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The_Nybbler

Does not have a yacht

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joined 2022 September 04 21:42:16 UTC 

				
User ID: 174


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
The_Nybbler


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Does not have a yacht

				
				
				

				

					9 followers  

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					joined 2022 September 04 21:42:16 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 174


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A 7.62x51 or .50 BMG at close range doing that little damage is even LESS likely than a 7.62x39 or 5.56 NATO doing it, of course.  But if I'm doing my measuring correctly, if that bullet is a .50BMG with 13mm diameter, the head has a front-to-back size of 266mm, which is too big (99th percentile for men is is 217mm) If it's 7.8mm (7.62mm nominal), it's 159mm; too small for an adult, and we don't know the age of the victim.  But of course this is an X-ray and sizes can be distorted.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Israelis use 5.56 NATO, mostly.  Hamas uses 7.62.  There's not enough information in the X-rays to distinguish (because they don't tell you the size of the head), though I think some (including the one I linked) probably are bigger than 5.56 -- I suspect that one was a round from an AK-47 or similar either at long range or (more likely) fired not quite straight up.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ah, yes, the children shot in the head point-blank range with assault rifles, where the bullet remained IN the skull, yet whose head was pretty much intact.  Obvious Hamas propaganda.  These children (if indeed they are children) were either hit by nearly-spent bullets (e.g. at long range, or fired in the air) or the bullet was simply placed under them when the X-ray was taken.


If you shoot someone in the head at close range with an assault rifle, the bullet goes through and leaves an enormous exit wound, plus a wide path of damage through the brain due to hydrostatic shock.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You're right - it was probably better. You still had company provided pensions for tenure of service. Company cars, relocation assistance, mortgage assistance was somewhat common.




Did you miss the part where I did both?  It wasn't.  Company-provided defined benefit plans were on their way out already, and 401ks from FAANG are superior.  Company cars were a workaround for super-high taxes and the concomittant low salary.  Relocation assistance exists in FAANG companies if you move for them.  Mortgage assistance was another workaround for super-high taxes.






The 1970s inflation hit the boomers more than the Xers, who were children at the time.








Children don't experience inflation?




It generally does not affect their career progression.




Much like their millennial counterparts 20 years later, Gen Xers walking into the workforce in the Reagan years found obstinate Boomers hogging all of the upward mobility.




The oldest Boomer was 42 at the end of the Reagan presidency and 44 when the 1990 recession hit.  It's "obstinate" for people of that age to stay in the workforce?  All those Boomers moving up were replaced by younger people.  It's true that the Boomers got more benefit in dollars from the Reagan expansion, since they were in later, more lucrative parts of their careers, but it was still pretty good for the younger Xers.  Real estate values did not go up forever in this time; there was a slight drop, then a boom, followed by a bust.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why are small tactical nukes banned by treaty, while large strategic nukes are allowed?




Tactical nukes are not banned by treaty.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is ridiculous.  Being a white collar worker from 1968 to 1998 was nothing like 30 years of being a FAANG engineer, and I speak as someone who was in both positions (though not for 30 years).  And the boomers only "prosecute[d]" Vietnam in the sense that they got sent there to kill and to die; they weren't running the country at the time.  The 1970s inflation hit the boomers more than the Xers, who were children at the time.  The earliest Gen Xers in fact graduated into the start of the Reagan Boom; later Xers weren't so lucky.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Unless you actually and truly believe the election was stolen, and you can prove it (to the satisfaction of the voters, not the courts)




Who will count the votes of the voters who believe the election was stolen?




Unless your evidence is so convincing the majority of the other party will tuck their tails between their legs and admit malfeasance, refusing to certify an election is exactly equivalent to starting a civil war.




So if one party cheats brazenly, and equally brazenly refuses to admit it, the other party taking any action against them has started the civil war?  That's an odd definition of "start".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So it's not mean tweets, it's just owning Twitter/X at all?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You don't need to be able to catch boosters, or anything reusable at all, to do rods from god.  As for the yield, it appears the concept is an 11,000 kg rod hitting at 10x the speed of sound, which releases about 31 tons TNT, considerably smaller than a typical tac nuke at a few kilotons.  No radiation either.  It's about 5 times more powerful than the MOAB daisy-cutter, but it's ground-penetrating rather than an airburst, so different uses.


(Reusability doesn't bring down cost much for "rods from god" because the reason they're expensive is that the payload is heavy, not because you're wasting a rocket every time you launch them)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The greatest enemy of the public schools are home schools as they effectively remove certain children from the early indoctrination curriculum that schooling is meant to provide.




Home schools aren't much of a threat because they're very limited in application.  They allow small pockets of the less-indoctrinated (or otherwise-indoctrinated) but can't supplant the public schools.  Vouchers and reasonably inexpensive private schools would be a real threat, but they keep getting killed or nerfed.




The greatest threat to universities are trade schools and children skipping college to go into trades.




Trades aren't a threat to universities.  What would be is if employers stopped requiring degree for many high-status occupations, but they aren't going to... and if they tried, the governments would step in to require degrees, as they have for many licensed professions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A bunch of people did not trust the results of a major election in 2020. I'd say that is largely a trust issue brought about by the fact that many important institutions are clearly captured.




And the captured institutions settled that argument decisively with the argumentum ad baculum.




State legislatures have started banning DEI at universities. Next step is for them to give up entirely and start just cutting funding to them.




We won't get there.  The academic bureaucracy will resist by calling DEI something else and lying, while Federal bureaucracy works on correcting the problem by requiring DEI for Federal funding.




Many social sciences have reputations in the gutter because they spent too many years ideology focused rather than rigor focused. Psych, Sociology, etc.




People still believe their results.  And they've been nonsense for even longer than they've been ideologically captured!




Climate science is not trusted.




Climate science is absolutely trusted.  There are dissidents, but pushing decarbonization and that sort of thing is still a win for the Democrats because people trust climate science.




News orgs are hated.




Hated, yes.  Utterly trusted, also yes.  COVID proved that.  And they're still considered (by normies) to be ideologically neutral even given their blatant editorializing in news stories.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think ideologically capturing professions is short term gain for long term cost. These institutions will cost off their reputation for a time, and then everyone will learn to discount their value as neutral organizations. And their funding sources will start drying up.




We're in the long term, and this didn't happen.  The strategy was to capture so many institutions that they can support each other's reputation.  The media, the universities, the bureaucracy, the "scientific community", etc.  It worked.  There's no check against ground truth because that's too hard to do and too easy for the institutions to explain away.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The "tax" imposed by the think tanks is entirely voluntarily, and the wealthy people pay it because they support the goals and methods of the think tanks.  The universities and other nominally-neutral but actually ideologically captured institutions are much more effective because they can obtain their funds either from governments (thus real live taxation) or from ideological neutrals and opponents as well as the aligned (in the case of universities gatekeeping careers, for instance, or professional organizations like the American Bar Association or American Medical Association)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Now sure Academia is well able to produce sinecures, but can it reliably produce or attract and retain the sort of people who worked in the Manhattan Project, designed the F-15 or landed on the moon? And can they actually make their voices heard in crucial matters?




There's still people working for Space-X; they're coming from somewhere.  I tend to suspect this is simply because STEM got eaten last, but got eaten it did, so this will be the last bunch.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think you've got cause and effect completely backwards on your second factor.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


To play devils advocate here, if the system is completely broken and unable to produce a good result on anything that matters, maybe a defect bot is exactly what you need.




There's no way to even tell if Trump is a "defect bot", because the defection against him started early.  The New York Times declared they'd only cover his candidacy in the entertainment section (a declaration they did not follow).  Democrats rioted on election day.  They proclaimed him #NotMyPresident and declared #Resistance.  They rioted again on Inauguration Day.  They started trying to impeach him in 2017.  They did impeach him in 2019.  There's no way you could distinguish between defectbot and tit-for-tat under these circumstances.




A third of Americans can’t read.




Are these yokels from Trump Country, or products of our Democratically-controlled urban school systems?




We can’t handle disaster recovery




Ron DeSantis can.




build aircraft




I doubt either party could fix Boeing.




Large portions of most cities are no go zones, often featuring open air drug markets. Is Trump or any other “defect bot” going to actually be able to fix that?




Most of the things you've mentioned are locally controlled, and Trump can't fix them.  But on the other hand, most of those cities are Democratically controlled and the Democrats are the party of "defund the police".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Trump did things that were unprecedented, what a surprise that you have to "strain legal precedent" to get him convicted.




So no one has ever before


    

  • Paid hush money through a lawyer?
    • 

  • Retained classified documents after their term in office?
    • 

  • Contested an election?
    • 

  • Held a rally at the Capitol that turned violent?
    • 

  • Reported an arguably-overstated value for real estate they own?
    • 



No, all those things have been done before.  What hasn't been done before is prosecuting them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You do understand that if Trump says "Haitians are eating dogs in Springfield" and it turns out that no, Congolese are eating cats in Dayton, Trump's point is still made even if he was wrong on every detail, right?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That anyone has produced evidence that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are eating cats and dogs is a lie.




It's not cats and dogs it's only cats.  It's not Haitians it's Congolese.  And it's not Springfield, it's Dayton.  Note that what @zeke5123a said is consonant with all of those things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It probably would have worked if it wasn't for Judge Cannon.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm hopeful this would be the eventual outcome after all the patricians are dead.




It wouldn't.  Hierarchy is a constant, and if you destroy it, it will be re-established, probably sooner than later.  All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Other kinds of pressure should be exerted to make NATO members spend more on their military.




Or maybe whatever pressure was brought to bear, you would say "Not that kind"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh yes, they added a bunch of classified cover sheets to a photo, and put it in a court filing without mentioning that those cover sheets were added by them.  Just your average everyday "oopsie" in the FBI.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And Trump's guilt when it comes to classified documents is so cut and dried




Is it?  You know that picture with all the classified cover sheets was essentially fabricated by the FBI -- they put those cover sheets there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would expect that Musk following an account results in more follows from other premium accounts, so they don't necessarily have to do anything they didn't say they were doing for Musk follows to have an effect.