky and happen to only have relationships with reasonable people.
In the second case I opt for a different tack. You have no chance of bringing the other person round to your point of view by being reasonable, so instead your aim should be to dominate the discussion with the aim of influencing the wider community. You're a stand up playing to the crowd, with the aim of making your opponents ideas look ridiculous and yours reasonable and sensible. This requires quite a bit of nuance, a general feeling for the crowd and a quick wit. There are a number of benefits of this kind of strategy compared to the usual kind that I see posted here (hide your true convictions, scuttle around in the dark trading essays with like-minded individuals on how everything has just gone so terribly wrong), this is very much a case of planting a standard. There are downsides to planting a standard, it makes you a target and people know your alignment, but there are also upsides. People know your alignment, like minded people may come to you and I think most importantly, it gives whatever you believe in a degree of legitimacy. It shows that yes, people do believe in/support whatever your standard represents and that they will absolutely sally out to defend it. Your average person is incredibly averse to confrontation or being singled out and will generally modify their behaviour to avoid it. Not everyone expressing woke viewpoints is a committed antifa supersoldier, most have just absorbed these opinions via osmosis.
It's also worth mentioning that obviously walking directly into google and loudly declaring "I think one holocaust was simply not enough" is a great example of how this line of attack does not work for every situation or argument. If your beliefs are so unpopular that you can't declare them openly without very serious consequences (I would firstly urge you to consider if there is perhaps a reason for this and if it might be possible that you are the one with the cooky beliefs), I would say that your best bet is to read Maos little red book and generally brush up on your insurgecy/counter-insurgecy literature. Obviously these are great tools for fighting an armed struggle against a powerful adversary, but the wisdom contained within also applies to un-armed conflict between two (initially) unbalanced forces.
I've gone off on something of a tangent with this post, it's somewhat evolved into a rant about my dissatisfaction with the doom posting and general passivity I tend to see advanced around here.
Can't remember off the top of my head, it was ages ago.
Even at the time I don't think I could put my finger on what precisely was off about it, just that the characters inner thoughts seemed glaringly effeminate.
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