netstack
Texas is freedom land
No bio...
User ID: 647
netstack
Texas is freedom land
27m ago
Plausibly true, but not trivially.
Depends on how many potential migrants actually learn about the policy, evaluate their odds correctly, and decide they aren’t that desperate.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
22hr ago
It’s almost funny comparing this to the 2016 narrative. The smart money was wrong, the local insiders were wrong, how could this happen?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
22hr ago
I don’t think Homeland Security’s Twitter feed is the problem.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
surnames
I’ll echo @Skibboleth here. Names were pretty divorced from profession by the founding of the country, let alone the Industrial Revolution.
the reason diversity used to correlate
A reason, sure. There are at least a couple others. Concentration in cities reducing networking costs. Reduced friction from a surplus of labor. The low-hanging fruit of our transition from an agrarian economy. Etc.
[list of contradictions]
I don’t think this part makes a lot of sense. You’re not exactly working with a steelman of “diversity is our strength,” but then, neither were the authors. Quibbling over terminology is beside the point.
second law of thermodynamics
Culture isn’t a closed system.
facilitates idea sharing
Yeah, there’s no contradiction here. Innovation is risky. Idea-sharing is risky. A good government hedges against that instability.
Am I being too pedantic?
No comment.
Do these people even realize…?
Steve Sailer thinks they wrote it for a fig leaf. So…probably.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
Where exactly are you getting sold that narrative?
Looking at CNN or WaPo or the NYT, they aren’t selling a Russian collapse or obvious Ukrainian superiority. That’s a sucker’s bet. They’re playing the underdog angle where Ukraine is barely (but admirably!) holding out against the aggressor. Supporting Ukraine as an “ought” rather than an “is.”
I think you’re conflating the armchair generals on Twitter with the broader base of support. It’s like assuming that all Christians are about to deconvert because the Branch Davidians got a prophecy wrong.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
I would expect Russian elites to siphon more from annexed Ukrainians than from their own lower class.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
I’m not letting it go. Those things are good. There’s just a gap between what is good and what is a responsibility.
Rittenhouse had no responsibility for that building, which is why the OP had to make up scenarios about home and family in the other subthread.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
Notice how I didn’t say anything about fascism. No need to quibble over definitions!
I am asking you: what would Trump have to do before you’d say “yes, that’s an unconstitutional power grab.”
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
There’s no need for moralism when we’ve got tribalism.
The average Ukraine sympathizer sees something like this or this and turns into the staunchest of partisans. No philosophy required.
Honestly, after years of your doomsaying, I still don’t know what you expect to find out. There’s no real equivalent to “saddam has WMDs.” No real wargoal, seeing as we aren’t at war. No American casualties to cover up. So what’s the big reveal? What undermines the premise of “we’ll pay you not to give that guy what he wants?”
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
Setting aside the possibility of skew, since I had a surprisingly hard time finding median data…Is this the right question?
Maybe I’d prefer being a Russian to being a Ukrainian. But I think I’d prefer either to being a former-Ukrainian. Even if Russia wasn’t at all interested in cleansing language or religion, would Russian wealth somehow trickle down? There’s not much reason to think former-Ukrainians would see any benefits under Russian colonization.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
It blows your mind because you’re looking at a strawman. The Europeans who elected these leaders don’t see it this way. As for the Ukrainian response…
Imagine that your county government gets taken over by—gosh, I know this sounds farfetched—roving gangs of immigrants. Then some keyboard warrior across the pond tells you: “don’t worry! They’re just protecting you from the other scary minorities, the ones who look even less like you. It’s the only way you’ll avoid ethnic cleansing.”
Would you believe them?
Ukrainians aren’t choosing the hard route because they just love the EU. They’re doing it because they hate Russia more. Better to die on one’s feet.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
Scott Pilgrim if any of the characters actually talked about stuff.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
Nice.
Back then, 2000yo work was incredibly hard to find for anyone outside a really specific set of scholars. Today anybody and their mother can see a scan online. Crazy stuff.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
Who exactly is “we”?
Out of the five things you “aren’t permitted to do,” three of them are speech restrictions, one is a resource-allocation problem, and the last is due to the free market. Those are categorically different.
- You can say you wouldn’t want your son to be gay, or worse; large swathes of society will just be very upset with you.
- You can express that drugs are low-class. There aren’t even that many people who will be upset!
- You can’t always arrest the fent zombies, but it’s not because people will be upset with you. More like they’ve set up systems to disincentivize it.
- You can fat-shame. We’re back to things society will complain about, but not imprison you over.
- You can run a subdued gambling business so long as you aren’t trying to compete with the big dogs. If they’re luring people via ESPN and you refuse out of principle, you will never match their reach.
See the different categories? There is a vast gulf between things society will complain about and things it’ll materially punish. The complaints are friction.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
Half credit, then.
I don’t believe it becomes a responsibility until he’s actually defending his family or friends.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
And I’m telling you that the same reasoning is going to apply to half the protestors at Kenosha. They’re going to say they had a responsibility to protect their not-quite-neighbors from those nasty racist cops. Peacefully, natch, but if someone just so happens to threaten death or serious bodily harm…
If you don’t buy it from them, you shouldn’t buy it from Rittenhouse. He was justified in self-defense, not because he had some responsibility to stand guard.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
Right back at you, no?
We can trade lazy whataboutisms all week and never get any closer to a conclusion. Instead, I’ll ask you: what’s something that would actually change your mind about authoritarian tendencies? I’m not asking you to abandon Trump. Just…what would cause you to say “yeah, the Democrats are correct in calling that an unconstitutional power grab?”
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
Uh, no. I assumed you were correct about the makers’ preference. I was arguing about the bit I quoted: the publication and pushing of this documentary does not imply that SyG is on the rise culturally.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7d ago
Their homes and communities
That’s the sticking point; it’s the crux of the “shouldn’t have been there” argument. His home would be one thing, his neighborhood, his town, and so on…but he was out guarding a random car dealership in the next town over. Zero personal connection.
Which is why I brought up the BLM comparison. When people show up to the next town over because they heard its police were crooked, can they use their “community” as an excuse?
Again, I think Rittenhouse had a right to be there. But a right is not a responsibility.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
8d ago
Failure of the adults to step up didn’t give him a responsibility. Not any more than a police shooting creates a responsibility for BLM to come to town, or seeing a homeless man gives you a responsibility to go volunteer at a shelter.
I say this despite thinking Rittenhouse was justified. He had a right to be there, not a responsibility.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
8d ago
The publication and pushing of this documentary, to me, shows that SyG is on the rise culturally - otherwise why would Hollywood feel the need to push back against it?
Oooooor it’s on the outs and thus an easy target. Or it was a prominent tribal signifier. Or the studio wanted to bait controversy. Or the writer had a personal stake in a similar case. Or the random number generator demanded it. There are plenty of other explanations.
Applying your reasoning to other cases: Friday Night Lights meant racism was really on the rise. Apocalypse Now was trying to stamp down on anti-war sentiment. The eternal popularity of Nazis as villains, from Inglorious Basterds to Star Wars to *Casablanca, is proof that they hold too much sway over society.
How are those going viral, then?
There are ads playing on my local radio about “a Honduran convicted of raping a child” and the like. (I couldn’t find transcripts but i think they’re part of this program.) If that’s not weaponizing empathy, I don’t know what is.
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