quiet_NaN
4hr ago
It's good to destroy evil and it's evil to destroy good.
This is an overly simplistic morality, the real world does not work like forgotten realms, where you have always chaotic evil races which can be slaughtered by good characters as an act of faith.
At best, you get ingroup moralities, where you support your country for the same reasons that a German in the 30s might support the Nazis.
A more universalist morality would start by recognizing that there is no group of school girls -- not American, not Israeli, not Iranian or Gazan or German or British or whatever who are intrinsically evil and thus deserve to be killed by air raids.
The key insight is that most people you are killing with bombs are actually closer to the school girls than to war criminals.
Take Nazi Germany, which established a new standard for evilness. In the Nuremberg trials and the subsequent trials, a few dozen people were found to have committed acts so irredeemably evil that they deserved death for it. Now, I will be the first to point out that this is only the tip of the iceberg, and perhaps hanging every concentration camp guard as an accessory to mass murder would have been closer to justice. If you also count the Einsatzgruppen and everyone who knowingly enabled the genocides, you might make a case that a decent fraction of the German armed forces deserved death, but I would claim that it is still a minority.
The median German soldier killed by the Allies was not killed because his death intrinsically made the world a better place, quite the opposite. Instead, his death was justified merely instrumentally -- he was part of an army which was preventing the liberation of the death camps, and defeating that army so one could liberate the camps had a higher utility than protecting the lives of the soldiers. (Note that this reasoning does not extend to Harris' morale bombing, though.)
Under a universalist morality, the best you can hope for is not that most of the opponents you kill in a war will deserve to die for their crimes, but merely that killing them is the lesser evil compared to letting their state continue with its crimes.
But for that to be the lesser evil, you actually need a plan to put a stop to their crimes. Soviets killing German soldiers in combat was the lesser evil because the Soviets made a ground offense which enabled them to liberate Auschwitz. By contrast, you could bomb Tehran until you only had a few thousand people left without removing the capability of the surviving IRGC members to slaughter civilian protesters.
Now, I will not claim that killing the Ayatollah or his generals is not intrinsically good. The problem is that for a consequentialist, one evil man getting his just rewards is dwarfed by the indirect effects. If we could turn Iran into a democracy just by murdering the Ayatollah, we would have done so a long time ago. Instead, what Trump accomplished was granting an aging old tyrant martyrdom, while replacing him with a guy whose father, wife and sister were murdered by the US. How is that an improvement?
Well I'm not moving to Iran but you're welcome to if you don't see a difference.
All things being equal, I would prefer not to move to any nuclear armed state, perhaps excepting the UK and France. (Not that this is a unique property of nuclear states -- I would nope most non-nuclear states as well.)
My point is that I am rather indifferent between Iran and say North Korea -- both seem about equally terrible in my opinion. And yet we allow one to have nukes but try to prevent the other from gaining them at large human costs.
Are you of the opinion that Iran is a much worse place than North Korea? Would you trade a 1% chance of having to move to Iran (current war aside) against a 10% chance of having to move to North Korea?
quiet_NaN
1d ago
I think that US-Iranian hostility predates the US-Israel alliance, but that it certainly did not help matters.
Of course, there were times when deescalation was on the table, like with the JCPOA deal which Trump broke in his first term.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
I think that the immediate effect of Iran having nukes would be that Israel would stop bombing them at leisure.
I don't think they could credibly threaten the gulf states allied to the US -- just make it clear that if they nuke Dubai, the US will nuke them in return.
I also find myself not caring too much how Israel fares, let Israel take care of its own security interests. If the religious crazies on both sides prefer to turn each other's countries into Gaza to coexisting, that it sad for the innocents, but does not seem a cause area where outside intervention can do much.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
There is a word for @JeSuisCharlie's proposal for "reducing Iran to Afghanistan-esque hodge-podge of pre-industrial warring tribes". It is called "genocide", and it has strong negative ethical connotations.
The whole logic of "we are the good guys, therefore we are allowed to do bad things" is obviously flawed -- if you are the good guys then that will obviously show in constraints of your behavior.
I don't particularly like the Ayatollah regime. They support Hamas, which tries very hard to be pure evil. But do you really want the standard "any country which supports particularly nasty murderers gets wiped from the face of the Earth?" It is not like the US did not support bloodthirsty dictators, would it be okay to reduce their capabilities to pre-industrial levels in response?
If it is unjustified to level Kansas City in response to Pinochet, then it seems to me that it is also unjustified to level Tehran in response to Oct-7.
A lot of world leaders which I would prefer to have no nuclear armaments do have nukes. Some of them are of questionable sanity. I do not particularly see a line dividing the Mullah regime from the rest of them. Let them play mutually assured destruction with Israel, both of the regimes deserve each other.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
I for one do have sympathy for the artists.
Traditionally, automation improved job quality. Plowing the fields manually is back-breaking work, steering a farm tractor is a huge improvement over it. Likewise, multiplying numbers all day long was probably considered soul-crushingly boring by most of the human computers, and they would rather have a job dealing with fucking Microsoft Excel.
The obvious bottom job to automate would be the workers at Amazon warehouses. Sure, some would be upset until they found other work, but nobody would claim automation stole my dream job of fulfilling customer orders while peeing into bottles.
However, creative pursuits are actually the least intrinsically soul-crushing work there actually is. I imagine that there is competition between artists -- likely not everyone who would prefer to make a living drawing furry porn can earn enough, just like there is competition in pro sports, with a lot more people interested than the field can support.
Competition from AI art is a bit like allowing motorbikes in long-distance running. Suddenly you are not competing against your fellow humans any more. We are not yet in the stage where any kid could just spend 5k$ on a used bike and trivially win against the best human runner in the world for art, but this is clearly the way things are going.
Now, that would suck a bit if we were actually in a post-employment UBI stage where the artists would be free to spend their lives to make retro human-created art as a hobby, just as they might become chess grandmasters despite any kid with a mobile being technically able to defeat them. But we are not in that stage. Instead, we tell them 'why don't you work in an Amazon warehouse as a day job and make your now non-competitive art in your spare time?'
quiet_NaN
9d ago
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but I am rather sure that people who kill others in busy streets are doing it wrong (tm). Basically, if your murder plan involves 'and then members of the public will start to point their phones in my direction and film my actions', your murder plan is not very good.
I think the main difference is that you used to get away with behavior which was not so much worse than everything else what was going on. In the middle of a riot, it is unlikely that everyone will stop doing what they are doing and watch you in horror as you torch a car. Today, chances are you will still be caught on camera and identified after the act (depending on how aligned you were with the tribe currently in power, of course).
quiet_NaN
9d ago
I think there are principled reasons to cut down on tipping besides the first order effects (more money for the non-tipper). Just as there are principled reasons to avoid burning fossil fuels, the first order effects are great (my flat gets warm, my car goes places), but the cumulative effects of everyone doing so are bad (climate change). Or giving Kevin a better grade for his paper.
For tipping, the obvious effect is that it shifts the supply-demand-equilibrium for waiters to lower wages, up to the point where a waiter makes as much as before. So in effect, all you have changed in giving the customer veto rights over 60% of their compensation. Personally, I do not favor a view of the service industry as freelancers whose job is to make people happy so that they get paid.
quiet_NaN
10d ago
I think two things can be true at once, for example the average man on a dating platform might not be out to get you, but the average man you meet on a date made on that platform might be. The average man who manages to get you agree to sex on the first date is probably not going to be around for a second date.
Basically, the question to ask would be: "If this guy is such a great catch, then why is he single?"
I think there is a large gap between the hottest man (by whatever metric) a given woman might get to have sex with her and the hottest man a given woman might get for a longer term exclusive relationship, and a minority of men use that to be unethical sluts.
quiet_NaN
11d ago
And Russia violated that etiquette by invading Ukraine.
Not really. The mechanism to protect a client is that their superpower builds an army base with some tripwire troops in it in their country.
Russia invaded Ukraine, justifying this by saying that Ukraine was a NATO client. They then said that they would consider NATO defending its client to be nuclear provocation.
I think that Russia's concerns were that Ukraine could join NATO, at which point they would be sacrosanct on pain of WW3. So they decided to do something about that before that happened.
This was not a breach of CW nuclear etiquette, just very stupid IMO. Sure, having an opposed military alliance in front of your doorstep is not really something anyone would be thrilled about, but realistically Russia is one of the most invasion-proof countries in the world. Historical attempts to conquer them became textbook examples of military disaster, and that was before they also acquired nukes. Russia was not worth starting World War Three over in the 1970s, and it most certainly is not in the 2020s. Any general who went "Now that Ukraine joined NATO, we can finally plan to send tanks into Moscow" would be considered fucking insane.
More realistically, Putin was not worried about invasion-proofing Russia, but simply wanted to extend his sphere of influence. Not that this worked out great for him either, between going through Soviet stockpiles, losing Syria, becoming dependent on Iranian drones and North Korean troops, reviving NATO and so forth.
quiet_NaN
12d ago
I would argue that this classification only came into effect when the lesson of the world wars (and a potential nuclear war) were learned, which is that a war between big powers is a disaster for everyone.
In earlier ages, big powers fought among themselves from time to time, and that could still be the best strategy for the decision makers of the winning side.
quiet_NaN
12d ago
And what we have with Russia is a lot of appeasement and cowardice. Instead of just going in and bombing them, [...]
Trump is not the only one who has refrained from bombing Russia. The Biden administration did not try either, nor did any European country.
Russia inherited the Soviet nuclear arsenal, which happens to be the largest in the world. I am sure that their nukes are not in the best shape, but even if only a quarter of their ICBMs work, a nuclear war would easily dwarf the substantial meat grinder which has been Ukraine.
There is a certain etiquette about avoiding a shooting war between nuclear powers which has seen us through the Cold War. The understanding is that any direct military confrontation carries a risk of escalating (as conflicts often do). Getting through the CW without it escalating was tight as things were. I do not think it would have worked if NATO and USSR had fought conventional skirmishes, where any hit of a radar system might be in preparation of a first strike and any plane approaching an ICBM silo might aim to reduce your retaliatory capacity.
So if the US lands forces in South Vietnam, the USSR will not deploy to North Vietnam, but rather give them military aid. Likewise, if the USSR is fighting the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, the US will not send in the marines to bolster their ranks.
"Just going in and bombing them" would dispense with that. If you start bombers against Russia from NATO airbases, these NATO airbases will become legitimate targets. Likewise, it seems unlikely that you would achieve air superiority without destroying AA sites within Russia. Or you might directly give Putin the Ayatollah treatment and bomb the Kremlin. At least we would learn something about the effectiveness of US efforts to intercept long range missiles.
quiet_NaN
12d ago
Well, I can think of at least one tinpot warmonger besides Trump who might be willing to sell us natural gas which does not have to pass through Hormuz. Not that I would prefer to deal with him, but Trump can't exactly make us freeze to death next winter.
quiet_NaN
12d ago
I think that the is-outgroup-of relationship is not symmetrical. For example, the outgroup of 2000s Republicans was more foreigners (especially Muslims) than Democrats. And the outgroup of the blue tribe/SJ movement was mostly white proles, while the outgroup of the grey tribe was the blue tribe.
Of course the left helped Trump to win the primaries when they were writing about You Will Not Believe What The Orange Man Has Said Now. Anyone dissatisfied with the broader DC establishment could notice that they would be really pissed off if Trump won.
On the other hand, there are obvious advantages for the left to having an opponent they hate as deeply as Trump. For one thing, it prevents their base becoming meh about politics or going 'all politicians suck'. For another, Trump's core competence is saying outrageous things on social media. Someone boring and softspoken who was really good with enacting policy changes would be a lot worse for the left. Trump did not accomplish a whole lot in his first presidency besides getting into the evening news with a tweet of his every other day or so. (Dobbs was a forgone conclusion when Hillary lost, any other Republican would also have required the support of the Evangelicals and appointed pro-life Justices.) Compare that with GWB, who stared two disastrous wars and normalized torture. The US becoming the laughingstock of college-educated people everywhere might have been a small price to pay.
Trump II is definitely different, because this time Trump is able to enact more change. On the upside, most of his policies are actually not very popular. His protectionism will not make Americans rich. And while a majority might support more deportations, they certainly are not willing to view shot protesters as a price worth paying. And his new adventures in the ME will probably lead to a higher oil price and dead servicemen, both of which are things not terribly popular with his base.
quiet_NaN
12d ago
The obvious fix for an increased parental age would be for the state to pay for the harvesting and cryo-conversation of gametes of young adults and IVF a few decades later when they want to become parents. The costs for that are trivial compared to other financial incentives for having children, and it would certainly not be out of character for Sweden.
I am not surprised that most women do not elect to become mothers at age 20. Having a kid (or more than one) will substantially constrain your life (because for the first couple of years, they require monitoring 24/7, it takes ~15 years until you might leave them for a month to go backpacking in Australia without being thought a monster). Add to that fewer people are in stable relationships.
The other thing is that most couples in their 20s (and possibly in their 30s) can't really afford kids. (Of course, what people think they can afford is mostly dependent on their culture and class. I think among the middle/upper-middle class, the standard would be that each kid should have their own room, but this is largely arbitrary. Others might consider a roof over their head an optional extra for starting a family, or consider it irresponsible to put a child into the world without the funds to pay for an Ivy League education.)
quiet_NaN
13d ago
While Microsoft certainly has a history of paying big bucks for companies whose products it will then run into the ground (e.g. Skype), at 840G$ OpenAI might be a bit large for them to just swallow outright.
If OpenAI was years ahead of the competition, Microsoft might still shell out that kind of money to gain a monopoly on coding assistants, but that is thankfully not the case.
quiet_NaN
13d ago
No. Take a common use of the term as a slur from the last year: Trump's ICE was widely denounced as fascist by the left.
However, it seems hard to find a communist revolutionary force they were opposing, unless you want to extend that definition to a mayor declaring Minneapolis a sanctuary city.
quiet_NaN
13d ago
I made the point about exhaust velocities mostly wrt fission engines using thermal gas as a propellant. If you have a fission reactor as an energy source, getting a heating your propellant to a much higher temperature than your fuel elements seems challenging.
The length of your brachistochrone would depend on your available acceleration. If you have unlimited thrust, the fastest path is a straight line (relativity aside). If your thrust is very limited, I would expect that you will spend a lot of time orbiting the Earth while prograding until you escape it eventually, and then you will spend a lot of time circling the sun until your intercept.
However, I agree that 10mm/s^2 is still a usable amount of thrust within the solar system. The Dawn spacecraft got around with much weaker engines, but it definitely increased the transition time.
I am more skeptical about fission fragment engines. Sure, the exhaust velocity -- a few percent of c -- is amazing. But for every fragment which escapes and generates thrust, another one (or three) will hit your spacecraft. Because energy scales with v^2, if you want a decent thrust, that will mean an ungodly amount of energy. 1kN times 0.01c is something like a few Gigawatts of thermal power, similar to what a large commercial nuclear reactor might have. Cooling this away in space would be challenging. And if you add a reaction gas to get more momentum per energy (at lower exhaust velocities), you still have to confine that gas magnetically, which also adds overhead.
quiet_NaN
14d ago
I think the idea of a distinct German ethnic group was always an oversimplification by the Nazis. Population groups intermingle. A random person living near the borders of Denmark or Italy will probably be genetically closer to someone of the other side of the border than to his fellow Germans from 900km away.
Also, I am pretty sure that the work migration into Germany started in the 1960s, not in the 2000s. A pizzeria run by people of Italian origin or a Doener run by people from Turkey were both common in the 1990s.
I think it makes a lot more sense to define nation states culturally, which is to my understanding more the French way of thinking. Join the foreign legion, learn the language and the culture, and once you are done, you have become French.
quiet_NaN
15d ago
Your point is well taken. However, I would argue that Western Allies displayed some characteristics which were clearly fascist in tendency.
I am not going to accept that putting minorities in camps is healthy, normal, non-fascist behavior just because the US did so in WW2 wrt Japanese-Americans.
More broadly, I think that switching an economy to war production (controlled rather directly by the government), which in the US created the military-industrial complex which has been around ever since is rightfully associated with fighting total wars which is in turn weakly associated with fascism.
quiet_NaN
15d ago
I'd argue that the most common and consistent definition of fascism is "people who are willing to oppose communist revolutionaries with force".
This is silly. This makes simply almost everyone fascist, the Axis countries, Tsarist Russia, the western Allies. Even Stalin might qualify given that he had Trotsky killed.
quiet_NaN
16d ago
There are such things as frozen conflicts, where the arms fall silent despite both sides maintaining competing claims.
Are you saying that it is right and proper to thaw any frozen conflicts, such as Cyprus, China, Kashmir, Korea?
Or take the Cold War. In a way, Iran was following the Cold War etiquette when it enabled Hamas to commit Oct 7 -- enabling local freedom fighters/terrorists to blow up your enemy was a pretty standard move both for the US and the USSR. (Though I will grant you that in the cold war, you normally had your terrorists slaughter civilians of some state which did not matter rather than your peer competitor.) Of course, they found that the cold war etiquette does not really apply to non-nuclear states.
Both the US and the USSR considered each other to epitomize everything what was wrong with the world, used terms such as 'Empire of Evil' etc. Would the world be better if the conflict had gone hot?
Often, the correct move when faced with a conflict which is not in a shooting stage is to not start shooting and hope the conflict goes away. Sometimes it does. Sometimes your enemy will turn it into a shooting war eventually, e.g. in Ukraine or Nagorno-Karabakh. But sometimes, it really works out, the world is a lot better for the USSR collapsing instead of nuking it out with the West.
quiet_NaN
16d ago
Still, @yunyun333's overall point stands: most of the Islamic terrorism which reaches outside the ME is in fact Sunni terrorism (though funded and committed by citizens of allied gulf states rather than Afghans) rather than Shiite terrorism.
Blaming Iran for 9/11 (which was at least implied) is as absurd as blaming Saddam.
quiet_NaN
16d ago
I would not even call it lying, because a lie requires someone to potentially believe it, and at this point only the 10% most gullible would even consider taking Trump's word for anything. It is more like bullshitting, like a drunkard bragging about that time he caught a fish larger than himself. Or perhaps an applause light, 'I am saying something nice about my side, and by extension America. Only someone totally unpatriotic would try to fact check such a statement'.
What I don't get is: what is the purpose of having a judge sign the warrant if you do not name and shame judges for signing a bad warrant? If a warrant bears a judge's signature, then the buck stopped with them, and in the default case they deserve blame for it.
Of course, they could pass the blame by pointing out that given the evidence in the warrant application, it seemed justified. But then they need to throw someone else under the bus. "Actually, we had a witness who had made a sworn statement about kidnapping victims in a basement dungeon, and he was just found guilty of perjury and got a year of prison for that" would in fact absolve the other actors of most blame. Bonus points if they go after a cop for making a false sworn statement.
But if they say "Oopsy daisy, sometimes a warrant I sign is just bad, shit happens, nobody is really to blame for that" then you might as well replace them with a rock saying 'the warrant is probably fine'.
I mean, there are probably oops cases -- if a guy is caught on camera with a blood-dripping roll of carpet, that might justify a warrant for suspicion of murder, and if it later turns out that he merely buried his dog killed in a traffic accident then you say oops and move on. But in that case it would be easy enough to point out that of the last ten cases of blood-dripping carpet rolls, eight turned out to be homicides, and that it is better to raid one innocent than to let four murderers go free.
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