Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
Those US citizens living abroad must file US tax returns though and may have to pay US taxes on their UK income (if it's high).
The US and Eritrea are the only countries that tax their citizens overseas so it's only right the US should pay them covid checks too.
Specifically to the hate crime. (Or to be more precise, he pled guilty to killing Shepard having been driven to temporary insanity by a fit of gay panic after Shepard came onto him.)
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
The way it works is that they are contrasted with hormones, which are deemed irreversible, and sold as a way to give someone time to think. I see no way to describe them as "reversible" in a way that hormones are not.
They are reversible in that puberty resumes after you stop taking them. Whether it's just the same as the puberty you'd have experienced is a good question. Whether the possible side effects while you are taking them could have permanent repercussions is another – if so then it can be argued they are not reversible. But I guess I don't think 'reversible' is inherently misleading because it distinguishes them from some hypothetical puberty blocker which blocks puberty permanently.
The NHS in the UK took 'reversible' off their communications following the Cass Report though, and broadcasters became more circumspect. (That'd be an example of people modulating their claims in order to stay elite.)
If there is no evidence indicating an event happened that certain way, isn't that a hoax?
Well from what I have read (which is by no means everything) there is some evidence – namely that the killer confessed – and the facts of the case continue to be disputed.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
Well no doubt there are others in the world who can be grouped in with Trump as shameless lie milkers, but his prominence coupled with his attitude to the truth is why I'd single Trump out.
Anyway, it depends who we are talking about. If it's someone who properly caveats a statement like 'Puberty blockers are reversible', then that sentence could be part of a full and true accounting. If it's someone who implies 'Puberty blockers are reversible, period, and there's nothing more to say about them', then I think that person will find their status and ability to ascend certain social ladders quietly reduced.
Re: the gay hate crime 'hoax', one of Matthew Shepard's killers' legal defences was that he did it in a moment of gay panic. Now there is fog around the case, but I have not (so far) seen enough to justify the term 'hoax'. Some people want the story to be a certain way, that much is true.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
Divination, coursing and astrology have been of vital importance to the thinking of ordinary people and elites throughout history, providing external stimuli and hypotheses about what the future may be that people can react to and think about. They provide an aspect of randomness that ensures we consider many eventualities and possibilities, and don't get into ruts of thought. They also provide an anchor (albeit a random one) for narrowing down thinking about the future when we would otherwise spiral and feel overwhelmed by its possibilities.
Maybe the male/female divide is to do with astrology providing test scenarios for thinking about and imagining that tend to be to do with love, social and family life and psychology. Women are often more interested in and better at thinking about these things and they want to keep this ability sharp.
I would also venture that the internet's algorithms are spewing all kinds of scenarios and perspectives at us these days that largely meets our needs for divination, which is why astrology and its ilk are in fact really quite unpopular by historical standards.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
Those who maintain those things are somewhat excommunicated imo.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
I don't know how that works to distinguish the Trump style from the mainstream political style. Trump is the one really milking lies for what they're worth. The others stop before the full value of a deceit has been extracted (i.e. before the less information-literate parts of the audience can see through it). Why? Because they are fearful of being excommunicated by other elites whose respect they don't want to lose. They are ashamed to continue knowing a portion of their peers are onto them.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
Shame is the mechanism for the updating! What else drives it? Without shame, one can employ Trump's strategy of maintaining the indefensible position. He is shame-less, so just doubles down.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
Finely tuned deceitful narratives deliver much more information and can be nitpicked with fruitful results. Importantly there is a shame+update mechanism whenever sophisticated lies become too obvious. Whereas pure Trumpian bullshit must be simply ignored. There is no path to anything better, if we allow it to dominate public discourse.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
I'm the same as you and on dealing with bullshitting estate agents simply have to leave their presence and essentially dismiss them completely from my life.
I notice that I am also allergic to lying club-promoter type politicians and much prefer to be around lawyerly narrative constructors, which makes sense of my political preferences I guess.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
Yes, and it also gets at a preference that is more primal than political. Would you prefer to hang out with a lawyer who selects their words carefully or a sales guy who's always bullshitting?
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
The position that you can be a habitual liar without deceiving seems like a difficult needle to thread!
I am finding the open way this is being handled really interesting.
- Assert a provocative claim you heard on TV.
- Later admit you were just creating a story to help get the word out about something else. (The story may prove to be a lie, but maybe lying to lead people to other truths can be a noble pursuit.)
- Try to find evidence for the claim anyway.
- If it was true on some level in some instance, act vindicated. Quietly thank the lord that your story turned out to have some basis. (To do this, you should really need to find multiple dogs and cats eaten in Springfield, but a single example across the whole nation also counts as vindication because you don't need the original claim to be true, you just need it to seem slightly less ridiculous.)
- If no adequate evidence can be found, keep investigating. (You still have the hope a news story will surface that backs the original claim, or that a crazy person will fake evidence good enough to move you to 4.)
- If no adequate evidence comes along, maybe try accusing others of using distraction techniques. How dare they go on about eating cats and dogs when the future of the country is at stake?
This level of information hygiene is so unhealthy for everyone exposed to it.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
I think this is too huge a topic to litigate here but I do think journalists are pretty committed to technical truth-telling, and are moderated somewhat by norms of not being too shameless about their omissions. This immediately opposes them to Trump's different style of deceit.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
This strategy is at the heart of Trump's approach to the truth. It presents the media with a difficult dilemma. In response to a lie from him they can either:
(A) Helpfully clarify the grain of truth in what he said and in so doing help Trump use bald lies to manipulate audiences to where he wants them.
(B) Issue a denial of what he said without drilling down deeper, and in so doing fail in their duty to provide basic information audiences are seeking.
Both approaches are journalistic failures. It should be possible to find a middle way but most of the time media orgs struggle to do so. Or can't do so in a way that generates clicks.
As a result, the media orgs that choose route B provide extra ammo for Trump's claims of media bias, while those that choose route A really are tilting the game in his favour.
It's sort of a smart strategy but ends in tears for everyone.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
I think it's the opposite, the lawyer is the one who'll have to adjust when called out because they depend on longer term trust relationships. The used car salesman will just grin through it and move onto the next customer.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
I think this is pretty insightful. I am personally someone who cannot deal with a used car salesman of that type and I will do a lot to avoid the need to interact with them. Whereas I feel a lot more comfortable with political types. Their speech seems more informative because if they lie and you spot it, you have learned something about how they estimate you and what they think they can get away with. If you don't spot it, you may have been tricked, but being wary of politicians' statements is good epistemically anyway so that's all right. With a used car salesman type liar you may as well ignore them entirely since there's really nothing to learned.
Rosencrantz2
2mo ago
I dunno, I think many people are excited now because they can see it's useful to be. That extra bit of voter zeal for Harris could make a difference to the election, whereas the same wasn't plausible with a Biden ticket. It seems more rational now to add one's excitement to a pot that could overflow into an electoral win. Whether Harris is herself all that exciting is a secondary consideration.
Rosencrantz2
3mo ago
What I heard sounds like a rather implausible society, certainly not a stable one with everyone being sterile or miserable. Is more behind it than just the stylish production design with the read robes and white hats?
I don't suppose it's plausible in its totality, but Margaret Atwood's research strategy for the book was to combine cultural practices from real societies into a single place and time. So it's more grounded than many dystopian fictions.
Rosencrantz2
3mo ago
Is that a hole? It's obviously easier to change a country illegitimately as the government than as the opposition. You have your hands on the levers of state.
Rosencrantz2
3mo ago
Apparently Thierry Breton was freelancing when he sent this letter and the European Commission has said they do not approve the message: https://www.ft.com/content/09cf4713-7199-4e47-a373-ed5de61c2afa
Rosencrantz2
3mo ago
I'm laughing because I was driving home from work this week thinking about how "The Tortured Poets Department" sounds like it would be some high-concept, lyrically complex compilation of musical artists digging deep into their soul to perform their most profound songs with serious emotional weight.
But from what I gather, its a collection of the most privileged-white-girl laments possible set to basic guitar and piano melodies. And even the fans have it rated as her worst album overall.
Just to repeat another comment though, this is an ironically titled album and a clearly ironic lyric when read/heard in context.
Rosencrantz2
3mo ago
It is that but also deliberate strategy by Starmer's Labour – they allowed base support to drop off in order to win over more conservative voters in contested constituencies. This has dampened enthusiasm and let votes split off to third parties, which I think is a slightly different phenomenon to mainstream parties losing trust.
Rosencrantz2
3mo ago
Harris-Walz in Arizona was >15,000 people. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/09/trump-montana-harris-arizona-rally/
Not doing your series of questions justice, but briefly, the prison cells are awful because they are made so carelessly and cheaply and not looked after. The gymnasium is made with immense care and thought and resources so I find the idea of spending time in it kind of special, even though I don't love it and think it would be better if it used more natural materials and didn't feel so impersonal.
I think a building like the gymnasium has to be well maintained to even recognisably be itself, whereas one could almost say the opposite for the prison images: they're designed to be unloved. For that reason, yeah, it would be good if the gymnasium design principles were used for prison design.
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