Titus_1_16
11mo ago
Which Jesse Singal article, the trans kids one?
Titus_1_16
11mo ago
Ah look, I'm sure they're fine on their own terms - this isn't a critique any Brazilian should take seriously. I'm describing a mob of Brazilians versus any individual, etc.
Behold: classic Irish obsequiousness and indirectness and backpedalling coming out even on an anonymous board. I'm sure a Brazilian could take an equally good potshot at us - I've heard they find our lack of cosmetic surgery troubling and wrongheaded, for example.
As for poverty explaining vice - I don't think that's the case in an interesting way. Sure, poverty drives people to vice - but which vices, and which first, are culture. Brazilians in Ireland are generally here on bad-faith student visas (they must get a stamp from an "english language school" as a visa condition, making these schools de facto a private arm of Irish migration control - this incentive structure leads to exactly the outcome you'd predict) and I don't see, say, Indian students that dool the same visa scam turning en masse to dealing or prostitution.
Titus_1_16
11mo ago
Nordstream was a Ukrainian op
Titus_1_16
11mo ago
Ah now, everyone knows he was a Gypsy, not a Slovak. Ironically it would mainly be over-the-hill, state TV watching, identity-is-citizenship types (ie not far right) that would fail to make that distinction.
Titus_1_16
11mo ago
Yes, the same class of youth is given to trangress in both cases.
Amusingly, there actually was quite a bit of looting by Africans of sports goods stores - presumably caught up in the far-right spirit and violently enthused by the prospect of their own deportation.
This all took place extremely close to my flat (I live in a rough but very convenient/central part of Dublin), and I can attest the escalation was : angry protests by a cross-section of Irish working class (mammies with prams, old people, the youth, etc), followed by garda over-reaction, which tipped the crowd into a fury and attracted red-blooded young proletarians mainly interested in trouble. What's underexplored is that the police were on edge because there had just been a potential terrorist attack, and they were greatly concerned by the prospect of additional attacks.
Titus_1_16
11mo ago
You'd be wrong actually - Brazilians have congregated heavily in certain areas of Dublin and are widely viewed as a scourge there (eg, the area I live in, where this attack and subsequent riot took place - literally 100m from my flat).
True, they are more economically productive than the median African or Arab, but have some cultural traits that make them rub Irish people the wrong way. For one, they are more crassly materialistic than even Nigerians, and are heavily involved in every sort of vice trade.
Second, their sexual mores are extraordinarily lax in comparison to the Irish, who would be one of the more chaste European nations - prostitution in Dublin is dominated by Brazilians, and a "Brazilian wife" gives rise to the same sort of sniggering that a "Thai wife" might elicit elsewhere. Brazilians have a reputation as being ruthlessly mercenary in matters romantic, and the visa-marraige-to-ugly-man-until-passport-divorce is a very true pattern I've seen in a mate myself.
Third, they are facilely _un_cynical in a way that grates on Irish people - I have yet to get through a conversation with a Brazilian without them telling me about their "dream of Europe" in such a gormless way as would make a beauty pageant contestant squirm.
What's interesting is that Brazilians actually embody many of the traits that Irish people claim to dislike in Americans, with none of the redeeming characteristics whatsoever.
Titus_1_16
11mo ago
OpenAI researchers warned of AI breakthrough before CEO ouster according to Reuters. It seems that, disappointingly, there's more to the Sama exit than just petty politics.
I had found myself greatly reassured by the thought that, actually, this whole debacle was just (human) politics as usual - and not the eerie dawn of some new era.
Have other motizens noticed a substantial disconnect between their foremost worry the past while, and that of the normies in their life? Everyone else is chanting for Palestine, and I'm chanting sotto voce for a decade or two more of human supremacy before the singularity. And anytime I could comfort myself by the thought that, well, Serious People are not yet concerned, I see some preposterous headline from selfsame Serious People about how hillwalking is white supremacy, or equivalent bullshit. The illusion is bollocked.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Interesting euro/American contrast here - fewer Euros would tolerate living in a place where you can only "exist" (ie do normal stuff like go to work, go to school, see friends, buy groceries, etc) with the help on a car, so this dilemma doesn't arise as much over here.
That is, I fully accept that freedom of travel should be a fundamental right, but also agree that driving a car is not - it's something you do on the state's sufferance.
These two principles don't often conflict in Europe, but it's a damn hard dilemma. Probably it's easier to solve with AI driving than by rebuilding most of your cities
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
This is a wittier version of the same point I was going to make - bravo
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
The emotional explosiveness isn't limited to twitter.com, but that's fine because it's a good thing.
Ethical reasoning is something a person can be better or worse at, and it's good that most people do not engage in a priori ethical reasoning - they follow the guidelines laid down by those who've examined an issue deeply (their betters, to be maximally provocative).
There's a complex system through new norms are derived by experts, road-tested by organs of opinion propagation, the common man's reception is incorporated iteratively into refinements, and so on.
It's no more desirable that everyone should invent his own ethical systems than that he should invent his own electrical systems.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Hmm, personally I think that sets too high a bar for constituting a "movement" at least in the intellectual or cultural sense. Sure, a handful of books doesn't constitute a political movement - for that you need crowds, voting, candidates (though note that this definition also means the "alt right", such as it ever was, was not a "movement") but I think the bar is different/lower for an intellectual or cultural movement.
It's a consistent cliché in intellectual history that some group strongly disavows belonging to a single movement, while then spending the next 200 years being taught and studied as one. French New Wave Cinema, the Vienna Circle, etc.
My suspicion is that, (if there are such things as essays and undergaduates a hundred years hence) a student writing in the future about how American religiosity collapsed to European levels in the first decades of the 21st century will mention "the new athiests". Before of course talking about the triumphant rise of Zensunni Catholocism in the 2030s, which fuelled the Butlerian Jihad.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Would the USA be "more democratic" if toddlers could vote?
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
An interesting specification here:
a pretty (by conventional Western standards) blonde lead
Is the detail in the brackets really necessary? Is there really any hetrosexual man who wouldn't, in his heart of hearts, grant that this woman is at least "pretty"?
I mean perhaps there are some freaks who'd demur - but they'd simply be wrong. This is "pregnant people" hair-splitting.
If the word "pretty" means anything, and if there are any moral/æsthetic truths at all, then it's just simply true that this actress is "pretty".
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
modern democracy is much more actually democratic than Athenian democracy
The Athenians took the word "democracy" to mean one thing, and modern Western politicians take it to mean [almost anything they want]. It's small-minded to claim one particular state of affairs is more "democratic" than another - very many political system can fairly lay claim to the term.
It's a defensible position to describe as "democratic" any that involves a reasonable number of people voting on what's to be done/whom to rule them.
Beyond those bare bones, it's like arguing which of Louisiana and Utah is the more American, or Pentecostalism and Anglicanism is the more Christian. Ie, a futile endeavour to rile up true believers
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
It was a bunch of people writing books at the same time.
What's the difference between that and an intellectual movement?
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
You might not believe this, but he's not.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Standard physiognomy win, nice
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Okay I'll bite on the pictures: the first, more attractive, woman is the nice one who wrote the Slate piece, and the second woman is the one that wrote "Cat Person".
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Sorry, that was a failure to convey tone correctly on my part - I agree with the busywork proposal, I wasn't being facetious. Perhaps some holy commandments like an obligation to pray x number of times per day etc
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Right, so the AI creates busywork for humanity.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Not negligent per se; let's just say they didn't sincerely prioritise the flourishing of those they hadn't the heart to murder.
Suppose for example I'm the governor of some territory with a load of indigenes and colonists. Even if I set aside a physical space for the indigenes and make some financial allowance for basic medical treatment and what-have-you, there just aren't enough men or dollars or hours in the day to really ensure the indigenes' flourishing.
An AI will only be able to conquer and master humanity if it is significantly more capable than us. Consider how we might expect, say, a mediaeval army versus a modern polity to care for spare people in their charge. Now consider than any humanity-beating AI would be far more competent than a modern state, and by a much greater degree than the modern state outclasses some mediaeval horde.
I think an AI good enough to beat us could also husband us well without breaking a sweat.
I don't think it's true that a purposeless life need be as squalid as those of many modern indigenes - many perfectly nice and even quite good lives don't have any purpose that's apparent to their possessors. And honestly, life in divine obedience to a real machine God seems at least as purposeful as any of the religions of the book. I reckon it would beat "modern hedonistic self-actualisation" too.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Both are in restitution for evils that are older than the state of Israel, ie well past your 50 year rule. If the Paelstinian cause has exceeded some statute of limitation, it follows that WW2 and all its attendant evils has passed also.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Personally I think a 50 year limitation seems fair.
Do you agree that Israel should stop accepting their annual "sorry" payments from the German government, pursuing old men who were Nazis, etc?
It strikes me that it's basically impossible to make proper restitution for millions murdered, but relatively easy to make whole someone that's had their land connived and stolen away from them. If anything, all the Israeli schmaltz and guilt about WW2 should stop well before the Palestinians give up on regaining their rightful homes.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
I think until such time as Israelis stop kvetching to Germans about the Holocaust, Palestinians can be permitted to protest their subsequent territorial expropriation.
As an experienced pedatn, I enjoyed the fact that the line morphed from the grammatically correct "How would you feel now if you hadn't eaten breakfast?" to the strictly incorrect "How would you feel if you didn't eat breakfast?"
Obviously look it's variation in dialect, blah blah prescriptivism, but I still found it funny
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