RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
No bio...
User ID: 2051
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.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Happiness in general doesn't seem to work the way modern people think it does. From my view, among the best predictors are is a) there are real, serious problems + b) we feel confident to handle them well.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
At this point, it's Die Linke that is looking like a fad. BSW delivers what most old-school blue collars want: Economically left, socially right. Die Linke seems increasingly like an anachronism/wrong import from the US.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
2006 is considered by many a dramatic failure, though, and civilians - or people pretending to be - just staying behind anyway will be treated by world politics and media no different than other civilians.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Some news from germany:
Bürgergeld-Skandal: The new welfare project by the current red-green-yellow government is exploding in costs. It was originally projected to cost ca 36 billion in 2025, but based on current estimates will cost 45 billion, i.e. a whopping 25% more. To give some perspective: The Bürgergeld is now almost 10% of the entire budget of ca 490 billion. In 2024, it was "merely" 27 billion.
Vote in Thüringen: This vote is considered an ill omen among almost the entire german elite. AfD, the new right (or far-right, depending on your viewpoint) is the strongest party and it's not even close. ALL other parties try to block the AfD from just about any position and power whatsoever, which in particular included a ridiculous scene when the age-based preliminary president from the AfD tried to just work through the official meeting agenda in parliament, but was constantly disturbed by the other parties asking for a later item to be moved forward (which was predictably about blocking the AfD from getting the position of president based on the fact that they are the largest party, which has so far always been the case, and which was agreed upon in the last government by the CDU back when they thought they'd get the majority). This is, of course, described by the media as the AfD-president "disturbing the parliament by constantly going back to the meeting agenda". In general, the entire current government coalition - SPD, Greens and FDP - lost a lot of votes in all the latest state elections, but the CDU can't really capitalize on it since many voters lost the trust in them.
Border controls: Due to the immigrant crisis deteriorating even faster than expected, the current government decided to institute a measure that formerly was claimed to be flat-out impossible based on EU law - border controls. The CDU in the opposition pressured for this as well. The problem is that they are completely ineffectual, pure showmanship. They only control large roads at easily recognizable border control placements. And as long as a person can utter the magic word "asylum" they get to go past anyway. Again, it is clear that the traditional main parties have very little interest in solving the immigrant crisis.
Ground invasions into urban areas against terrorists hiding behind a hostile population under the constraints of modern human rights is a complete and utter nightmare. I can understand the impulse, but nothing good will come of it.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
Oh I guess it was easy to misunderstand. No, Cavill was great! The rest, not so much. Cavill will not staying in that shitshow was correct.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
1mo ago
I don't understand how anyone who knew the Witcher from other media could enjoy the TV show. Cavill leaving was the right choice.
Mostly what @loper says, being loud & obnoxious, predictably self-hurting stupidity, casual disregard for other but not even with any perceptible gain for themselves, unnecessary constant interpersonal drama. Some specific people/situations I've lived with:
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A young couple which would reliably fight every odd day. The girl would throw the guy out in the late afternoon or so, the guy comes back later at night after drinking, she screams at him while he is pleading for 1-2 hours, and then eventually let him in. Don't know what they were fighting about, was in spanish. Loud enough to keep me awake. And when I say every odd day, I mean every odd day.
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I come to a new place, middle of winter in London, shared accomodations, really cheap. But the floor is extremely dirty so that you have to put on fucking shoes to go to the bathroom or kitchen. Everyone complains about it ... But a cleaning lady comes weekly, and actually cleans really well. I tell people to just put some cheap house shoes on, that way they don't get dirty feet but also don't bring in the mountains of dirty snow from outside. Nobody listens except an older polish couple who already wore house shoes. They ask me why I even bother. Everyone else continues complaining about everyone else, but changes nothing.
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A bartender / odd jobs girl. Claimed to be a professionally trained singer, but I'm pretty sure that was either some kind of fake college scam or she was just making shit up. Always broke, I actually loaned her money once (not much), but she ate out constantly, went to coffee shops every day, go to expensive concerts weekly etc. and still would complain how she wouldn't earn enough. Roughly once per month she would bring a new guy with her, usually after partying, so around 4 in the morning, turn on loud music, fuck even louder (apparently the music wasn't yet loud enough). Next or a few days later she would cry a lot and spew bile into the phone. Rinse and repeat. At least it was less often than the couple.
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A raging alcoholic whom I lived next door to for 7 years which I literally never have seen in person. As far as I know from others, he slept through the day, gets up in the late evening, grabs some alcohol and drank until he falls asleep. And I know he loved WW2 docs. In fact the whole neighbourhood knew. Because every summer day when it got hot he would open all his windows at night and the TV was so loud that you couldn't sleep since we also needed to have the windows open. If you ring his doorbell he would ignore it. If you screamed loud enough ( he lived top floor) he would scream back that you should shut up, or else he'll come down and fucking kill you. I called the police once or twice when I was sufficiently pissed, but it didn't really help much.
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Another guy I never saw. Turns out he completely trashed the place, then went back to his family but was so ashamed that he continued paying rent several years. His family had to pay a few thousand on top for repairs once the landlord realised. Which is actually unusually nice, since ...
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rent nomads exist. The only I didn't actually live next to, but I worked as a postman for a while and saw a case first-hand. They pay rent for like three months up front to get in and to get some legal eviction protection, then they don't pay rent for months and once you get close to evicting them they trash the place out of spite and vanish over night.
Edit: oh and I almost forgot: Somebody once stole a flower pot from our balcony ... And put it on their own balcony. Which was right next door. In plain sight. It wasn't even expensive. Just .. why ?
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
This is what I was told, and, being born into a solid middle class environment, I believed it. But tbh after living for a while in cheap urban neighbourhoods (I'm very glad I do not anymore!), it seems much less obvious. Not literally everyone, but the majority of my neighbours really was trash reality tv-tier in behaviour. A minority was worse. Very few were better. Afaik reality tv nowadays selects in both directions; Yes they look for trashy people, but not too trashy bc middle class and higher who have no contact with these people will stop watching since it's too much for them.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
Except that he has never actually cared about the election itself. He’s not interested in who wins.
He's pretty clear on his blog that he wants Kamala to win, though.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
Some observations:
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As multiple other commenters note, residential schools were a very progressive idea for their time. The kind of person running it was clearly the same kind of person now criticising it, even with largely similar values. Given that progressives are considered the side of empathy - most conservatives main complaint is their excess of empathy - this makes me weep for the project of empathy as a whole. If people fail to empathize with themselves, projected into the past, how can they possibly empathise with other people?
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The contrarian in me obviously wants to just exhume everything and see whether there is anything at all; But to some degree that still buys into a framing that imo is entirely unfounded. To our knowledge, we know that conditions in foster institutions were generally quite bad independent of the skin color of the child for a long time, not to mention that many kids already were mistreated even before they entered them. We know some of them died due to this. Even if they were being buried locally, that is still no proof whatsoever for the wild claims of murderous racism.
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It strikes me again just how little connection there seems to be between people getting into positions of power in native american councils and actually being, you know, native american. "Chief Rosanne Casimir", who argues against exhumations, looks much less native than "Rancher Garry Gottfriedson", who argues in favor! And sure enough, Garry is an actual former residential school student.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
According to the paper the report is based on, yes. See there under "Results:Gender Differences".
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
I am open in the comments that, while the rest of my videos aim to be nonpartisan, I do have partisan motivations for this video. In the end, this was the factor that motivated me to make another video after a long hiatus. I can understand why you feel it is disingenuous but my intent was not to deceive. The actual arguments I believe to be nonpartisan, though the presentation and set-dressing is partisan.
If you think that the general form of an argument is valid in a non-partisan way, but you also care about a particular partisan variant, it's almost always preferable to first - and spend the most time - to make a strong, general case, and then make a distinct follow-up with an appropriate title on how you think this applies to the partisan issue you care about. If you start with the partisan case, not only will people who disagree on politics shut you out from the start, there is even a high chance that they will conclude that the entire general argument is just yet another partisan ploy.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
This is quite interesting. I find no obvious problems with the design except the unavoidable (large CI, now randomisation, etc.), so it does move the needle quite a bit for me. The only possible issues I can see is that I'm not entirely convinced that criteria i) strictly requires an actual surgery to take place, that the large CI can still hold some surprises (0..3-2.1 ranges from "almost female-pattern criminality" to "holy shit even higher than male-pattern criminality") and the usual troubles with selection effects.
It's very weird that somehow FtMs have male-pattern criminality, while MtFs ... also have male-pattern criminality.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
A super-jacked dude is rare enough nowadays that he is reasonably high on the totem pole to reliably land one-nighters, yes, as long as he has some charisma to match.
But from my experience, CEOs and other high-status men are still higher even on this count.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
I don't think we disagree as much as you think; I also care very little about making prisoner's life nicer. I'm not really in favor of this policy so much as thinking that among the crazy stupid stuff we're doing, this one is pretty low on my list of priorities, and might even have some unintended benefits.
Gender-affirming care for inmates meets neither criterion: it only "benefits" the inmate. At a push there's an ancillary benefit in that an inmate who undergoes a vaginoplasty can no longer rape taxpayers with the penis he no longer has, but not every inmate who requests gender-affirming care has a history of sexual violence: if Bob already was at zero risk of committing a sex crime after release and requests a vaginoplasty, we've just spent $75k of the taxpayer's money and gotten nothing back to show for it.
This is what we disagree on, I guess. Testosterone is the primary driver of violence in general, not just of sexual nature. And castration is by far the most reliable way of reducing T-levels. Even historically it was regularly noted how tepid and submissive eunuchs tended to be; But you don't need to take their word for it, modern studies on this topic consistently find a very strong relationship between violence and T-levels as well. It's not super advertised since it leads to some conclusions that most people don't like thinking about, but in a field were many things don't replicate, this one does reliably.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
In the end Israel turned to Bibi and folks like him because it was obvious that the motto "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free" had an addendum to it: "of Jews".
You might be already aware, but in the original arabic, "from the river to the sea Palestine will be arabic/muslim" was/is just as popular. Hamas, which still remains very popular among Palestinians, and the Al-Aqsa Brigade, which is even more popular, both primarily use this version in arabic, the other only in english.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
On the first point, prison is already quite expensive. Even if a substantial number of prisoners would take advantage of this, it would probably make up less than 1% of the price of prison. And offering violent prisoners better conditions in exchange for castration actually seems like a good deal for everyone involved.
On the second, remember, crime doesn't pay, especially not random murder, so the average murderer is stupid, insane or emotionally disturbed (probably a combination, in fact). So he might be trying to game the system in a stupid way, or he might just be fucked up enough to believe it.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
Yeah. Charisma, Intelligence and Status are extremely important for female mate choice. If given the options, the average woman will almost always choose a popular CEO over even the most ripped man imaginable. Provided the CEO is barely taller than her, of course.
To add to @Hoffmeister25, I know absolutely nothing of gnosticism and had a hard time parsing this post since despising material reality is to me one of progressive's defining qualities. They're frequently hardcore constructivists who'll outright deny the existence of an objective reality altogether.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
Yes, this is a good way to put it. It's in some ways even worse than that; If a person C turns up, who states that the tall guy looks REALLY tall & wants to measure him, person B has the tendency to first try to stop him, and if successful, to complain that person C makes claims "without evidence".
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
2mo ago
It's actually quite similar. Pre-selected immigrants generally have unusually low crime rates, free and in particular illegal immigrants have unusually high crime rates. This is true for both europe and the US. It's just that a mexican in europe is more likely than not legally pre-selected, highly educated and highly conscientious, while the opposite in the US. It's vice versa for other groups, such as eastern europeans.
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