Climate change is another one, perhaps elite consensus is right and its happening, and its man made, very few elites seem bothered by the question
Very few elites also seem to be, you know, changing their ways in any way that indicates that they believe in it. Wasn't the recent US Government shutdown ended by making it so that private airplanes couldn't land at a specific airport? I'm going to suggest that anyone using a private airplane does not particularly give a shit about the environment in any way that is non-performative.
"They took er jobs" and "They are eating the dogs" are not factual assertions, they are distillations of vibes.
"They took er jobs" is obviously true. The jobs they didn't take are those of the elites, so it's a simple disagreement about who's jobs they are taking.
Now, not to don too much of a leftist hat here, but this is what they mean when they claim that there is no war except for class war - the interests of a business are not the interests of a politician are not the interests of a white-collar worker are not the interests of someone in the trades. Our "elites" are not focusing on the slogans, and hence misunderstanding - they're living in a completely different reality.
Zephyr
3d ago
In the end, though, it's hard to blame anyone in particular for what happened
I feel like the part that is missing here is that groups can be entitled to government payments at all; unless I'm misunderstanding, the whole premise of this case is that Feed Our Future was able to (successfully) sue because they felt like they were owed government money, and a judge agreed with them.
Like, correct me if I don't have this right, but the sequence of events you laid out appears to be:
- Government is giving grants for (charity related purposes).
- NGO feels that they can apply to the grant, so does so.
- Government says "no".
- NGO sues, and judge says "they're owed the grant money".
Why can't the answer just be "the government doesn't owe grant money to anyone?" (And before you tell me its an anti-discrimination effort; like, duh, but I don't doubt that if it had been an obviously right wing group applying, the judge would've found that they were not eligible).
On a related tangent - has anyone else been getting the feeling that a lot of the complaints that are being attributed to the swamp, or the ruling governmental party, or really just anything political are actually problems with the judiciary? I hear a lot of leftists talk about how the supreme court is corrupt and in Trump's pocket; by the same token, a lot of right-wingers mention the ninth(?) circuit court as being unusually corrupt and blocking the right-wing government from accomplishing its goals (sorry, Canadian, I don't actually know the US court system super well). Up here in Canada, we have judges that rule that immigration status modifies a party's guilt (specifically, if you are sentenced to 6 months, it will affect your immigration claim; hence, a lot of judges rule that even severe crimes like assault warrant 6 months less a day).
I'm beginning to get the feeling that having a group of individuals, who are appointed for life, paid generously, and who are basically impossible to remove may have been something of a mistake.
Zephyr
6d ago
My impression, based on polling, is that Trump's deployment of the National Guard to DC is not just unlawful, it is also unpopular. Here is a Quinnipiac poll from August finding voters disapprove 56-41. Here is an NPR-Ipsos poll from late September showing a disapproval of 47-37 for DC that rises to 52-34 when the question is about National Guard deployment to "your local area."
It's unpopular in the sense of the majority not liking it - but these numbers show that there is a fairly solid base who wants it too. I don't know if we can necessarily say it's unpopular when 1/3 of the population is saying "yes please". Like, yes, it's not a democratic majority, but when has that stopped a government before?
Zephyr
8d ago
Given that the context is that @RoyGBivensAction is so hot that random women are approaching him on the street, I don't doubt he has enough rizz.
Zephyr
9d ago
Government just needs to be more aligned.
Everyone in power needs to be more aligned; offering CEOs a golden parachute means that they don't need to do well by their company, judges let criminals loose who prey upon the middle class, and politicians spend tax money to put us into debt, knowing that they'll do well for themselves regardless of how poorly they govern.
Interestingly, I think both rightists and leftists tend to buy into this framing; the leftist version is the quote "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
My most fedposting opinion is that those in power should fear those who serve under them.
Zephyr
9d ago
I'm of two minds on this - I agree with you that there needs to be a level of immunity, but we also have an incredibly badly behaved political class.
I guess I tend to be a lot more on the side of "If it's something you can explain in 10 words or less, and everyone would agree about how severe it is, prosecute them - if it's something that requires detailed technical expertise to understand, then you probably need to let it slide." Under this standard:
- "He was raping children" = Easy to understand, everyone agrees it should be a crime, let's prosecute.
- "She stored classified information incorrectly" = Kind of hard to determine - like, I understand why we wouldn't want people who do that, but it seems more like the sort of thing that involves a meeting with HR than jailtime.
- "He drove drunk and killed someone" = Super easy, prosecute
To be fair, in general I prefer that our criminal system work that way - I remember someone said something like "The only real crimes are those you could explain to the founding fathers", and I kind of agree with that system; I think we have too many things that are either crimes or technically-not-crimes due to weird arcane loopholes that make intuition kind of useless, and the whole system relies on prosecutorial discretion to avoid everyone being in jail forever (which is another way of saying "If the people in power don't like you, you're going to jail").
Zephyr
10d ago
The fact that people defend the prequels are for this reason completely incomprehensible to me.
I'm personally partial to the argument that Jar Jar Binks was intended to be an "evil Yoda" type character. He's got supernatural luck at avoiding harm, he ended up getting himself into a position to hand the republic over to a chosen sith - like, he's already a fantastic villain.
Zephyr
11d ago
I did it on an old iPhone (iPhone 5?) back in the day - I saw an immediate boost in battery life, and it was only like an hour to figure it out.
Zephyr
11d ago
It still haunts me to this day - I can say from years of therapy that what has helped (even if only a little) is deliberately sharing small things with someone you trust. Your body is going to reject it - I’d recommend making a ritual of it (like, you will tell your girlfriend one small thing you like before going to bed each night).
Zephyr
14d ago
How exactly do you propose the parents should extract the value from their children? Lifelong alimony?
The easiest way to extract value from your children is to raise them in such a way that they'll want to help support you later in life. For example, spending time with them when they're young, helping them out both financially and socially when they're starting out on their own, and in general treating them well means that they'll be more willing to support you when you need it. If they don't want to support their children? Well, that's fine, but then they should be forced to plan for their own retirement instead of taking it from those they couldn't convince to help them.
I know of people who love and care for their parents - having their mother live with them and help take care of their children would not be a burden for those people.
I'll bite the bullet and say that if people (like my parents) do not produce kids who can/want to support them, and don't plan for their own future, then they should suffer for it; if I stop working I'll be homeless within a year, they can deal with the same.
Zephyr
14d ago
nobody lost money in absolute terms
I'd argue that the person paying the minimums did.
Zephyr
14d ago
They don't actually object to the media being woke at all unless it's very over the top (lectures about how straight men are evil, 100% female cast, etc.)
I'd argue that's the difference between "woke" and "progressive/raceblind" media. Like, if you have a new superhero that you're going to launch, and you decide that it'll be a Latina woman and most of the story is going to revolve around a hispanic community in Texas - that's not a problem at all. I may not be interested in it, but I'm not going to say it's necessarily bad. If you're going to take a superhero who was "pale, male, and stale", and make them into a Latinx girlboss who don't need no man - then you've just made a garbage piece of media.
Baldur's Gate 3 is actually a great example of something I'd say isn't actually "woke" - it's just progressive. I'm going to compare it to the recently developed "Siege of Dragonspear" expansion for Baldur's Gate 1&2 - if you aren't familiar, one of the major characters in Siege of Dragonspear has a fairly big arc where it is revealed that they are transgendered, and it's considered to be a big deal that they're living their gender expression and they're so brave for doing so. However, if anyone here has played Baldur's Gate 1 - you'll recall that one of the first items you get in the game (literally in the third explorable area) is a belt of gender changing. In a world where there exists a magic item common enough that a random ogre can have one - being trans just doesn't make any sense. By comparison, Baldur's Gate 3 has progressiveness "in the water" so to speak - characters are gay, multicultural, etc. But from my recollection, it doesn't have any major plot points that rely on progressive shibboleths to make sense - there's no "ACAB" making it so you can never trust the guards, there's no situation where the only competent person is a female POC who is being shouted down by the bumbling men, and there's no plot point that relies on realizing all orcs are actually noble and that the orc opposing you must be a mind controlled victim.
Zephyr
15d ago
I mean, to some extent, all 4 of 1-4 are already happening:
Most countries have at least some form of policy that incentivizes being coupled off with children; Canada, at least, directly pays parents via the Canada Child Benefit. I'm fairly confident that the US has options to file jointly or single for couples, enabling them to minimize the amount they owe in taxes. This means that people who are single are either paying more than their fair share, or couples are paying less than their fair share (depending on your viewpoint).
In an "almost certainly not what you meant" sort of way, parents (as in, working parents) are forced to spend their income on programs that are intended for the welfare of the elderly, or to support single mothers; most of these elderly have had children, so the labor of working parents is subsidizing the lifestyle of parents who are not working.
And it is currently illegal in Canada to discriminate against a pregnant woman; I ran into this as a kid when my teacher left for maternity leave, they hired a pregnant substitute, who also left for maternity leave.
I don't really have any point to this "well, acktually"-ing, just thought it was kind of funny.
Zephyr
15d ago
I don't think the US military would want you if you can not expand quadratics?
Not the US military, but the Canadian military (the artillery division, at least) had some "homework" for it where trigonometry was necessary (but using some weird measurement instead of degrees or radians). The CFAT (Canadian Forces Aptitude Test) was used to determine what roles you were allowed to go into in the military, and from my recollection (I didn't personally serve, but I had family who did) the lowest score allowable was something like a 7/42, which qualified you to be a cook - I think you had to get at least half right to be an officer, but again, this is like, 5-7 year old stuff in my memory, so I don't remember the exact breakpoints.
If anyone wants to take a practice version, https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/dnd-mdn/documents/jobs/20170906-preparing-for-aptitude-test.pdf is apparently the 2007 version.
Zephyr
16d ago
If they ACTUALLY didn't want to risk that brave new world
There is always the possibility that they're not that smart, or think their voters aren't that smart. After all, the voters did vote for them in the past.
Zephyr
17d ago
When we spoke about this a few weeks ago, she told me that it was because my area lacks ubiquitous, reliable public transport. I mentioned that we have a fairly effective municipal ride share program, and that I would be willing to drop a few grand on an e-bike that would get her almost anywhere in the region in about the same amount of time that she could expect if my area has a bus line. I also let her know that my job has a lot of flexibility in terms of hours, so I would willingly and joyously drive her wherever she needed to go whenever she didn't feel like using the other options. Her response was that she didn't want to feel Beholden to me, and that was the end of the conversation.
I broached the idea. She shot it down immediately, citing a new concern - she didn't believe that my area would allow for a career path for her. She also said that she knows it's hard for me to hear things like that without looking at it as a problem to solve.
I've done my best to figure that out, but she's told me after the fact after suggesting homes that it won't work for $(reasons) that are not immediately obvious to me as a non-resident.
One thing that seems to be a consistent pattern in what you write is that she has an objection, you suggest something that may solve it, and she comes up with a new objection, only loosely based on the old one. Although she almost certainly does have reasons for what she's saying, I would hazard a guess that she isn't actually telling you them; whether because she doesn't know her true reasons, she's worried you won't respect her true reasons, or her true reasons are not good for you.
Something you could try would be to let her take the lead on trying to solve the issues she's presenting; for example, ask her to send you listings for/schedule some tours/set up some open house visits (whichever of these you can stomach) for properties in the area that she'd want to move into with you. This changes it from being something that she is vetoing into something she needs to make a positive suggestion towards, which can re-orient her towards thinking of it as a possibility, as opposed to her thinking of everything that makes it impossible.
Similarly, try to tease out of her what her plans are for her career - she is currently working in hospitality, but is that her plan forever? If the two of you have kids, what school would you be sending them to? Would she be working full time, or part time, or none of the time? Again, the goal is to make it a real possibility in her mind that it could be long term, and to let her come up with the information she actually cares about.
I know you really want it to work out with this woman, but I do get a sense that she is just waiting for something better to come along. My advice would be to not commit to anything yet, but try to figure out if my (and several other commenters') fears are accurate. And to do that, I think you need to figure out why she's actually objecting.
Best of luck - I hope that I'm wrong and that this does work out for you.
Zephyr
17d ago
My gut says that people are usually provided PDFs as "printable" documents; the online link is just a bonus. There's a few situations where it could be of use:
- I'm booking a trip for my parents; I do the work of setting up the days for the hotel and the airline tickets, then print out the emails that are sent to me and bring them to my parents' house. My parents are ancient boomers, so don't use computers - but they definitely have iPhones.
- The PDFs contain information that is more generally applicable (see like, signups for a school dance); they print out like 500 copies, give them to all kids to take home, but also have a link on their website to sign up (which just emails you the PDF, because the person setting it up doesn't "get" what a QR code is).
Side note: it's a very millennial trait to not want to do purchases on your phone.
With regards to the payment provider; in all likelihood, it's the only one they could get approved. Governments have a lot of weird rules around exactly who you are allowed to use especially for handling payments - I'd guess that there is something specific about this one that ticks a weird box that no one else knows/cares about (once, when working on a government website, I had to copy all their font files out of Google Fonts, and store them locally on the build because they were not allowed to access any servers that might be in the US; they also have a super weird tracking service I'd never heard of before instead of using GTM or Google Analytics, for the same reason).
Zephyr
21d ago
This was literally done with the DARE program?
That's the point @phailyoor was making - you can make things sound awful by phrasing it in the maximally offensive way.
Compare: "The government must move to ban dihydrogen monoxide, a dangerous chemical that leads to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of deaths per year, especially amongst children!" to "Swimming pools can be dangerous for young children - remember to never leave children unattended near a body of water."
The first one comes with that breathless air of "you should be outraged," while the second is much more realistic.
Zephyr
21d ago
I think the argument @HereAndGone is making is similar to another argument that I've heard in the past; namely, that of how new technology is ruining attention spans and leading to a less informed populace. The argument against it (as exemplified by the XKCD I linked to) is something like:
- There are a lot of people claiming (new technology) is ruining the youth.
- They specifically point to shortened attention spans and lack of appreciation for the (old technology).
- They claim it is a modern problem, and new because of (new technology).
- However, this same complaint applied to (old technology), which means it is unlikely that (new technology) is actually that ruinous, and more likely that nostalgia is talking.
The statement that I believe @HereAndGone to be making is something like the following:
- There are a lot of people claiming that women being educated has ruined them as partners.
- They specifically point to feminist theory and women preferring to be "pumped and dumped" over long term relationships as a result.
- They claim this is a modern problem, and that going back to 1960s standards would solve it.
- However, these same complaints were being made in 1905, which means its unlikely that it's feminist theory that is that ruinous, and more likely that nostalgia is talking.
For what it's worth, I do not necessarily agree with @HereAndGone, but it is a perfectly acceptable argument. If I was making an argument against it, I'd state something like the following:
- Young women, like young men, are kind of stupid; especially around romance and dating, it is way too easy to think with your...hormones...instead of your head.
- Women tend to be more attracted to men who have a strong sense of direction towards what they want, versus the physical appearance men prioritize; this leads to them choosing partners who are more confident.
- However, because of #1, they often end up attracted to people who will not provide them with what they are looking for; for example, someone who is extremely successful will have many women attracted to them, so will not feel the need to commit. Someone who is less successful, but extremely confident, will often end up in conflict with them (whether physical or via not meeting their needs) by putting themselves first, and treating the woman's affection as "owed" to them.
- As a result, women end up in circumstances where their relationships reflect extremely negatively on men, as the selection effect of the men they go for shows them only extremely negative traits (this is where claims of "All men are like that" come from).
- Men who observe 4, but struggle to obtain a partner themselves, treat it as a symptom of feminism - whereas it's actually the other way around, feminism is a symptom of the above.
- And the reason that this has become more of an issue recently is not that women were educated; the reason is that as a society, we removed a lot of the guardrails around relationships for both men and women. In the past, women would often be safeguarded by male family members, who (in an ideal circumstance) would prevent men who are looking to exploit the woman from furthering the relationship, and (in the worst case scenario) would trade the woman off as a pawn for connections or friendship or wealth or whatever.
(Before anyone accuses me, a man, as being too on the side of men - I'll claim that there is an equivalent for men who choose partners just based on looks, and end up hating them once those looks start to fade).
It isn't unreasonable to look for solutions; however, going back to 1960 or whatever won't actually solve the problems. I'm also not a huge proponent of giving other people control over my life, so I kind of don't want to go back to #6 either. It's a tricky problem, and one we're not going to solve in a Motte comment (but it's fun to try!).
Zephyr
28d ago
In Canada, #1 and #4 count as hate speech. #3 is actually an example of what I'm talking about - we aren't arresting them, and we can't meaningfully defend ourselves against them (in Canada).
So perhaps by "we" I mean "Canada and Canadians".
Zephyr
30d ago
I feel like one thing that has been lost in modern life is the ability to have something that is disapproved of, but still permitted. What I'm thinking of here is that we can't just tolerate that some people are making different choices - we must celebrate them and take them up to 11.
We aren't permitted to say "Nothing wrong with gay men, but I wouldn't want my son to be gay" - that's considered hate speech.
We aren't permitted to say "It's fine if people take drugs, but it's an indicator of low class." Instead, we must have legal dispensaries and be unable to arrest the fent zombie screaming at me about the KGB.
We can't say "You're unattractive because you're overweight and unclean" - instead we have to celebrate "healthy at every size."
And we apparently aren't permitted to allow gambling without turning it into an aggressive in-your-face advertising blitz.
I long for the days where things could just be "not your cup of tea" (or as my sister puts it, "Not everything has to appeal to my delicate sensibilities"). Friction can help people avoid ruining their lives, while still permitting people who really want it to achieve what they want.
I had mice and it was the worst. Here are the things I tried which helped.
- Anything that has an opening, no matter how small, needs to be stuffed with mouse-proof materials (the exterminator I hired used copper wire, but said that the 'mouse excluder' fabric I purchased from Home Depot was good too; basically, you want something that if they chew on it, it hurts their mouths, so they don't). The sorts of holes that were being blocked were smaller than my pinkie nail, so be very thorough.
- I tried both the sound and scent repellents. They didn't solve the issue in any way.
- I used kill snap-traps, baited with peanut butter and nutella. I'd say on average they got a mouse every 2-4 days. The exterminator suggested I lay them down in pairs in case the mouse climbed across them, and I never had them fail to kill. Dealing with the bodies was unpleasant, but better than dealing with the live mice.
- If you have any food that is available at 'ground level' (like, I had rice on the bottom shelf of my pantry), try to make sure it is absolutely sealed away. They can smell food from a long ways away.
- (Edit) I actually forgot I did this, but I used to have a cat come over for a few days at a time; this was about as effective as everything else put together.
Ultimately, I solved the issue by moving out (cause my landlord was absolutely not going to help, despite numerous emails and phone calls). My new place has cats, which help a lot (growing up, I saw one mouse and one rat ever, and I always had cats around; the neighborhood definitely had mice and rats, they just mysteriously avoided the house that smelled heavily of their natural predators).
Zephyr
1mo ago
Forgive me if I misunderstood, but I don't think that's what people are referring to when they refer to a post-truth world. My understanding is that 'post-truth' means:
- Continued belief in something that has been proven false due to not wanting to engage with the source material (I believe the "Hands up don't shoot" or "Very Fine People" fall under this category).
- Using the fact it has been disproven in order to claim it is believable ("I believed my outgroup was eating babies, and even though this particular person was not, it should say something that I believed it plausible")
- Official sources deciding to claim that "we've always been at war with Eurasia" and people deciding to update their programming respectively (Masks don't work, until they're mandatory. The Trump vaccine is poison, until it's required. If you take the vaccine, you won't get COVID.)
(Apologies that my examples are all left-wing; I am certain right-wing examples exist, but I am loosely right-wing, so they do not stick out in my mind in the same way left-wing ones do).
The problem isn't the Truth smashing its boot into our faces; the problem is that tribal warfare has become more important than truth, to the degree that we can't do anything anymore (like, we can't say "more immigration may boost our GDP numbers, but it is causing the quality of life for the lower and middle classes to plummet, so we need to reduce it significantly." Instead, we have to claim its all bad, while the other side needs to claim its all good, and nothing gets done about it ever).
The loser of a knife fight bleeds out in the parking lot; the winner bleeds out in the ambulance.
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