Phosphorus
6mo ago
I would rather fight a bear who gives me a few days to prepare, rather than a psycho who can rush me and won't fall for stupid traps.
you have avoided bears on your hikes because the bears also wanted to avoid you. if the bear doesnt want to avoid you it will kill you 100% of the time. a random bear of any type wanting to eat you is orders of magnitude more likely than a random person being psychopathic killer.
Phosphorus
8mo ago
sorry I was thinking that you were just link posting and didnt realize that you were the actual author
Phosphorus
8mo ago
Good top level comments here are not just links with a call for commentary, good posts add original thoughts or take a position or build on the link. link posting comes off as low effort even if it does drive commentary. not to be mean, there is probably good discussion that can come out of your link
Phosphorus
9mo ago
No its not true. The big strong jaw is what makes them dangerous. No amount of love will change this. Sometimes dogs that got nothing but love will snap.
It just happens that shitty owners gravitate towards pit bulls.
No the shitty owners do not just happen to gravitate towards dogs that were bred to fight other dogs.
Phosphorus
9mo ago
Why not? If Israel is in the right, it only makes sense to help them.
Theyre in the right so they get extra billions on top of their regular billions? Why would that make sense, can you actually justify your claims? Does your justification generalize to other countries?
Phosphorus
10mo ago
But you need the reform and rehabilitation as well as the punishment, otherwise you are just throwing the person back into the same environment from which they came. People starting off with petty crime will continue on the path to more serious crime, the serious criminals will just take 'doing time' as part of the package.
What should be the purpose of the criminal justice system? You have given punishment & reform already, and I agree with you on those. But you left off isolation, we also need to keep dangerous people out of society. This is the "leviathan shaped hole in the discourse" that OP is refering to.
I think that hole exists because we have framed the discourse around the criminal, not society. Which is stupid, why should the discourse revolve around the 1% of people who do bad things? Whats best for society is really only considered through the reform lens - i.e. society benefits from reform as we dont have to spend $x to imprison and get $y from every successful reintegrated convict. When you leave out the leviathan lens you miss out on three strikes laws. The idea that "hey the vast majority of violent crime is done by people who have already done violent crime, we can just lock them up and isolate them and cut the occurrence in half." Or whatever large amount. The idea that the state could just uphold the law, actually send people to jail for their full terms, with the enhancements, and not let them out until theyre in their 50s and mostly too old to get into much trouble. The idea that we could actually do that, and in fact we have an obligation to do that. The law is what we legitametly and democratically agreed upon, we could just enforce it. And not have to deal with violent homeless people in the subway.
Phosphorus
10mo ago
The political problem with true HBD, in the long run, is that very few people are located at its apex. If I accept its moral bases, I see no reason to help out people below me on its ladder, whether by skin color or by education. And most people are below someone.
HBD is not a moral claim, but even so what you have described has nothing to do with morality. You are not automatically a good person because you got the smart genes that let you think abstractly and match patterns. You are not automatically a bad person because you got the dumb genes and are in a demographic group that does lots of crime. Your line of thinking is in a sense an inversion of what morality is, now something that you are born with rather than a product of your choices.
Why do wignats who trumpet HBD findings convenient for them rail against "elites," elites who clearly have the better gene pool?
I dont think people actually identify as "wignats", I have only seen it used as a pejorative for people who make unsophisticated arguments about why black people are bad. Or something similar. Maybe your experience with the term is different but asking why wignats do wignat things is circular.
The principled argument is becauase the elites for whatever reason are running our institutions on blank slate theory when it is pretty clear that people are not blank slates. And this is causing bad outcomes. Not every HBDer is Andrew Anglin, there are plenty of Charles Murrays.
Phosphorus
10mo ago
It would also promote nuclear non-proliferation and defuse narratives of preventing access to effective power technologies due to the risk of dual-use tech development.
Building nuclear plants in nations not indigenously able to for political or human capital reasons seems that it would promote nuclear proliferation, not non-proliferation. At the material level you are giving (non weapon)nuclear capability to non nuclear states, that is not non proliferation. And as others have pointed out - the west losing control of its expensive infrastructure investments in the 3rd world has been very common. If/when the recipient country takes control the entry cost to weaponization is significantly lower than if they didn't have a nuclear facility already.
Phosphorus
10mo ago
A lot of them knew what they signed up for. They signed up for the war. I am sure there were some unlucky soldiers who signed up in 2000 who were forced to deploy.
Again - I agree with you regarding US policy in the ME, I also think that is and has been poor. Again I will point out that this is a decision that was not made by those individuals who enlisted.
They haven't really done anything that helps the average person in the west.
The US imports $3 trillion in goods every year, the majority of which is by sea. Does that benefit the average westerner? The US exports $2 trillion of goods a year, the majority of which is by sea. Does that benefit the average westerner? The US Navy ensures freedom of trade on the oceans which enables this trade to exist. Until England and later the US ensured this fact the reality has been widespread piracy. Within the timeframe you describe the US Navy has dealt with piracy from Somalia in one of the busiest shipping lanes used by the west. Does that benefit the average westerner? Even if I were to concede that 99% of what the US military does is misguided that last 1% is materially vital enough to justify its existence. We absolutely need people doing this job, there is no alternative to having a military. It is makes no sense to hold them to account for foreign policy decisions that they have not made. Blame the state department.
Phosphorus
10mo ago
My argument is that we need a military. Every state needs a military. Or an alliance with a state that has one. What other state has ever existed without a military? If you can think of an example - how tenable is it for the US to emulate that example in a 21st century globalized economy? I contend that no such state exists, and if it did exist it would be completely untenable for the US to emulate it. I contend so because even in @Goodguy's response he acknowledges the need for a military - who else would be doing the physical act of nuclear deterrence but the military? I contend so because he offers no serious resolution to acts of hostility by state or sub state actors that clearly do not merit a nuclear response.
You yourself reference other states taking responsibility for stopping piracy or freedom the seas - do you see any value in this? What happens when you generalize @Goodguy's argument - should the UK or France also mock their armed forces? I would also like to point out that you yourself have made a foreign policy critique here.
So the question is: If we need a military and cannot exist as a state without then why hold them in contempt? Why blame those that serve for the failure of our foreign policy? It is misguided and misdirected ire, we need a military regardless of the competence of the state department.
Phosphorus
10mo ago
I don't think Afghans should be let into the US. I also think the US has had poor foreign policy on the mid east. But these are policy critiques, the people that serve in the armed forces do not decide these. Why hold the armed forces in such contempt for decisions they didn't make? What is the alternative to having them? If there is no alternative then why mock them instead of those who make the decisions that you actually disagree with in your response?
Phosphorus
10mo ago
Would Somali pirates have happened on your watch? Please explain without retreating to the counterfactual. Do you honestly take yourself to be such an adroit statesman that the US could just... not have a navy? You hold those who serve in such contempt. But even in your own response you aren't actually taking issue with the soldiers and sailors themselves, you are pointing to US foreign policy as the problem.
Phosphorus
10mo ago
If you are fine with belittling and mocking the government, then there is no reason not to belittle and mock the people who willingly make themselves into that government's agents.
Given that the aus SF execution happened in afganistan - what would be your response to 9/11 if we had no govenment agents? Nuke them? How does the US deal with houthis attacking shipping? Nuke them too?
if the bear wants to kill you, you will die. they can all climb trees. if they couldnt you wont climb fast enough. if you could climb fast enough it will wait at the bottom of the tree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America
bears attack for lots of reasons
"polar bears in trees" -> google image search
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