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Primaprimaprima

Bigfoot is an interdimensional being

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joined 2022 September 05 01:29:15 UTC

"...Perhaps laughter will then have formed an alliance with wisdom; perhaps only 'gay science' will remain."


				
User ID: 342


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Primaprimaprima


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

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					joined 2022 September 05 01:29:15 UTC
				


				
					

					
"...Perhaps laughter will then have formed an alliance with wisdom; perhaps only 'gay science' will remain."



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 342


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 20, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are you Bob?


It’s impossible to give a universal estimate, people learn math at such wildly different rates that there’s no point in speculating. If Bob has all the prereqs met for whatever the program is then Bob should be good. Bob can just learn things as Bob goes. Perhaps Bob should just read the sorts of journal articles that quantitative political scientists tend to read, and if Bob encounters a mathematical concept that Bob is unfamiliar with, then Bob can go look it up and do a deep dive on that particular concept. That would give Bob a series of concrete, relevant goals to focus on.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It also explains why having a high IQ doesn’t appear to be related to skill in music composition, as an element of animal instinct is essential.




Do you think that music is distinct from other forms of art in this regard (painting, literature, etc)?


I think that great artists tend to be above average in IQ, at least.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The ones that really tripped me up were the abstract paintings




Yes, those are a coinflip at this point.  Occasionally there are still tells though, like with Bright Jumble Woman, if you zoom in on the eyes you'll see artifacting that is very characteristic of AI so I was confident on that one.  But with something like Purple Squares, there's no way of knowing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The answer key is the first comment on the post


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It works and the color does change for me.  But it is very faint and hard to see.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you haven't seen it yet: Scott's AI Art Turing Test.  See if you can guess which pictures are AI and which are human.


EDIT: Forgot to mention, the quiz won’t automatically tell you your score at the end, so if you want to know your score, you’ll have to write down your answers and manually compare them with Scott’s answer key.


Spoilers below where I discuss some of the answers, don't look until you've done the test yourself:


I did pretty terrible!  I said they were almost all AI, which was definitely not correct.  I got the impression after the first few that Scott might have been pulling a trick and he made them all AI to see how people would react.  I did continue to analyze each individual image though, and I did feel that there was a legitimate case for almost all of them being AI.  The three that I said were human - Tropical Garden, Creepy Skull, and Flailing Limbs - did indeed turn out to be human, so that's good.  If I'm going to err, that's how I would prefer to be calibrated.  I was pleased to find out that the best painting in the set, Saint In Mountains, was human.  But oddly I couldn't find that exact version of the painting anywhere else on the internet using Google image search.  Scott's version looks like it had a color/contrast filter applied to it compared to the version on Wikipedia (search for "Saint Anthony Abbot Tempted by a Heap of Gold") and every other version I could find.  Scott acknowledged that he cropped some of the photos, but he didn't say anything about adjusting contrast or making any other edits.  If he did make any edits like that, or if he simply picked a more uncommon version of the painting, then that could definitely bias the results.  Part of what tipped me towards saying that Saint In Mountains was AI was the way that the thick black section at the bottom of the cloak looked unnatural.  If I had seen the Wikipedia version, where the detailing on the fabric is more visible, I would have been more likely to identify it as human.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


With the same attention that Christians allot to Christ, Judaism allots to the practice of ritual rule-following.




I have always found certain aspects of Judaism to be rather appealing, including the rule-following.  It tickles my autism.




"And when, baffled by the inadequacy of his
human standards, your philosopher refers
justice to the "categoric imperative," he betrays the triviality of your world . What is
that "categoric imperative," that helpless
compromise and confession? What man recognizes it, will bow to it? That phrase
itself is its own denial, for he that refers mankind to a "categoric imperative" is himself
neither categoric nor imperative . But even
the deaf will hear and tremble when the
Prophet thunders: "Thus saith the Lord."
There is the categoric imperative!




(- Maurice Samuel, You Gentiles)


In some ways, Judaism is the Kant to Christianity's Hegel.  God and his Law as absolute Other, the thing-in-itself imposed from the outside, an inscrutable and uncognizable limit to pure reason, vs. contradiction introduced into the heart of the logos, the thing-in-itself shattered: a God who can be mortal, a God who can die.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I valued her posts here greatly and I still think that chasing her away was a bad call.


There’s no point in enforcing the rules on a purely formal level if said enforcement decreases the overall quality of the forum.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not familiar with that name, maybe they’re from too far back. Is that one of FarNearEverywhere’s aliases?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do we still have posters like that? Most people who can’t stay civil got weeded out already.


Are the exact same political issues being discussed at ACX?


I don’t think there’s anything about TheMotte that’s particularly conducive to uncivil discourse, outside of the emotionally charged topics that get discussed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it seems that commenters assume there's some motive around confidence or sexual attraction involved whenever a guy is asking about how to grow taller




Because there is, in all but a handful of cases.


That's not a bad thing though.  There's nothing wrong with wanting to make yourself more attractive to women.  It's nothing to hide or be ashamed of.




overall stature (not just height) does seem to have benefits, and while nobody should beat themselves up for their stature, why not optimize it?




Because almost nobody "just optimizes" things for no reason.  The fact that you took the time and effort to write this (lengthy) post in the first place, a post which demonstrates considerable familiarity with the details of the topic, indicates there's more going on here than just "yeah I thought that height would just be a cool thing to optimize because, y'know, why not?"


What you're asking for is a reprieve from politics.  But interpersonal relations are inherently political, so no such reprieve can be granted.  Your distinction between "harmless optimization" on the one hand and "confidence issues" on the other is your attempt to carve out an apolitical space in a domain that is intrinsically political (and on what basis do you draw this distinction?  You say that height can be useful for "business endeavors", but how is this any different from height being useful for attracting women?  Zero sum competition for money and opportunities, zero sum competition for access to women, it's all the same).


You can't be half in the game and half out.  Other people rightly see this as dishonesty. "Yes, I'm very interested in doing this thing that will make me more sexually attractive to women along an axis that is highly prized by them, but that's not why I'm doing it, don't be silly."  (Or, to tie this into the broader culture war - the demands for "political neutrality" you see from certain rightists, especially "moderate" rightists, when it comes to school curricula, art and media, etc.  They've been so browbeaten into submission by the left that they're afraid to acknowledge that they too have a legitimate political point of view, and this point of view should be represented and taken seriously.  But the left is very correct on this point - political neutrality is an illusion.)


You can't hide from the political and ethical implications of your actions.  Instead, you should embrace them.  You too have a particular point of view, and interests, and desires, and you should assert them, regardless of what any redditors might say.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So I think the declassified stuff is probably pretty representative, if not the cream of the crop that there was more pressure to declassify and more reason to leak.




I agree that in a vacuum, this is a sound argument.  But people who have seen still-classified photos/videos claim they're more impressive than what's been publicly declassified so far.


Here's Matt Gaetz back in July 2023 on the Eglin incident, after he was shown a classified photo:




"The image was of something that I am not able to attach to any human capability, either from the United States or from any of our adversaries.  And I'm somewhat informed on the matter, having served on the Armed Services Committee for seven years, having served on the committee that oversees DARPA and advanced technologies for several years."




AARO later released their own public report on the Eglin incident, but Gaetz claimed that AARO's report was incomplete, and that he thought it was important that the classified materials he was shown should be made public.


(Rep. Tim Burchett has made similar statements about classified photos as well, although I don't have the link handy.)


Now, it could be that Gaetz is simply not a very discerning individual.  It could be that all he saw was just another blurry point of light, and he mistook this for "something beyond any human capability".  Or it could just be a picture of a Chinese spy drone, or it could be that the image was just entirely fake. ...But we won't really know until we get to see it ourselves.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah I figured someone would bring that up.


I think I've been pretty open and consistent on my stance on UAPs whenever someone asks.  I want them to be real, but I ultimately don't think the probability of them being real is very high.  It's not something I would bet money on.  Thankfully it costs me nothing to refresh /r/UFOs every once in a while to check the latest news.


If someone told me that they were about to drop $1k on New Paradigm Institute's online UFO classes (which is something that you can really do with real money!) because they thought that it would give them the inside scoop, I would tell them that that's obviously a scam and they should not do that.


If someone wants to just try some acupuncture or homeopathy method at home I don't actually have a problem with that.  I'm not the thought police.  But alternative medicine is filled with scammers who prey on emotionally vulnerable people for financial gain, so anyone charging money for alternative treatments deserves extremely strict scrutiny.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It wasn't clear what the "4 videos" was supposed to be referring to.  If all the pics in what I linked were leaked before they were declassified then my bad, I was wrong.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Human secrecy is easy to understand. That just makes sense to me. Panic, lie about it, now you can’t come clean because you’d have to admit you lied, etc.


Explaining why the aliens themselves would keep themselves a secret is a lot harder. Specifically, why would they hover in this grey zone, where it’s just ambiguous enough that people could believe or not believe. If they wanted to fully hide themselves then they could, and if they just didn’t care at all then they could come down and make it obvious, so why hang out in the grey zone? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a good explanation for this one.


But I’m not interested in UFOs because I think it’s all that likely or even all that plausible. I’m interested because it’s really weird that the government has a whole box of papers labeled “UFOS AND WEIRD ALIEN SHIT - DO NOT TOUCH”, and obviously such a collection of files invites suspicion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So they censored every image that hasn’t been specifically declassified or released previously




But that just moves the question back a step. Why did those specific images make their way to declassification and not others? No way to know until we actually see all the redacted images.


This isn’t an unfalsifiable “we haven’t seen aliens yet, but it could be that they’re out there and we just haven’t found them, so let’s keep looking”. This is, there’s a box right in front of us labeled “UFOs”, and I want to see what’s in the box.




there’s plausible non-alien explanations for each of those




Sure, I don’t disagree. But that has no effect on the fact that I want to see the rest of the unredacted document.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Funny that you mention that.  I too have had my confidence in the average person shattered; but what did it for me was the way everyone bent over for masks and vaccines during covid.  We went through a similar process of disillusion, but for very different reasons.


If you were to ask me how I evaluate people, "being a canny judge of character" is a criteria that would probably not even come to mind.  The experience of the last decade has made me irreparably anxious around such phrases.  "Judge of character" immediately conjures to mind images of schoolmarm HR types who are quite eager to enforce a set of values that I want nothing to do with.


Much more important is a criteria like "is not an NPC".  And too many people have failed the test.


Undoubtedly this distinction in fundamental moral outlook is one of the contributing factors to our "political polarization" today.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The Alpha Gal is basically permanent, although there is this kind of woo-woo acupuncture treatment which supposedly works. If it were just me, I'd be stubborn and refuse to try some bullshit I think is fake. But kids change you, and you're willing to do anything to help them, so we may end up trying it. Who knows.




There is a massive rabbit hole you can go down with "chronic Lyme disease".  Don't do it.  I know it's hard because you want to do everything you can for your daughter, but seriously, resist.  Nothing but scammers who want to bleed you dry of all your money.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't know the specific briefing or photos you're referring to




The one I linked in the second bullet point in the OP.




footage taken by military aircraft/etc. can reveal military capabilities or activity and is thus classified by default




They chose to reveal some photos and not others, which leads me to believe that the content of the photos is one of the determining factors.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ok. But I specifically said that there was no need to get into general considerations about whether aliens exist or not. All I said was that I think the government should release certain classified photographs that they have, for some reason, of their own accord, decided to label as “UFOs” (UAP just being the new PC euphemism for UFO). This is a request that is specific, actionable, concrete, and limited in scope.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Try to set aside the question of aliens for a second and look at it this way.


The Pentagon gave a briefing to NASA on UFOs.  This briefing included lots of pictures.  They're telling us we're not allowed to see the pictures.  So my question is... why?  If they're not hiding anything then why not just let us see for ourselves?  Yes they might just all turn out to be Chinese weather balloons made of swamp gas, certainly.  But I still want to see and judge for myself.  Why would anyone not want to?


I don't buy the "national security" excuse.  The world's not going to implode just because we got pictures of an advanced spy drone.  (Not that I get the impression that that's what this briefing was about in the first place.  The fact that these photographs were in a briefing entitled "UFOs" instead of something more pedestrian is pretty odd!)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
[comic sans]UAP DISCLOSURE UPDATES[/comic sans]


Some nice developments this week ahead of the hearings scheduled for November 17th.


    

  • 

    Sitting Congressman Matt Gaetz said in a recent interview "The CIA has a program around craft recovery.  It's not a question anymore.  And so, that's probably where I would start, the craft recovery, and the biologics that have been taken from those craft".  In decades past, this probably would have been sufficient enough by itself to be considered disclosure.  But unfortunately, we're in a scenario where only certain government officials have become outspoken about their belief in UFOs, while the top brass at the DoD remains reticent.  The smoking gun evidence / Big Announcement remains elusive.
    

    • 

  • 

    A FOIA request has brought to light a heavily redacted briefing on UAPs given to NASA by the DoD's UAP Task Force.  The briefing acknowledges that the UAPTF collected multiple reports of UAP sightings and that "over half" of these reports were validated by "multiple sensors", but the items in the list of "Potential Explanations" are redacted, as well as almost all of the included photographs (but for some reason they chose not to redact a photograph of a giant glowing green triangle).
    

    • 



A common criticism of the UAP disclosure movement is that their belief in aliens is fundamentally unfalsifiable and there's no reason for their demands to ever cease.  They won't be satisfied that the military's not hiding anything until they've declassified every last document in their position.  And I agree that this is a possible failure mode, which is why it's important to focus on concrete, actionable items rather than generalized demands for transparency.  There are many classified documents regarding UAPs that we know, for a fact, to exist.  Their existence, and the fact that they explicitly deal with UAPs, is not in question - we just don't know their exact contents.  This includes the aforementioned NASA briefing, the photograph and other materials that Gaetz was shown at Eglin AFB, the multiple SCIF briefings that Congressmen have been given over the past year on UAPs, etc.  Advocating for the full declassification of these materials is a reasonable goal, while also being limited in scope.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Would Trump do many harmful things in office? I am sure.




Why are you sure?  He was already president for four years.  Did he do many harmful things during his first four years?




Why does Trump have this effect?




It's been long enough that people are starting to forget the actual reasons behind the hatred of Trump.


During the 2016 campaign and his first two years as president, Trump was seen as the White Candidate.  Rightly or wrongly, it was assumed by both his enemies and a non-trivial percentage of his supporters that he would prioritize the interests of white people over other groups.  This is absolutely forbidden in American politics: white people cannot self-consciously advocate for their racial interests in the way that non-whites can.  So Trump became a figure of demonic evil.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ok, so spell this out for me. I swear this isn’t a gotcha. I don’t know anything about economics, I’m here to learn.


Deflation is bad. Ok. So do you think we should literally never have deflation? Can we at least keep prices static? Because if we can’t decrease them, and if we can’t keep them static, then that seems to imply that they would continue to unboundedly increase into the future. We would eventually get to the point where a loaf of bread is a million dollars. That doesn’t seem desirable. What am I missing here?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You




The guy you just replied to wasn't me.


I'm not a strict market libertarian, I think that if there are reasonable interventions we can make in the economy then we should do that.  I agree that direct price controls are a bad idea, but to suggest that there are no actions whatsoever that can be undertaken to reduce inflation doesn't strike me as plausible.