justmotteingaround
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User ID: 2002
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
My point is that atheism doesn't preclude (or necessitate) "a mostly rigid moral framework". It need not even interact with morality at all. It's the wrong word for what is being argued. Atheism itself does not compellingly argue for a moral stance. It can't parasitize something doesn't interact with, and it isn't liable for something it never claimed to do.
To the extent I see what people are trying to say, I actually agree. I especially think that a shared somewhat rigid moral framework is necessary for a society to hold together. An all atheist society could have a shared moral framework, and could even be based on religion. The A vs A-plus schism didn't say anything about atheism itself.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
That's kind of how I interpret it, but as written its nonsensical as is it misunderstands or misuses the term 'atheism' at a very basic level. Atheism doesn't necessitate any specific moral stance. Moreover, some religious are atheistic.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
we all sort of just know what's right and don't need reference to any kind of overarching moral framework.
FWIW that isn't remotely close to what he argues. He claims that apropos of nothing, we could/should define "bad" as the worst possible misery for everyone. Any step away from that lowest valley is in the direction of "good". He argues that this is the overarching moral framework we need. Many consider several steps in this to be bad philosophy.
I'm not sure how atheism itself could be a moral parasite any more than not collecting stamps could be parasitic hobby.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
So to be fair, I went back and gave a light read to the two linked posts and threw 5 minutes of googling at the results. AFAIKT, the posts contain mostly hysteria, confusion, and misunderstandings. The Mogen Clip is very much around. Complication rates in US setting for serious adverse events is somewhere around 1/1M, or 700/1M for any serious event - usually not enough skin removal, leading to a repeat procedure. Complication rates go up 10-20X 1 year after birth. Any complication, including excess bleeding, 2%.
The PEPFAR program seems like it is regulating itself on the cautionary principle, and winding down circumcision efforts (despite the fact that Hillary Clinton gave PEPFAR $40M in tax dollars OMG!!! Not Hillary!!)
I saw language about "high numbers" of "botched" circumcisions. But I didn't see data or definitions. Maybe I missed it, but given the insanely low serious complication rate in the US, I'm highly suspicious. I imagine this voluntary up to 15 tanner-3 circumcision program has a higher relative rate, but probably a low absolute rate. This is just a guess. Circumcision in Africa are (were?) complicated by dint of being rolled out in AIDS endemic areas (1/3rd of adult male population in 2000 iirc), so its at least plausible that such programs, having performed tens of millions of circumcisions, prevented hundreds or thousands of horrid deaths from HIV/aids. But who knows? They seem to be pulling back in 2019 (when AIDS meds were quite good).
In case its necessary to reiterate, I'm against circumcision.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
My guess is the relevance is here:
2019 Background: PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) has used millions of tax dollars in a campaign to circumcise Africa under the guise of reducing HIV risks, based on some very controversial studies.
Links to a blog of an activists who writes books and makes documentaries to end circumcision. IME the intactivist bunch make radical claims well beyond anything the evidence supports, and bring up circumcision whenever possible in hope of ending what just might be the most barbaric practice mankind has ever conceived.
Do I support unnecessary circumcision of children? No, not really. But every time I look at the evidence, I can't see any reason to get worked up about the topic. I hope the bizarre practice dies out.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
Sometimes you can just do stuff.
That was my main take away, and probably where all the substance lies. That, and pondering how much time Petro wasted penning his reply. 20 minutes?
I highly recommend giving it a read. Its fairly beautiful. A chiding message from a particular kind of nationalist/ humanist who clearly thinks highly of himself. Delusional in parts, but oh so delicious to read knowing that all Petros hot air was rendered into farts when he capitulated a few hours later.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
My point is that by definition 100% of his unique claims lack conclusive evidence. Individual reviews will be anecdotal in an area where people are known to fool themselves. That said, I understand the desire for individual reviews. His ideas are interesting, and may help. But there are myriad things we known for sure will help. Most people don't do them.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
Depends on the dynamic of your friendship, how often you guys talk shit, how friendly your writing sounds in his head. If you think you lost your cool, you probably did. This bothers some people; others not. As far as the actual topic goes, you do seem to be advocating for US military action in a country that doesn't want it. The US hasn't officially declared war since WWII, but its pedantry to call Vietnam et al conflicts.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
I mean he did say repeatedly that he would build a concrete wall. And along the whole border. And Mexico would pay for it.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
And I oppose continued running in that opposite direction. In the data, the groups are getting smaller in absolute terms, although they may be forming larger and more robust coalitions (around identity characteristics, which I obviously oppose). That trump made historic gains with minorities shows that its not an insuperable boundary. Urban/rural, BA/no-degree, costal/center, religious, and economic categories usually show a wider disparity than almost all identity labels. This is the norm for all of US history. North/south, and urban/rural divides go back to de Tocqueville, and arguably back 14th century Irish cracker culture, which would appear in the American south. Over the past few decades blacks have probably lost more than they've gained from in-group and party loyalties. I don't wish that on anyone. But having been governed under wildly disparate laws for centuries, this at least made sense. And even then only for a handful of decades.
People of every political persuasion have long cared about poor whites by dint of caring about poor people generally. Both black and white poors have often been derided in the culture, but those hurt feelings don't beggar a policy response. As far back as 1900 there were assistance programs for poor, disproportionally white Southerners which they often pridefully rejected (talking about hookworm eradication here). Blacks were often squeezed out of such assistance (their current welfare dependency notwithstanding). More recently, technology led to globalization, which hurt specific, largely white, regions. Industrial and trade policy should care just as much about the blacks in Detroit as the whites in Appalachia. Both got screwed. Otherwise you necessarily invite useless arguments over relative privation, apparently extending all the way to 1619. Its lunacy.
My advice to black America has long been "Yeah, you got historically screwed. But rest assured, help is very much not on its way. Therefore, just copy Asians where possible." Its no different for whites. There was a brief window where idpol achieved something useful. Trump rescinding Johnsons EO is good precisely because the policy has been bassackwards for decades. The territory is that certain people need specific policy to serve their interests. This is normal. But race is a bad map.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
The most appealing effect to me is the claimed reduction in "food noise". I'm often hungry for no real reason, and getting used to hunger pangs sucks. If you try it, pair it with a resistance training program to spare muscle tissue.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
He is running a massive, multivariate, and esoteric experiment with an N of 1. Its not possible to say what's useful other than stuff we knew beforehand from actual studies: eat well, exercise, sleep well.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
A central part of being an effective leader is allaying opposition to actually get things done. Blaming people he failed to lead makes no sense unless everyone is a good leader, people just don't listen. Despite the massive debt, Trump didn't even start the wall he promised. He won the popular vote this time, and seems better prepared and better supported. I expect it to be better than before, which is a low bar.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
But if you entertain one groups racial grievances you have to entertain all groups racial grievances. That door gets shoved wide open. Yes, in more recent times some whites have been vilified and discriminated against in some awful cases. Welcome to the club. Now lets slam that door in Ibram Kendis face, dismantle such programs (as Trump recent initiated), and move towards a legally colorblind, merit based society. Organizing around race mistakes the map for the territory in most cases. The political needs of whites aren't inherent to them being white. Not all whites are equally susceptible to opioid addiction or welfare dependency. Whiteness certainly doesn't explain who those people are. And whoever they are, they have agency and thus responsibility. Government help is not out of the question, but skin color is a bad heuristic. And keep in mind that all this grievance is in the face of increasingly median prosperity, while bring the most decisive voting block, over-represented in positions of power.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
Like the last amren article I read, its the woke right cobbling together a smattering of aborted syllogisms, half-truths, and outright falsities to advance even more identity politics. Its not completely devoid of truth and, especially towards the end, political insight. But on balance it comes off as whining. Whites are, in fact, increasing their real wages. Middle earning whites are dwindling, but only because they're becoming the upper earning whites. I have about as much sympathy for them as I do for laggard blacks: the government should probably help, but get your shit together.
My most pressing current thought is this guy needs to read more history. About 400 years ago, when the requisite technology was fresh, Dutch Jews whose ancestors had recently fled Portugal moved to proto-Brazil, then Surinam, then NYC, chasing state alliances and riches. Most people don't give two fucks about race, even if they think HBD is true.
Modern white advocacy holds that race is the most salient identity today.
Massive claim, and almost certainly a waste of thought.
For non-whites, though, race trumps class solidarity.
Perhaps, but they are also wasting their time and thoughts. The smart ones overcome this concern and do well on average.
Progressives admire patriotism in non-white countries, even as they scorn it in whites.
While its true that Progressive definitely scorn it in (jingoistic coded) whites, even reddit regularly vocalizes the inherent racism of modern Japan, let alone Israel.
More broadly, a person’s fate is generally linked to that of his political and ethnic community.
Such a pessimistic an narrow view of what is possible. However, I think convincing readers that this is true is the point of this rhetoric.
White Americans are essentially a stateless people.
Hysterical whining.
Whites have no real stake in [Americas] success as a political entity
Pure bullshit.
because there is no respectable “alternate” political expression, whites are left with Old Glory and the Constitution.
I think this is the nexus of confusion. The author seems to have no idea how prescient, capacious, and wise the founders vision for a future America was, especially for the time.
Perhaps Steve Sailer put it best: “White Americans are behaving more and more like how Americans Indians have long behaved, as a defeated and despairing race.” It is a political and spiritual defeat, but its consequences are like those inflicted on Germany after the Second World War.
This is the most deformed aborted fetuses of a syllogism. For one, I blame American Indians for their own regressive attitudes. Yeah, they're a conquered people. So am I, if we push the clock back far enough. Open a casino already. Second, Germany roared back to success post WWII. Its 1% of world population, yet one of the best places to be born. Wow. Such consequences.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
In modern parlance its an ironic reappropriation of a word, now used to describe a hostile intolerance to differing arguments for a more fair, just, and prosperous society, all while cowering behind the words original meaning.
For example take Ana Kasparian revealing that she was sexually assaulted by a homeless person. Brain-rotted wokies tore her to pieces for disparaging homeless people, and called her racist for some unknown reason. One of her collogues quit because Ana wanted to be called a woman, not a birthing person. Or the 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah Jones, a Pulitzer winning piece of historical revisionism. Noticing its factual errors and/or flaws reasoning got you branded as a racist Nazi by the woke. Or the coverage surrounding the shooting of Jacob Blake, who was under arrest yet tired to flee in a vehicle with children before attempting to stab an officer before being shot. If you so much as pointed out what the video showed, you were called a racist. Its worth noting that Blakes shooting precipitated the attempts to burn down sections of Kenosha WI for some reason, where Kyle Rittenhouse shot 3 people on video, the lone survivor of whom said in court that Rittenhouse did not so much as aim at him until he pointed his own gun at Rittenhouse - who was obviously a white supremacist despite shooting only white people.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
I'm happy with this EO but I think calling Trump an idiot who couldn't govern was reasonable during his first term. He spent like a drunken sailor on non Covid stuff (more than double Biden!) to purchase a tax cut, a trade war, remain in Mexico, Space Force, and he warp sped a vaccine. Negotiated with the Taliban to end the war. No new wars. Pressured NATO to up the price of admission. And as an indefatigable culture warrior, he got the ball rolling on a vibe shift. Okay, all great.
But no wall. Lots of illegals regardless. No Trumpcare. Domestic manufacturing barely budged. People in his orbit regularly went to prison, were disbarred, or quit. The trade deficit remained the same. No critical infrastructure. No strategic industrial policy. Covid was a disaster despite him publicly saying it'd be gone in a few months, while saying on private tape he knew it wouldn't be. Initiated the stimulus stairway to inflation. Total of 8.4T added to the deficit (also double Biden). Nationwide riots under his watch. Historic amounts of golf. Told Brad Raffensperger 'I'm informing you that certifying the current GA votes is illegal, so certifying them will cause big problems for you' thus igniting the embers of J6. All this while The Blob remained unaffected.
I think its fair to ask for better, and notice that Trump 1.0 wasn't the most effective leader. Trump 2.0 could deliver, but a victory lap now is retro causal. Trump is energetic and with it for a 78 year old, and JD Vance is sharp and hardworking. Here is to hoping for a golden age!
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
Sadly our society is backsliding towards infantilization
There has been a long slow slide in this direction for reasons good it bad, at least since the late stages of industrialization in the USA (basically the invention of modern childhood, a change in child roles, even how children were clothed, then came laws, special protections, removal of some rights, etc).
I saw the infantilization coming long ago, when I was a teenager in the 90's. I couldn't wait to be an adult. The freedom, responsibility, and independence were very alluring.
The book The Fourth Turning attempts to forecast the "personality cycles" of a society based on how typical generational cohorts stack up. Its a poli sci book, and heavily influenced Steve Bannon (which is the only reason I read it) but it might give you an idea where all this may be headed.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
We just allow ourselves to know that some women, or perhaps women in general, are more likely to get wishy washy with consent, and do illogical and irrational things in trading sex for status, up to and including asking for take-backs, which should never be granted.
I imagine this is a tale as old as time, and is probably one of the many reasons males took over the entire planets at various points in history.
Yeah I hallucinated arguments about legal rights as yours, conflating metaphors in Kats piece. Regardless, society can accept women as full adults for exactly the same reason as they accept men as full adults. They're both flawed, and fail to demonstrate agency in some domains. Oh well. The more you know...
That's why Kat is trying to hold the line, keep her team in order, and reject the framework of not holding a putative victim somewhat responsible when it was their own agency that got them victimized. Like, sorry Pavlovich, you affirmed consent and called it wonderful.
To be frank, I think that men are, in fact, more logical. However, if I had to guess its a classic case of overlapping curves (with more shared AUC than not), or perhaps more male variability and I don't interact with one end of that bell curve. I have found that women are much more insightful with "social logic" (which is often illogical).
What is needed thoughtful and persuasive think pieces and arguments, as happened when Aziz Ansari went on a famously bad date. We should not be demoting all women to something below adults, but holding them responsible for adulthood. We do them same with men and alcohol and gambling.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
It's certainly laughed at less than any proposals to lower the age of adulthood, which suggests the average person believes it should be higher.
Yeah you're prob right as the evidence for increasing the age it has one direction, but I reject the argument it nevertheless.
At the core, the argument of the linked substack by Kat Rosenfield, my argument, and classical liberalism reject the framework of OP and Pavlovich. Yes, men an women are different because of biology, but the individual reigns supreme. Society should consider Pavlovich and her defenders adults, with all consequent responsibility. I reject that they can retroactively change consent. They can cry about it, but it Rosenfeld articulates why it needs to fall on deaf ears. I reject man bad woman good and vice versa. Any deviation from this neutrality should be argued against, especially in the legal system.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
I can grant that, and the original hypothesis still doesn't follow. We're talking about an entire category of people, only some of whom demonstrate lower agency in at least one area. Men are less able to control their drinking and gambling, but we wouldn't consider all men to be children. Its the same in the Pavlovich et.al cases. Some women claim they can't meaningfully consent to sex even when they do. They're insane and a moral hazard. I'm not gonna play in that framework. Whether they like it or not, they're adults.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
To the extent that observation constitutes an argument, its completely different. Any serious proposal to push back legal adulthood to 25 is generally laughed at as an impractical nanny state absurdity. Men demonstrate less agency in some areas, women in others. Why consider one adults, and not the other.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
Avoiding those bad things requires agency, and women demonstrate more of it than men in those contexts. This is true around the world. In general, males show greater impulsivity in both humans and lab animals. Nobody has argued for a broad societal reconsideration of whether men are adults. People would laugh that argument out of the room.
Is there a problem with women claiming a sexual encounter was consensual, and arguing for a take-back some time later? Absolutely. Does it follow that we should seriously consider whether women are adults? No. Thats insane.
justmotteingaround
2mo ago
Yeah I agree with your assessment quite a lot. My point is that extrapolating these outlying male deficits in self-control/agency all the way to questioning if society can treat men as adults is absurd.
Atheism itself is not a system of beliefs. It cannot, in itself, be a moral parasite for the same reason not collecting stamps cannot be a hobby. Atheism in itself is devoid of moral content in the same way not collecting stamps is devoid of being a hobby. People often confuse atheism itself as having attributes it doesn't (usually nihilism or hatred of religion). Atheism is the mere belief that there is no god or gods. An atheist could take up the moral code of any religion, save a belief in a gods.
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