RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
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User ID: 2051
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
It's both amusing and slightly scary that even Republicans are now proposing abortion laws that would be considered (far-)leftwing in most of Europe.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
To add to @faceh's point, entryists can sometimes even do a switcheroo and use a purge originally intended for them to get rid of newcomers that are loyal to the old ideals. It's not impossible to wrangle them, but it's often much safer to stay under their radar and not allow them to get a hold in the first place.
Imo something like this has happened in science as well, where we enjoyed a few decades of science/scientists having a good reputation, but nowadays it's gotten so bad that "the science says" is just run-of-the-mill partisanship.
Deiseach has always been very snappy & grumpy, and tends to respond to any authority with sneering contempt. Even at ACX at least to me it seems less like she behaves better, it's just that Scott cuts her more slack.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Acupuncture(sticking small needles in people) also works on a simple biochemical level by triggering certain repair responses, which can be beneficial for some (auto-)immune diseases . It's just that acupuncture(the traditional theory) is bunk.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Don't you understand, they were murdering in good faith!
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
It's just a natural urge for some people; it's also not really trolling in the traditional sense imo, since all you do is point out some particularly egregious ways in which their thinking is wrong, even if it may be in a socially aggressive way. Here in germany, we call the kind of person who can't help but point out wrong statements no matter the relevance nor the unwiseness of antagonizing the talker "Besserwisser" (literally "betterknower"). Both me and my wife are like that, which can make family life sometimes difficult.
Also, in most regions, the alleged "natives" had displaced, up to and including full genocide, a different group that lived there before. The entire concept is just ridiculous.
FWIW, as a non-american the widespread resistance to basic vote protection has always struck me as deeply archaic and backwards. Being on the left doesn't automatically make you progressive, hell, even calling yourself "progressive" does not make you so. If, for example, voter ID is hard to get for poor people, make it easier. Don't refuse to improve the security of your election to the standards of a modern western society just because it's moderately difficult. Others have managed to do it, so can you!
At least from my vantage point, the american voting system seems easy to cheat in the first place and then hard to prove cheating after-the-fact by its fundamental design. That republicans only cry wolf when it suits them is true, but also at least they seem to have some basic interest in improving the standards. Democrats seem to be so deeply unsure about their real appeal that they fight tooth and nail against any attempt to make the system more reliable.
Edit: See marisuno's answer for what a serious election looks like. As long as american elections don't look like that, I can understand anyone yelling fraud; The onus ought to be on the system to prove its reliability, not the other way around.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
It's fine if each paper has its own slant! But if they all have the same bias, you have a problem. And you have an even bigger problem if the universities that produce "professional" journalists on one side and the industry financing new paper on the other also have the same bias, so that correction becomes all but impossible. I don't think it's a coincidence that people retreat into completely independent, badly financed, broadly unreliable (but at least not reliably biased!) alternative ecosystems such as blogs and forums.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Well, having been outsourced to a contractor, you can tell the next libertarian think-tank that you're walking the walk, not just talking the talk!
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
AFAIK most studies on the benefits of higher intelligence actually just show the benefits of IQ in the range of ~110-130. Past that, results vary wildly since recruitment becomes increasingly difficult, some finding consistent mostly-proportional further improvements, many show diminishing returns, some even claim negative repercussions. Not to mention that most IQ tests have strong ceiling effects, so to even test for ultra-high IQ at all often requires non-standard, mostly unverified/uncalibrated testing methods. 180 is so far beyond the ranges we usually test that it's hard to make any reasonable claims about what a whole population like that might even possibly look like.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
This is unfortunately pretty standard nowadays in science. A PhD candidate in our group (we're in genetics) has the the displeasure of working in a larger project (which concerns a certain kind of inborn disability) involving social scientists, and not only do they make crazy comments on her presentations such as "there is no genetic causes for any disability" or "any research on the causes is at best wasted money or at worst ableism, it should all go into how to support them", they also explicitly either identify as activists themselves or will closely work together with explicitly activist groups.
It's not that STEM is the best. It's that there are sciences with a tight feedback loop with reality, and those without. In the former, which is most of natural sciences, it's hard too go off the deep end, in the latter, which is most humanities, it's extremely easy. There are a few special cases such as math - math has a tight feedback loop with some very basic parts of reality through its assumption - proof - conclusion structure - but you can still go some crazy places with weird, hard-or-impossible-to-prove assumption. This makes clear statements and fair marks in the humanities almost impossible, so the researchers and teachers err on the side of kindness.
In particular, this makes the humanities appeal to a certain kind of person, mostly activists, who don't actually care much about reality but care a lot about forcing their worldview on the rest of society. Also, classes in the humanities are easier on the account of literally everyone I know who has ever taken them, including full humanities majors, some even flat-out told me they're taking humanities specifically bc it's easier. It's also an objective fact of universities that there is a pecking order of difficulty where people who fail one degree always move down, but never up, when trying again even if the NC (numerus clausus, the required marks to get started) of the upper fields is technically lower. As an example, at my medicine-focused university, "applied math in life science" is among the top despite having literally no NC at all, one of the next is "molecular life sciences", one of the next is "nutritional sciences", the next are all the "care sciences" (midwifery etc.). As in this example, humanities are almost always lower than the STEM fields in this order.
There are also many great, smart & careful students & scientists in the humanities, since they still are very valuable and interesting fields to study but tbh at this point I think they're probably in the minority, and definitely not in charge.
well-rounded
not OP, but it's suitable for all age groups and most people in a way you rarely see. Like, if you ask me for my favorite shows, I'd say Tatami Galaxy, Erased, Haibane, Mushishi ..., but all of those are special interests that I wouldn't necessarily recommend to random people. For Avatar I would.
It has all the superficialities of a typical kids show, while having a lot of mature topics, messages and fundamental world-view underneath. It's basically the opposite of modern hollywood, which tries to hide its childish attitudes behind a mask of sex and violence to seem superficially mature.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
? Avatar has 61 episodes, FA:B has ... 64 episodes.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Can't really disagree tbh. Though Fullmetal Alchemist:Brotherhood is imo even more consistently good, its only "fault" being that it's slightly less family-friendly.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
If you liked hxh, then you will like avatar as well. In fact Hxh imo has serious issues with padding towards the later arcs, while Avatar has solid pacing throughout - if anything, it's the early episodes which feel more like that and it gets better.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Are we better than you? We tested this claim by asking ourselves and we say: Yes!
It's not quite CW but since I've stumbled over this paper twice now in completely different contexts (once from Marginal Revolution, another in my mainstream news reel) and don't know where else to post it, I want to talk about it. Especially since people clearly, uncritically have taken it at face value.
The authors, who studied philosophy, mention that philosophy student often think they are more rigorous thinkers, and claim to test the claim. They do it by using two scales by the "Higher Education Research Institute". Both of these are purely self-ratings, i.e. they strictly measure students perception of themselves.
The result is, unsurprisingly, that philosophy students self-rate as rigorous thinkers. This then gets reported by the authors as "empirically tested" higher rigorousness and open-mindedness. For extra laughs, political science is among the highest-scoring.
Tbh there is not much else to say here. It's damning that the authors did this, it's damning that the journal published it, and it's damning that this now gets smugly, uncritically shared in news, social media and blogs. Remember kids, this is how science works!
Some people may be excellent, but a real master helps others be excellent!
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
@gorge talks mostly about the changes to the conception of marriage from the perspective of a religious conservative, at least as I understand him. But I think even from a secular centrist state-based perspective, there are a lot of problems with it. In the old conception, the justification why the state should support marriages is very straightforward: For retirement, but also just the continued existence of the state in the future, children are necessary. Therefore, an institution for the purpose of family-formation is highly beneficial.
On the other hand, in the new framework, if we consider marriage primarily about love, it's pretty hard to argue why two people loving each other means they should get, say, a tax rebates or similar: Nice for them I guess, but why shouldn't two very good friends living together? Why not a lonely single? The latter is arguably most disadvantaged, so maybe he should get the biggest tax rebate? The answer from my left-leaning friends is mostly: No, actually, we care about children, so we should just support children directly. Fine, but now we have lost something! The old system also supported children, in particular if their parents couldn't. But in addition the old system had a clear framework, a path towards becoming parents before actually having children yet, and supported people who made a credible effort in this direction.
The new system offers nothing in its place, if anything it actively discourages people to have kids. It's like as if we said that well obviously we need plumbers in the future, but any training in plumbing needs to be inclusive towards non-plumbers, and actually you are not allowed to even claim that "plumbing training" is in any way related to the profession or task of "plumbing", and no, you're also not allowed to create a new category of "totally not plumbing training" that trains people to be plumbers. It's just that if someone just so happens to be capable of plumbing and performs the task, he is allowed to be paid for this. And everyone acts surprised that plumbing becomes rarer and rarer.
It gets worse! The new system claims to be about "love". But actually, there is no obvious criteria for "love". It's merely a claim people make. And most countries still offer tangible benefits for marriage.
So in the old system, we would support people in family formation, and then once they actually have children, we support them further. The evaluation of this was mostly straightforward, and the incentives line up nicely between what the state wants (children) and what the family was incentived to do (have children).
In the new system, there is, again, nothing like this. As said before, there isn't even a reason why the state should care that these two people "love" each other, and it isn't controlling or setting up incentives anyway. So this also explains why marriage often looks so outdated and pointless nowadays; It literally is, at least the way it is treated by the state. It changed from a system with a clear purpose and clear criteria to one with an unclear purpose and no criteria.
But at the end I still have to disagree on one point. I think the old conception can be rescued while still including some new means of family formation. Adoption, for example, can be set up in a variety of formats that allows homosexual relationships to still take part. Likewise, IVF can even allow them to have (partially) genetic children. While I have absolutely no problem giving heterosexual relationships a special status as the most common, most simple, most robust approach to family formation and which accordingly should be treated as the default, that doesn't mean we need to outright exclude all others.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Previously at least I could tell myself it's just their Discord moderation.
Remember, if your opinion includes the phrase "it's just ...", it's cope. Admitting this has helped me both to predict future changes, as well as deal better with them. Also - I hope - it will help to resist them appropriately instead of first denying them and then falling over when it's too late. We have a younger PhD candidate in our group that has trouble working together with social scientists on a project who shit on everything she does up to and including calling it some -ism and that it shouldn't be done, and past me might have told her to be nice and considerate since it's just some other PhD candidates, but imo the correct way is to be polite but stern, get the backing of our Prof since these PhDs also actually have the implicit backing of their Profs if you read between the lines, and to throw everything back at them.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
They're already hard at work. But to the judiciary's credit, they generally throw it back. But on the other hand, the mainstream politicians are never punished and just get to try again and again until they find a way.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Your assumptions are wrong. The happiest people I know had a life of struggle, but improved it through their own dedication and competence. Being fortunate makes you less, not more, happy. Not to mention that imo modern-style living makes generally less happy since we are adapted to something else entirely, but that's another discussion.
But also, I think happiness is just not very important, nor do I think suffering is intrinsically bad. Hell, I don't even think they're opposites.
Edit: Also, since it always gets brought: No, putting yourself through pointless suffering/struggle doesn't help, especially if you yourself don't believe in it. It needs to be necessary or at least helpful for a purpose you yourself consider meaningful.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
You might as well say that they're not right since they're not trying to restore the monarchy.
Also, as I've explained beforehand, the current state of german abortion law is right if not far-right by american conception, and pretty much already what many moderate american republicans desire.
I'm curious, why do you hold CoH2 in such esteem? Me and my friend group used to play both CoH1 and 2, but the main reason we switched was just that 2 had higher player numbers at the time (which is typical for newer games). At least it wasn't worse in gameplay, but imo it also wasn't better, either.
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