I perpetuated fake news. This raises more questions. Why the big hubbub quitting then? Typical organization silliness?
Doesn't look like they've been named. Charles Murray and Cremieux vouch for the new, unnamed editors.
Ah, I see they're named in Murray's reply to his post. Darn you twitter.
Still perpetuated fake news. Shame.
Did The Motte already speak about this small story surrounding some controversy at psychology/psychometrics journal Intelligence? One of the, if not the, top journals for intelligence research to find publication as I understand it. Anyone privy to academic journal gossip?
Aporia reports "Mass resignations at the journal Intelligence: Numerous members of the editorial board resign after publisher installs new editors-in-chief."
The gist:
Intelligence is one of the few scientific journals where it is possible to publish work on controversial topics such as national IQ.
At the end of November, members of the editorial board were notified that current editor-in-chief Richard Haier would be stepping down and would be replaced by two new editors-in-chief. While editorships changing hands is perfectly normal in academia, two elements made this handover rather unusual.
The dirt:
the current editors were excluded from the decision of whom to select as new editor-in-chief, which was instead made by the journal’s publisher, Elsevier. The second is that the two individuals who were selected do not appear to be well-suited for the role. I will not name them...
Neither is currently a member of the journal’s editorial board, and neither lists “intelligence” among their main research interests on their faculty page.
There is also reason to believe that at least one appointee may not share the journal’s stated commitment to academic freedom as regards controversial topics.
Haier scheduled (forced?) to leave as EIC, publisher puts out job listings, then picks candidates that are perceived as unsuited to the listing and the role according to a number of editors.
Since learning about the new editors-in-chief and the process by which they were appointed, most members of the editorial board have resigned in protest. Some are now making plans to start a new journal. There is a general feeling that Elsevier has acted improperly.
The reporting is brief. A whole 7 paragraphs. I might even say it's incomplete.
Missing from the reporting includes a reason why the current editor-in-chief, Richard Haeier, is stepping down. Perhaps he is retiring. Who knows? I assume he was well-respected within the journal if his departure leads to mass resignations. He did a too-long Lex Friedman podcast appearance a couple years ago. It's probably good to have one public facing representative for intelligence research. I couldn't recall any big hubbub from Haeier's appearance on Lex Fridman's show, so I looked for some. Despite the episode reaching 1.8 million views, Google only showed me one mention of it in a "news" search. It was crammed into Quillete's weekly Bare Link Repository
Also not mentioned in the reporting is the names of the two new editors Elsevier has chosen to take over the journal. "I will not name them here." One commenter (brief /r/SSC discussion) suggests it is because naming the editors would make it harder to reverse the decision, but it is reported as if resignations are already through. It's done. So this could be a professional courtesy?
If this is a pressure campaign from editors and academics that seek to save the integrity of the journal they've invested in, then why choose Aporia of all places to spread the word? Quillette and The FP might report on this. If the new EIC's are the types to destroy the integrity of your journal why be courteous to them? The publisher wanted to change course no matter which way. Maybe Things Are In The Works and we'll hear more in time.
If everything is done and the journal considered lost by its editors, then I do reckon there's not much use crying about spilled milk to "heterodox" journalists. If the reported angle is accurate Intelligence made it through 2016-2023 only to fall now. Talk about timing.
"Woke" was always a kludge term to describe cringe leftists
Nitpick Nancy here. It was not always a kludge term. Woke was used as a self-identifying descriptor and signal among a significant number of people with ties to African American vernacular. It was enough people, with enough impact, and enough frequency to take off within progressive culture more broadly. Then, eventually, defined as a category of people to make fun of in the 2010s. The woke people -- as a group to make fun of -- may have always been used as a kludge to describe cringe progressives. This happened after the word gained popularity as a signal and identifier. Stay woke.
Konstantin does share some reasoning, but still reads like he wants to deploy "woke" as a synonym for bad. I don't think woke is a synonym for bad. It's a pejorative now, but that's not all that it is. There is (some) cultural significance, a bit of history, and meaning in its use that extends beyond a pejorative. Like Konstantin, I don't enjoy stuff like name calling, bullying centrists, or creating a culture of fear. However, woke right sounds down right grotesque to me. He must be stopped.
I don't think any of these are inherent to wokeness. If Konstantin wrote for Slate or the NYT he might feel less compelled to conjure up a new term for people he doesn't like, but interacts with frequently. He could call them far right and be done with it. He might even add in "extremist" at the end depending on how charitable he wanted to be with his framing. Lots of people call others far right. What's wrong with that? Twitter populists. Internet reactionaries. Contrarian right? Anti-Justice Warrior? Plenty of options.
Some of these fall more easily on my ears than 'woke right'. Doubt woke right catches on and enters common parlance. Remind me in 2 years.
It's time to coordinate some meanness against this tactic
Why not demonstrate they are wrong or mistaken? Is that mean enough? If there's specific concern trolls you are concerned with, then it'd be good to point them out to Mom--erators. People should be allowed to be wrong here. They should be allowed to make bad, misinformed arguments. They should be allowed to be duped and fall for the latest propaganda and regurgitate it with a fresh coat of polite paint on it here. They should be allowed to be embarrassed, apologize, or quietly slink away and come back with a new humility. You should be encouraged and motivated as you easily dispel provably false things. Easily dispelling provably false things is a major contribution and part of the immune system. Then for things that are not provably false you maybe can take it easy?
I don't make it around all the way through every thread, but I haven't seen an epidemic of DNC concern trolls here.
Okay, fair enough. Kudos to me for thinking of all the same examples as an MSN journalist. Eek. Bad of me to assume that should mean more. So sure, unprecedented in some ways, but it adheres to the spirit of the pardon in this case. For the good and bad reasons
It makes sense to be unprecedented. We don't see many mob bosses who require big blocks of time washed away receive pardons. That article led me to reporting on Bush 2. At the end of his second term in 2008 he issued then rescinded a pardon. All to avoid a look of impropriety. The concern? The recipient had donated to Republican candidates. How far we've come in 15 short years!
Another thing that article led me to was this 2020 paper from a bygone and never ending era. I skimmed. It's by a UConn professor that argues the presidential pardon has a "specificity requirement" based on the practices in English common law at the time of the American Founders. It doesn't seem like a great paper, but maybe I will finish it and report back.
Yes a lot of people believe pardon power is unfettered but what if SCOTUS ruled it wasn't and you had to specify crimes? What good would a pardon be if you couldn't get your son off the hook because he probably can't even remember all his crimes? I suppose it'd be fine if it was more like a guilty plea, so long as it still had broad power.
Is that typical?
I don't think it is atypical in cases that warrant it. In cases where crimes may have been committed over a period of time pardons will apply to a time frame in addition to specific crimes. Otherwise the pardon has potential to not feel very pardon-like in a few years. Who knows what kind of goofy antics Hunter was up to we don't know about? The draft dodgers pardons, general amnesty pardons, and a pardon like the one Nixon received apply to chunks of time rather than a pardon for only a specific crime.
As I understand, presidential pardons are basically magical spells. Make'em how you want. Biden wants his son safe from prosecution, so he casts a more powerful spell. Biden may know there is more dirt to find, fears or knows of Republican intentions to go digging, or simply doesn't trust his son with an ounce of mud to be honest about things. If you're going to pardon him properly, then it's best to pardon him for the time period he was a bad boy.
wemptronics
19d ago
Oh, that would have been clever. Biden could even commute the sentences for the Jan 6 people rather than pardon them. That's a difference people can point at. This action indicates Biden doesn't seem worried about blowback on his party or the politics. I don't really blame him. Pardoning Trump as a deflection is a no brainer if you want a deflection, but if you're not concerned about the politics, why bother? Dark Brandon indeed.
I had little hope for a presidential pardon for Trump had he lost the election. Dems so fully committed to get him on legalities that I don't think POTUS declaring a time to heal would even have had the state prosecutions pack up shop. We passed the point of no return. I hope America hasn't seen its last overt act of graciousness in the service of moving forward peacefully. Hopefully post-Trump world sees some amount of useful grace return to politics. I do not have high hopes for it in now-Trump world. I would like to be surprised!
Well don't let the words of some guy on the internet get you down. I think it is technically possible to be too cynical when it comes to national politics. The reverse is the more common folly imo.
The theatrics are front and center, inside and out, on the front-end and in the back end. Insiders, pundits, campaign staffers, candidates and the political class at large gives a lot of attention and time to concepts like narrative, optics, and messaging. There is mandated finger wagging from some Klein/Yglesias Debbie Downer to say Policy is What Counts and, yeah, probably so. Policy ain't a campaign though.
It's optimized. Both parties distill turnout driving messaging all the way down to "most important election of our lifetime". I like candidates being more honest and direct about stuff than doing the politics, but I think we're in the minority. It wins more elections. Simple as.
I didn't vote for the guy either. Capturing authenticity in a market saturated with fakery, hackery, and theatrics? It's smart. It's not a one-in-a-million Trump strategy that can't be replicated. Walz was supposed to be authentic. I didn't really buy it. Vance was presented by the media as an inauthentic robot early on. I think people oversell his Normal Guy status, but he's not standing-awkwardly-in-a-donut-shop.jpg as presented.
Even in a staged McDonald's photo op, with obviously screened patrons Trump comes out looking authentic in a way that Kamala never could match. I saw (admittedly, low hanging internet comments) Dems screaming "but it's fake!" Yeah. It doesn't matter that it's all staged. Voters know it's staged. Voters know he loves McDonald's. They like watching him bullshit with a worker and pretend to cook fries. It resonates.
My guess is national/DC Dems have too many people that have drank the Kool-Aid. Trump will sometimes pull the curtain up, but the swamp remains undrained! This run on the podcast circuit (will see more of that) I heard him speak a few times about people he is meant to hate -- Chuck Schumer, for instance -- as normal colleagues playing a game. If he loses the election, then he might be going to jail at the behest of these people! That is a calming, confident response. Hate the man for his faults and failures, but that's a base leadership quality people recognize. Might be a product of the assassination attempts as I don't recall that kind of candid (comfortable?) speaking in 2016.
wemptronics
21d ago
They pretended that Kamala could not go on Rogan at any point in the campaign because it would consume too much time and she was too busy on the road campaigning. They really tried hard to make it seem like a sensible logistical issue.
This sounds right. Campaign staffers that want to work on more campaigns can't be honest about a great many things. They can't say "there was a real risk the candidate would not be up to the task of competing with renowned philosopher and thinker Joe Rogan." Pundits can read between the lines and say that. Do they criticize Kamala as a candidate or describe her limitations at all?
The machine does not want to sell that story. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps it's not right to do so. Kamala did her bit. She did the VP duty thing. Not exceptionally, but most VPs are not exceptional. She managed to be quiet and forgotten. For a brief moment in time Kamala had her time in the spotlight with all the cogs moving to support her bid. I suppose a billion dollar campaign is just what you do to go through the motions.
I have heard of cases like this happening in urban areas (coded Blue), but this case happened in a rural place (coded Red).
I agree this is strange.
I think there's something we aren't hearing in this case. Mrs. Patterson is a real estate agent in the city of Blue Ridge. She even has an office in the charming main street of the mountain-lake town. She probably has a billboard somewhere. She places Emerson quotes in her real estate biography.
Blue Ridge has boomed as a tourist destination the past 25 years. The city government and county surrounds it has all the typical trappings of a quiet place finding more and more money flowing in. Every small town has petty feuds, power struggles, and usually some corruption and/or incompetence. Add in the fact that New York millionaires and retired baseball players are setting up shop there it seems to raise the stakes.
The place is being gentrified. It wouldn't surprise me if local authorities might go out of their way to make trouble to the people selling out their culture as agents of change. It could also be something pettier, too. Maybe Patterson did someone's cousin dirty in a wrong way. Officer Powertrip happened to hear all about this story and never liked the woman or anything she represents. So she finds her kid wandering, decides to drop him off with gramps, and when she finds out that was her-- a quick call to Cousin Jimmy. A Sheriff that either looks the other way or himself was the one to receive a phone call and Make Things Happen. Bam. She done got what was coming.
That's all fiction, but it makes a heck of a lot more sense than Blue Ridge police demanding parents keep their kids on a leash at all times. As far as I know it is a place where the locals will give little Sam a deer rifle for his 13th birthday. The charge is one thing, but the follow through makes me think Patterson has upset someone at some point. It is a place where you do business, make friends with the local powers, do County Commissioner Rick a solid, and stuff like this never happens.
Could also be overzealous enforcement by Officer Karen. All the follow through is the typical signifier of loyal backing. Cops can do that. I don't blame Mrs. Patterson for assuming she lived in a safe place where her 11 year old could enjoy some freedom. Very strange.
wemptronics
1mo ago
Francis Fukuyama publishes a letter to Musk with regards to DOGE. He tells Musk that the number of Federal employees have remained about the same for 50 years. Young people don't go into the Federal government jobs, so they're filled with older people and about a bagillion contractors.
Under these conditions, you cannot fire your way to excellence. Government work needs to be made attractive to younger, tech-savvy people; they need the flexibility to go in and out of federal employment and not be subject to a Government Service pay scale for job categories created 70 years ago, when most bureaucrats were clerks and typists.
This probably won't happen. I thought this was interesting though:
Many conservatives believe that government bureaucrats have too much discretionary authority and use it to enact a liberal agenda, thereby eluding democratic control. This does occur in some instances. But the real truth is rather the opposite: bureaucrats spend way too much of their time complying with hundreds of rules mandated by Congress, rather than using their independent judgment to make decisions that lead to good results for citizens
We need to cut back government regulation of many parts of the private sector. But we also need to deregulate the government itself, and allow those who work for it to actually do their jobs.
I agree that bureaucrats spend too much time in byzantine labyrinths and upending many of those could be good. However, if faceless bureaucrats act upon me as a lowly private citizen I have little to no legal recourse.
Fukuyama -- and Musk probably -- want a younger, more efficient bureaucracy with less red tape and nonsense. I would also like the boot to not be wasteful and do good things. Still, I hope Musk, et. al. keep in mind what he means to destroy, rebuild, and design. He means to resole the boot that can and will stamp on my face. It's not exactly a great boot in its current form, but let's not go making it more monstrous than it needs to be.
wemptronics
1mo ago
I think I'm familiar with many of the grievances and worries, yes. Of those that I consider real friends I even have shared some opinions of my own.
Anyway, it didn't put a damper on it for most near as I could tell. Gay marriage didn't even come up. That's why I rated 2024 as a 5-6/10.
federal level legislation to make it more difficult to exist as openly queer
There's a lot wrapped up in this that doesn't start or end with gay marriage. General trans issues is a more common topic within this group. If a make-or-break gay marriage case makes it up to SCOTUS it'll definitely be at the forefront. I understand, yeah.
If you can't Drawl The Y'all without feeling like a self-conscious phony it's going to hamper the affect and remove the joy of y'alling.* That's a predicament. I wouldn't think you would have to Drawl the Y'all to find a natural tone, but I'm not anyone but me.
If you find yourself talking with real salt of the earth rednecks, then I'll recommend you moderate your y'alling so you don't appear like or feel like a phony. They generally won't find "you guys" problematic in the ways urbane, middle class professionals might."
"You all" sounds like a compromise. In an environment where the Appropriated Y'all is dominant for less than authentic reasons I can see the measured use of a good you all. I like "folks" as well, but it can appear as unnatural and forced as a self-conscious y'all-- being employed by the same types for the same reasons.
That's why I say no shame, consideration, or fear. If it's gonna be appropriated by urbane, middle class professionals for weird cultural sensitivities you may as well y'all away, y'all freely, and y'all without remorse. Y'all around the world.
If anyone calls me out over it I plan to play extremely dumb -- but nobody ever does.
Lol. If it happens at least write about it here so our ancestors can one day read about how off the rails we went.
EDIT: You do not say it like an antebellum Southern gentleman if that's what you're asking. Although it'd probably be pretty awesome if you did do that-- in a non-professional setting.
My Dad said y'all. My Grandpa said y'all. His father probably said y'all.
I hope one day you may be find the courage and fortitude to return to "you guys", but in the mean time I'm giving you your y'all pass. No longer should you feel like a y'all carpet bagger. Y'all away. Y'all freely. Y'all without any shame, consideration, or fear.
Progressives want to claim it for themselves. Edgelords want to re-re-code it into oblivion. They can come and take it.
If we create a negative reaction Doom Scale that accounts for impact and prevalence I'll grade the 2016 reaction as something like a 7. Negative reactions were maxxed out without trudging into the upper end of the scale. If the scale only includes reactions to elections I've seen in my own lifetime as a reference, as it probably should, then 2016 earns an easy 10.
I attended a gay, queer-lesbian wedding post-election. Maybe a 40/60 normie to gay queer-lesbian ratio in terms of attendance. The attendees included lots of people that I know to talk about Trump's evils, genocides, and so on. I only ran into one person that couldn't not talk about Trump.
"Hi, good to meet ya I'm wemptronics, this is yadda yadda"
"I'm Incredibly Gay and Queer-Lesbian Wedding Guest"
"This is great isn't it?"
"Yeah. Well. If only, you know, something bad hadn't happened."
"..."
"Oooooh I don't know, might there have been something that happened? Something huge and terrible?"
"Yeah, I get it"
[Speaking to Gay and Queer-Lesbian Partner] "I know, I know, I said I wasn't gonna talk politics but you know it effects all of us the most and..."
Whatever stern look Gay and Queer-Lesbian Partner gave must have partially worked, because the mourning and diatribe only went on for a minute or so. Afterwards, politeness, drinks, and good cheer won the day.
In 2016, I recall making a "it'll be ok" post in response to the wave of the doomposts by blue friends, colleagues, and family. Doesn't feel necessary this time around, but I'm also less online. Gay and Queer-Lesbians will talk plenty of Trump, but the threshold for imposing their politics on me at a wedding has been raised it seems. I might rate 2024 as a 5-6/10 compared to 2016's 10/10. I do expect the #resistance gears to get turning as we approach inauguration day, but it'll be less of an oppressive cultural zeitgeist and more of a bog standard party-out-of-power deal.* Hopefully.
I do expect every culture war issue to make a return to the limelight. All the fan favorites: police misconduct, every school shooting, rape allegations. It's living, I guess.
My wife and 2nd daughter were aghast that this happened.
Cheers, then not all is lost. I wasn't trying to cast you into inceldom. Vaguely recognizing like shapes. Maybe that's uncharitable.
Jumbles, rumbles, and rambling:
Because it seems the evidence is mounting that there may actually be an out-group, largely composed of some type of woman that can't be identified or encircled; something like Vance's cat-ladies but not quite.
People make such identifications, but I agree it's difficult to land on any particular one. AWFL exists. I'm not sure it's accurate, because I don't know if white or liberal is necessary to yell-at-baby or badger an authority to Do The Right Thing. White women are the acceptable target of the day. There's a brand of white trash that's not really afraid to pull any lever, other than cops, to settle a grievance or perceived slight. Narcissists. The internet loves that one. Black women have a stereotype around around the kind of self-interested, righteous grievance balloon.
The lower class offender looks more like narcissism to me, whereas the higher class offender has more sophisticated (cultural, political) justifications for (what I consider) bad behavior. Perhaps that's the tie in to race. So, uh, are we just talking about intelligence? How are the Asian women doing out there compared to white women?
There's been an absolute increase in the number of jerks and a lot of jerk behavior gets covered in America by culture warring. Women more likely to utilize authority for little reason other than it's something to do-- or easily convinced it's The Right Thing to Do? Probably, yeah. Women more likely to yell at baby? Probably that too, but maybe because a man has more experience thinking of consequences when it comes to other people's kids. At least compared to pretty girls.
The prototypical Karen is the bored busybody. Karen adopts and uses the HOA as an extension of herself. Because. Type A Karen. If that is related to yelling at babies at a political event I'm not sure how. Maybe it boils down to 100 years ago the yell-at-baby girl would have had a husband drag her off before she could embarrass herself in front of the entire nation?
Don't get hysterical, darling. Protesting is uncouth.
And maybe that's all it is. Men know they can leave the small stuff to the ladies to clean up and the Internet simply opened the door to every level-one nudnik to run rampant.
A lower trust society, they say. If we want a more polite society we will need women to enforce it. Tying all this together feels like it is doing too much. But that could be my lack of imagination.
With Peanut, a lady in Texas presumably sent the complaint to a lady in New York who sent the city services to take the squirrel out back and shoot it. Clearly that's just a coincidence...right?
No, it's probably not a coincidence. Ignoring petty complaints, that's a Boys' Club thing. The Boys' Club decides it's not worth the time and ignore it. Sometimes the Boys Club decides to ignore the casting couch. Sometimes it decides to ignore women who complain about too many ice cubes. Sometimes The Boys Club isn't a Boys' Club at all and is instead a restaurants wait staff full of Non-Boys.
You guys talk about a decrease in state capacity. How's'a'bout the capacity to investigate and euthanize wild pets in an orderly and timely fashion? Didn't think of that one, did ya? I would have guessed that the NY Department of Environmental Conservation would just ignore complaints from out of state. It's what I would do. Where did you learn it was a lady from Texas sent a complaint? I just see "anonymous" complaints. Why not a neighbor?
If my neighbor in the next apartment kept weird wild life pets I'd probably ignore it. If they posted cute videos online I'd ignore it. If those pets did things like cause minor problems for my dog I'd be less inclined to ignore it. If that happened more than once I'd probably report it after speaking with them*. This seems possible. If you want to collect wild life without consideration of your neighbors, then live somewhere you can do that.
A lot of people seem fine critiquing this event. Not a lot of defenders. Biden hasn't denounced all garbage squirrels. Maybe he should though, because they are crafty assholes that empty bird feeders.
Why did that lady at the Harris rally scream about Palestine at a baby?
Young woman lost sight of herself and actions at a political event. Her political ally recognizes the malfeasance and polices her behavior. That's a learning experience for most.
A lot of people seem fine critiquing this event. Including one in the video. Not a lot of defenders. We can all make mistakes. Ping me if we see her again.
Like....is the Karen meme deserved and legitimate?
Probably. People's wills can be overbearing and annoying. I wanted to attribute a defense of 'Karen' as a social policing agent to a Freddie deBoer article, but all I can find at the moment is this regarding Covid.
Meanwhile we live among a Praetorian guard of busybodies who want everyone to know that the rest of us aren’t taking Covid seriously enough. These are people who are existentially similar to the “Karen,” 2020’s favorite archetype, except that they’re used to calling other people Karens. But they are precisely that figure of clueless white deference to authority that self-nominates as the world’s hall monitor. And while they want you to mask up and vaccinate and obey other rules, what’s much more important to them than regulating your behavior is that they let you know that you don’t feel the right way about Covid.
Which reads like a truncated version of Planet of Cops. Which is not a defense of Karen.
There's a some Defense of Karen thinking out there. This one is kinda one. as an important (if elevated) part of society. We have a need for Karen. Some business interests want to stop Karen, but they are powerless. Karen keeps the trains running on time. Except for the times where the train isn't on time and she inconveniences the line of people behind her by not shutting up about it. Then she makes me late.
I don't consider myself a woman-hater. Hell, once upon a time I considered myself a feminist. Is it just my imagination or has something in our national psyche gone and unleashed the worst aspects of womanhood upon the land?
Are you particularly sympathetic to gender critical view? Smarmy, scolding Karen might be annoying, but men do a violence and rape. I don't think making men an outgroup is necessary to denounce or police murder and rape. I'm not saying you can't or should not police Karen's gross excess. The culture even still allows and, sometimes, encourages this. If the conditions are right.
I have sympathy for the view that detests the feminization of society. Not all of it is bad. I'm glad not every dispute is concluded with a rock to the head. I would like to work towards something... healthier and more easily appreciated. I wouldn't make women your outgroup, though. Go find you a nice girl that doesn't like yelling at babies or killing squirrels. And there's always Sam Hyde's sage advice.
I know it's orthogonal, but that NYT piece is pretty thorough. Let me yap about it.
The NYT piece ultimately doesn't really investigate the why schools are mandating enrollment-- and why those schools are often majority minority. It kinda does the journalist thing and quietly alludes to Big Army being behind it, but doesn't provide any evidence for this.
From experience, lots of admin and parental decisions send troublemakers into JROTC with the mistaken belief it will straighten them out. Which I guess is how a school decides to make a program 100% mandatory. Almost universally, troublemakers figure out that JROTC instructors have the same authority and tools as a teacher. Whose authority they have already beaten or frustrated. Some instructors have more talent at discipline having had more practice, but a 100% mandatory enrollment program must be a nightmare. Miserable for any kids with a genuine interest.
Except for a few the program is already perceived by the kids as geeky and uncool enough as is. For those who actually want to be there and those who enjoy it, but won't say as much, it's demoralizing and embarrassing. (There are inter-school events & competitions to be embarrassed at.)
For school admins that have run out of ideas applying the "straighten them out" theory of the unwilling at scale makes sense. So, less about recruitment. I would be interested to see if the mandated JROTC participation has any effect on discipline. I would suspect not. There are definitely some success stories. Some kids do get straightened out or distracted enough to graduate -- enlisting or not. Maybe they would have done the same learning to play an instrument, but the structure does provide some different things than marching band.
“I have issues with behavior, and issues with grooming requirements and other things,” Colonel Anderson said. He said he struggled constantly to maintain a structured class “for teenagers who don’t want to be in the program.”
A lot of kids that never encounter concepts found in a JROTC program in a more positive light: discipline, self-respect, pride, accountability and so on outside of their urban contexts. Many have a warped view on what respect actually means. Traveling and outdoorsing for kids that had never left the city, or never stepped foot into a forest before.
A good program will offer volunteer opportunities and college admissions bait. Even if you've not an interest in going to an academy/ROTC or enlisting it's a plus for admissions. Giving teens an opportunity to manage large budgets, plan and coordinate trips involving 50+ kids across the country, and possibly fuck it up to learn a lesson is generally good. Active duty folks encountered on trips, mostly enlisted, tend to do a decent job counter-weighting any idealized versions of military life.
Recruiters are never going to be hard to find. You want to volunteer to take the ASVAB? That's gonna be a clear opportunity at least once a year. It's fucking obviously used as a recruitment pipeline. However, for a lot of kids and their families enlistment is seen as an increase in station and a direct path out of the hood. Some moms don't like they babies wearing a uniform, but many others insist that they do. I think it's trivially true that, for a lot of kids at the dysfunctional schools from dysfunctional homes, some years of active duty service are probably their easiest, most direct path to a more stable, functional life. Plenty of them enlist, remain fuck ups, and make the military more frustrating for those around them. Oh well.
Maybe a PIJ camp is the same thing, but it looks pretty different from my experience. JROTC camps are more like "Leadership Course Summer Camp." PIJ camp does look like more fun than the actual military for the most part. They all have that in common I imagine. I don't know anything about the America/Israel, Fuck Yeah, Patriotism Camp. That may be closer to PIJ camp than a huge national program like JROTC. Which has expended a fair amount of effort justifying itself, so it's seen as not-just-a-recruitment pipeline, while remaining a recruitment pipeline.
wemptronics
1mo ago
My guess is that once the escape hatch construction got under production it became a matter of motivation. Easier to stay involved in development when it is known a switch would definitely happen. They added a lot of features the place would never have on reddit, so that's probably another bonus that mods would value more highly than users.
I think I would have preferred the escape hatch remain dormant until necessary too, but I don't blame them for the full commit. If the place is gonna move it's better to do so in an orderly fashion over an emergency. If it's going to die or fail because of it, so be it. Not like the place didn't see evaporative cooling complaints after the move to the standalone sub.
Are the AAQC's not reviewed? I assumed mods looked at the reports and used discretion to make a cut. Which I guess means the janitor duty thing goes all the way and the AAQCs are only reviewed by the handful of people as temp jannies. But @naraburns is still (thankfully) editing these lists so I imagine they are glancing?
AAQC inflation makes sense in a period of decreased activity, decreased quality, or both. If jannies we want to encourage Good Posts to keep coming the gold star is all we have besides uptokes. Which can include bread-and-butter top level posts without big surprises, such as mine there, if the place is lacking them. But to compare my submission to a contribution like Dean's series of comments-- these are in a different weight class with regards to quality, insight, and effort.
and arguably wasn't even at its conception
Yes. Eternal struggle doomed to failure. It's fine.
From memory... for a long time concerns about the CW thread being targeted by admins were elated through security through obscurity wisdom. Once the admin notices came -- and enough examples of subs of similar/smaller size being whacked or castrated -- that was a confidence shot. I do recall one point was that admins wouldn't clarify certain things for the mod team.
Reddit shuts down subs they don't like. Reddit admins gut and replace subreddit moderation teams they don't like. Subreddits change rules, like "don't mention trans issues at all", and similar requests at the behest of admin interactions. As I recall in one of those meta threads there was a mod from /r/PoliticalCompassMemes that chimed in with his dealings with admins and the moderation changes he had to make because of admin requests. Or maybe it was the /r/drama mods, because I remember they offered to host The Motte.
I don't recall Zorba or mods claiming TheMotte was being especially targeted or persecuted. Being targeted wasn't necessary to get dunked on or ordered to change. Somewhere back there it is explicitly said that the decision to move included the fact that Zorba would rather the project end than have to do something like censor all discussions on Topic X. Plenty of people said don't bother or not a big deal to censor whatever as I imagine you've seen from looking through the old threads.
The CW thread hosts holocaust deniers, HBD autists, and that one time that guy candidly admitted he was a (non-offending) pedophile. It's not a reddit friendly space-- which polices content and not just tone. It's not that strange to consider its time on reddit is limited by how long its controversy remains unknown. Even without the details of the admin correspondence or principles, when a place like the gendercritical sub gets booted off the site there's not a lot of confidence that a place like The Motte is secure. Maybe they're less heavy handed now, but there was lots of overt admin actions in that time period on reddit.
Maybe Zorba moved as a big ruse so he could put in a bunch of volunteer work and pay for webhosting. Seems unlikely though?
wemptronics
1mo ago
Seems like you could probably work with the big corporate chains to encourage their employees to testify. A day's wage to have an employee testify should reduce losses that pay dividends, or a tax break for collaboration with local law enforcement & courts on this matter. Ma and Pop shops seem like they'd be encouraged by necessity and a glimpse at actually tackling the problem, but getting them into court for a day might be more difficult.
Either way these things should be made (some amount) easier just by proving they are having an effect. People become motivated when they believe they're contributing to tackling a problem they've dealt with first hand.
I admit even typing them they sound like optimistic "just solve the problem lol" ideas, but it shouldn't be some impossible feat of man to convict thieves. At least if we are looking at a power law, then resources can be focused. That darn constitution and protections do be causing inconveniences. Sad!
I do wish we could figure out real rehabilitation methods for those that could be receptive. We can program people to think and believe lots of things. Norway, Denmark, and Japan all have seemingly more successful release programs. Although, I have read on Wordcel Substacker #300 differences in recidivism may not be as stark as they are made out to be as commonly understood.
This 20% vs 76.6% comparison is particularly egregious as the Norwegian figure is more narrowly defined and measured over a much shorter time frame. The American 76.6% figure above was based on rearrest within 5 years (Durose et al., 2014), whereas the Norwegian 20% figure described the number who received a new prison sentence or community sanction that became legally binding within 2 years (Kristoffersen, 2013). Both figures refer to prisoners released in the year 2005.
Of the American recidivism statistics mentioned in the previous section, the 28.8% incarceration figure is arguably the most comparable in definition to that of the 20% Norwegian figure.2 Thus, when the comparison is closer to apples-to-apples, the difference between Norway and the United States is far more modest.
Norway still releases more young people in their 20's that reoffend less than the US. So, something over there works better. Whether that's ethnic, cultural, procedural, or a combination. Intaking people young and releasing them old will decrease crime, yes. Clara would probably say it isn't fair to keep someone in jail for 20 years after stealing $500 of shampoo (for the 5th or 25th time).
Bleeding heart advocacy might be better aimed at separating the extreme serial offenders (who should remain in jail) at the tails from the less dedicated (but regular) criminal. Instead it appears to all be wrapped together in the general Prison Bad memeplex and abolitionist impulse. Effective parole programs should keep former criminals busy and out of trouble, but they don't do this very well. The profit incentive for a private probation contractor is another, if often overstated, complicating factor in my eyes.
I don't trust the state to throw up its hands and say, sorry the best we can do is hand out X year sentences to everyone until they're 40. Thankfully this isn't proposed. For the person on their 12th conviction? I don't know what else can be done. Either accept the trade off (more criminals more crime), ship them to Australia, or some Prospera-style project where Progressive Abolitionist, Inc. can run their own rehabilitation experiments.
wemptronics
1mo ago
Had the west stayed out of this, or not gotten involved in Israel, both conflicts would likely be over.
If Israelis had no considerations other than victory at all costs, sure. Maybe they would have wiped the slate clean in 1948. Israel makes a decision to not "end" the conflict, because Israelis will not or cannot end it in whatever manner you have in mind. Yes, there is pressure and considerations from its allies, because it finds value in these things.
If Israel decides to, it can go door-to-door next week and win forever. Arab states might fling cruise missiles at them for some decades, but the US isn't going to invade. Winning forever is too violent, destructive, and unpopular in Israel. Very unpleasant.
They have considerations other than American college students when it comes how to wage war. Like their own voting populace.
Is it better to feed thousands of men into a conflict that is probably going to last until we run out of Ukrainian men to fight it and probably eventually get conquered anyway.
Better for who? It still seems like they will avoid regime change. If you value that sort of thing. Making land grabs a costly endeavor is good, actually. You and I can decide what an appropriate cost is. You say 160 billion and a few hundred thousand slavic souls is too much. It's a lot. But you seem to think that, absent some donated anti-tank weapons and training, this would all be over and pleasant and nice. I don't think this is a given. Russia is paying an insane cost for what it has gained thus far in its endeavor for strategically questionable gains. Ukraine has paid a terrible cost, too.
Ending conflicts the old fashioned way of letting them go to their natural end instead of creating perpetual stalemates that aren’t resolved.
Depending how you define "the old fashioned way" it's easy to land on conflicts that lasts decades or centuries. We don't even have to go medieval. I'm sure if you asked a Prussian in 1872 whether the question of Alsace and Lorraine was settled, they would have said definitively. Lo and behold.
Winning forever with permanent conflict resolution is not the norm. Permanent resolution is more pleasant for those of us mostly uninvolved abroad, but not very pleasant for those getting permanently defeated.
I had linked it as well, but axed that paragraph in an edit.
If they refund their prestige by, say, making all their prestigious domain editing expert volunteers leave they might also damage the bottom line. If the journal isn't financially viable they can try to turn it into a new kind of journal with a different mission. That would make sense.
However, since my post there has been a different assessment from two people that both have a history in intelligence research. Could be politics of other sorts that was sold as something else. Some clique angry one of them didn't get the job.
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