SkookumTree
1yr ago
That is a very strong "maybe". As something that happens once in a long while and secretly, it might not be terrible, might even be the least bad thing. However, I'm strongly against this becoming normalized and accepted. It's nasty, even if there might be some value to it.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Deontologists might also argue that the pursuit of personal excellence is the highest goal; who cares if that sometimes passes through (nominally consensual) prostitution of teenagers? Virtue ethicists might talk about individual freedom or some shit like that. I'm not voting "yes" here - it might be good for the teenage girl, and for the woman she becomes...but probably not good for her parents or society. I guess you could go full consequentialist and say that a human life's worth about $10 million...kind of like what I understand Ancient China to be like. There, you could buy your way out of most crimes with the exception of high treason; murder cost you 200 times a laborer's salary. In US dollars, a modern day laborer construction worker earns $50k/year on average. And the economists have figured a human life's worth around ten million, give or take.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Were they using the hard R, or not?
yes, people in that social rung in those areas with those cultures absolutely do talk that way
Agreed. Class brings...refinement. That's a very different thing from moral virtue; for a fairly harsh example, consider the polite and refined antebellum Southern gentleman.
Pretty damn ironic that black actors ostensibly performing an aspect of low-class black culture wind up getting roasted. It'd be a little bit like redneck actors portraying rednecks getting roasted for being "too hillbilly".
SkookumTree
1yr ago
No, I do not. As far as I know, something like 40 percent of people with gender dysphoria attempt suicide, but that's just attempts, not deaths by suicide. For mental illnesses other than schizophrenia...borderline personality disorder has a 10 percent death-by-suicide rate, anorexia a 10 percent mortality rate. Trigeminal neuralgia and cluster headaches probably have those beat. There are of course the degenerative diseases like ALS and Huntington's, but that's not exactly what we're talking about. There death by suicide might be a kind of self-euthanasia...certainly not a central example.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
The French tried that in the 70s; it didn't work great for 'em. (Some) Westerners have been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
perhaps some dreadful diseases meet that standard
Trigeminal neuralgia and cluster headaches, perhaps. Controversially, gender dysphoria. Although you've got to differentiate "attempted suicide" versus "died by suicide" here.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Is your plan still to parachute in the middle of alaska with just a knife?
No, it's to attempt a cross country trip across the Brooks Range with a shit ton of gear.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Just find boots that are designed for the weather. They exist.
There do not exist ski mountaineering boots that are designed for extreme cold, as far as I know. If my search missed something, let me know.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Yeah. Especially if the penalty for getting caught is life in Azkaban...if that's the case, I would expect a lot more big-league criminals in this world to fight to the death to avoid being captured by law enforcement. A big league drug lord or something can do OK in prison; a big league Death Eater is just going to spend the rest of his life being tortured by Dementors.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Your other problem is that you have a completely distorted view of your chances
Too optimistic about my survival chances, or too pessimistic? I think that my chances of being in a relationship with an average American woman are roughly equal to those of surviving the Hock.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I know several guys putting out half again that much power IRL. Not hard to find - just find your local cycling group; the strongest riders will be at that level. Just like finding a guy that can deadlift 500 pounds isn't terribly hard - just hang out at your nearest commercial gym for a month or two. Six hundred...now that's getting up there.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
The ski mountaineering boots in question are these, three sizes too large. I've added a beefy liner plus homemade sheepskin insoles scavenged from a thrift-store coat. I'll be knitting some...outer liner linings? to take up even more of the volume. I should be left with a boot that is much warmer than stock, slightly sloppy (I know, not great for ski performance, but many explorers use cross country skiing gear and this should be burlier and safer than XC gear) and theoretically usable for my Alaskan adventure. People climb and ski on Denali with setups like this or lighter; the 'using oversize boots and stuffing them' is a not terribly recommended technique that should be at least theoretically usable. The Scarpa Nero liners I bought for $50 on eBay are around 5mm thicker than the stock liners. Size 9 shoes are 25mm shorter than size 12 ones; with this beefy liner I've already eaten up 10mm and so have 15mm to go. I'm a decent knitter and should be able to fashion a decent outer liner for my existing boot liners that'll eat up the rest of the space and keep my feet warm enough. Over the top of the boot are going to go homemade sheepskin overboots; Forty Below has some good overboots but at $250/pair they're almost as expensive as my ski boots. I think I should be able to make something serviceable.
As far as the snowshoes and Sorels: I considered it, but snowshoes are slower, I have significant downhill skiing experience as a former high school racer, and Northern peoples have been using skis for millennia.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
The pontification is an ad Hock commentary for posterity if I don't make it. Could just be the writings of a dumb jackass, but whatever. Am probably going to write a blog about this whole hock crap. I have been training and preparing in good faith for this journey.
Congratulations on your epic roast making the Quality Contributions list, though.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
The plan is to arrive in Fairbanks on the 11th and then reach the jumping off point for the Hock on the 12th or 13th.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I was fundamentally unsupported by anyone, including my colleagues or seniors
Medicine in America seems to work a little differently; when tough shit goes down people are at least a little supportive. This goes double triple quadruple on the pediatric oncology unit.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Base building for my Alaskan journey is going...okay. Still disappointingly unfit; my 5-minute power is a puny 200 watts at a body weight of 70 kilos. I can deadlift 275 and squat 245, though, so I have that going for me. Plan to get a used bike trainer and a rear wheel for it so I can do 1-2 hour steady distance rides. Hiking up mountains, too, on weekends...that should help build base fitness as well. Shit is boring and requires discipline. Valuable life lessons here. Seems like any badass shit runs off of a long-ass logistics tail to support the teeth. Lots of unglamorous prep work and grinding away at either low intensity stuff like 45 minute slow runs at a turtle-like 15 minute mile pace or figuring out how to line ski mountaineering boots that are three sizes too large with insulation both inside and out so I don't get frostbite. I could be deluding myself here, but I feel like I'm becoming a better or at least more capable person as a result of this training process. It at least seems cool. This whole Alaska crap might be dumb as all hell, but at least I'll be a fit dumbass...
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I suppose it's a matter of degree, but at least in the 'hood you're not being treated like literal livestock. Tyrone is free to walk out of the hood and go where he likes; if he wants to go to a new city, nobody will be hunting him down with bloodhounds and mutilating or killing him if they catch him.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
larp
I suppose it's a LARP until and unless skis touch snow north of the Arctic Circle?
SkookumTree
1yr ago
February 13th, 2024.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Is it worse to die under the lashes of an abusive master or "in mutual combat" with another "free" black man?
The abusive master is far worse. Being enslaved sucks donkey balls. Fuck slavers; that dude in the ghetto is at least nominally free, he's not liable to get bought and sold like a fucking cow, and he has at least nominal rights. He may be killed by cops or something, but even if he gets murdered by really goddamn bad cops they have to at least half ass hiding the body. And this is being rather uncharitable about our hero's rights.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Counterargument: if every lonely individual chucked themselves in the Alaskan wilderness - leaving instructions to not look for the body or attempt rescue - there would be a lot more determined people in the world and a lot less lonely people. Yeah, it's nuts. Yes, it's dumb as hell; the risible idiocy fundamental to the Hock is, in my opinion, part of the whole fucking point of the Hock.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
No. It is for us all to bind up the nation's wounds. It's like your great-great grandfather dumped a bunch of toxic waste in the town square or something. You didn't have shit to do with that asshole's deeds. Maybe you benefited from them, but it's far enough in the past that you're just some guy that lives in the town...and if we're going to clean it up, both of us ought to pay into the town tax fund or something to clean the mess up.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
if they replaced Robert E Lee with John Brown that would generate so much public seethe you'd be able to say the change was a work of performance art!
Yeah, fair enough. Or maybe put up a statue of John Brown alongside Lee or something. A statue of John Brown represents this: the valorization of a man who attempted to overthrow an unjust system by force.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I think that it might be good to remove the statues to some kind of monument park or something like that: would we build statues of General Howe in our public squares? Of Nazi leaders? What about Soviet ones? These men committed high treason against the Union and in my view were handled very leniently; the traditional penalty for high treason is death. If they're still going to be sitting out there, I think they need some additional context...plaques or something...stating that these individuals were revered by the society that erected them but in the fullness of time, we have realized that these individuals were gentlemanly, polite slaveowning traitors.
YouTube my left foot: there's a boatload of local cyclists that can hand me my ass on any given hill without even trying all that hard.
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