whenhaveiever
No bio...
User ID: 3296
whenhaveiever
3d ago
How do you define western civilization, and what makes it best? Especially in light of the industrial revolution and the shift from >90% of the population working in agriculture to <10%, I don't see us as living in the same civilization as anyone from hundreds of years ago, so talk about centuries-long cycles in a civilization that is barely centuries old doesn't compute. Our way of living, dominant beliefs, our heroes and demons, the way our families are structured, how we relate to those near and far, the dominant languages of the elites, all of that is so different from what came before that it feels a real stretch to call Christendom and Western civilization the same.
whenhaveiever
3d ago
Congratulations! It's an adventure.
Have a support network. Family, friends, church, what-have-you, just find other people who have had kids who will understand what you're going through and can sometimes help out. Before the baby pops out, make friends with other pregnant couples (there are apps and websites aimed at exactly this demographic). Taking care of two similar-age kids who are friends is not that much harder than taking care of one, and the ability to get a few hours' break by trading coverage with each other is priceless.
Also, enjoy it. There's lots that's really difficult and your life is about to change forever, but it's wonderful at the same time. I love spending time with my kid, and every new thing he figures out both makes me proud of him and also reminds me that he's going to need me less and less from here on out.
whenhaveiever
9d ago
As far as I can tell, the Flag Code doesn't limit itself to just physical pieces of rectangular cloth, or even the entire pattern. It mentions embroidery and printing as things that shouldn't be done to the flag, and given it was mostly written in 1923, I don't think the spirit of the Code would make exceptions for more modern manufacturing methods.
(i)The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown. (j)No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations...
...Not that anyone really cares. And if we'd all strictly followed the Flag Code from the beginning, there would be way fewer US flags in everyone's lives and it wouldn't have the same cultural impact.
whenhaveiever
11d ago
Same argument against as for every anti-trade policy: it raises prices. Goods that are efficient to make in the US already are, so you pay more under the new policy. Or more likely, they just don't put the flag on, so there's just less expression of American patriotism. Plus, there's already mandatory country-of-origin labeling on lots of products.
whenhaveiever
11d ago
It's in the Flag Code. You're not supposed to wear the flag, let it touch the ground, carry things in it or use it for advertising. Scoutmasters are probably some of the few who tend to follow it.
whenhaveiever
14d ago
I agree with you here. I was kinda expecting Scott's article to get into the question of just what it means for a broad society-wide institution to have a "purpose" which would likely get into issues like your last sentence, but he never went there.
whenhaveiever
14d ago
But what's troublesome is, all systems have unforeseeable unintended consequences
I think what's troublesome is that a lot of systems have foreseeable "unintended" consequences, and the debate over POSIWID is whether failure to prevent a foreseeable consequence means that it must have been an intended consequence.
whenhaveiever
30d ago
What does EHC mean in this context?
There does seem to be much more talk this time around about vibes and less talk about 4D chess.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
No discussion yet of this nugget, apparently from Vance?
I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.
Vance and Trump usually seem pretty united publically. Is there an interpretation I'm missing here that doesn't show a rift between them? This doesn't just say, "hey there will also be these other consequences." This says the president is inconsistent and is not aware of his own inconsistency. And further implies Vance can't just bring it up with Trump for clarity either. And that this group he's messaging (or the group he thinks he's messaging) already knows that.
Combine this with Vance steering Trump during the televised Zelenskyy debacle. I think Trump is really just governing based on raw emotional energy—these Houthis are causing us trouble, so let's fuck 'em over. And then it falls on Vance, Hegseth, etc to figure out how to actually do that. The details don't concern the big man.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
She was, which was made worse by the way they switched. But she had name recognition and more of a political record than Carney does.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
The NDP have been obliterated and I think its an open question whether the party continues to live on.
The NDP has lost official party status before and been just fine. Hell, there was even talk that the Liberals were close to collapse after coming in 3rd to the NDP in 2011, only for the Liberals to take everything in 2015. Singh is done, but then again, it's 36 days until the election, and 36 days ago everyone was sure the Conservatives would have the next government.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
The US doesn't maintain a public list of have and have-not states, but I'd venture that most members of Congress see it as their sacred duty to get as much money as possible redirected from the rest of the country to their state, and preferably to their district. The US is just better at hiding the fact that the regional looting has any costs to anyone.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
They have been official opposition before, after their first election in the 90s, which is kinda crazy to think about. As much as Republicans and Democrats accuse the other of destroying democracy/America, neither actually has the literal stated objective of leaving the country.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
Canada is hardly a one-party state. Sure, the Liberals have been in charge for almost ten years, but before that the Conservatives were similarly in charge for almost ten years.
But I agree that Canada just doesn't have the same checks and balances as the US, either for offices or for individuals. The only thing keeping a PM from being in office for life is that eventually something bad will happen that they'll have to take the blame for. I do wonder how much that's uniquely Canadian vs just being a feature of parliamentary systems.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
Coming on the heels of the Biden-Harris switch, I really didn't expect a Trudeau-Carney switch to do much better (and the election hasn't happened yet so I guess I shouldn't speak too soon). Basically nobody knew who Carney was before he ran. He did really well in his election but partly because no other candidate was really given the time of day. Whether it was the media or the party, he was essentially chosen before the voting.
But Canadian politics is not American politics, and here we are. For all that Trump seems to dislike Poilievre, a lot of Canadians see Poilievre as Trump-lite, so the more Trump acts out against Canada, the worse the Conservatives are going to do.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
First, Canadian politics aren't American politics. Lots of people support the status quo no matter what the status quo actually is. Supporting Canadian single-payer healthcare doesn't mean they'd want single-payer across all 51 states.
Second, Trump hardly has any love for the GOP anyway. The Grand Old Party (especially as represented by the last pre-Trump candidate, Romney) was the old elite, the ones who talked about things like family values, the moral majority and the dignity of the presidency. Trump himself is the new elite, and now a lot of Trump's administration are disaffected former Democrats. Low income/low education voters were reliably Democrats for decades, and now every election they swing more for Trump. He doesn't care about classic Republican values, so why would he care if Canadians don't either?
Third, union would be by far the most significant political event in either country in generations. Consider how for awhile everyone in the UK was identified as Leave or Remain. A hundred times more than that, union between the US and Canada would itself redefine political identity in both countries.
But even if it doesn't and it's just a clean mapping, I think it's at least as likely for the Bernie Left to join the NDP as it is for the NDP, Liberals and Democrats to all sing kumbaya and join together. (Decent chance Quebec bails completely, so we don't have to worry about the Bloc.) That could mean Republicans/Conservatives get an advantage for awhile, but a lot depends on the exact electoral structure of the new country. Just given physical size it seems likely for each province to be a separate state, but then whither Canadian identity? Does Canada maintain a Scotland-esque autonomous regional government?
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
Enclosed Earth—the planet is not just flat, it's entirely contained within an artificial dome that displays a fake universe. Neatly gets around some of the problems with a simple flat Earth. Plus you get an entirely new boogeyman, the Dome-builders, and the various space agencies and militaries of the world may be in contact with them or may just be terrified of them. The best part is, what's outside the dome could be literally anything, you can go any direction you want, since all our evidence about the universe is faked.
Similarly, the Inverse Hollow Earth. We live on the hollow inside of a sphere. When we look up into space, we're looking into the interior of the sphere. Distances are inversed or light naturally curves or something like that to make it look like there's a vast universe within this hollow sphere. But since we live on the inside surface, the "underground" rocks are actually the outside of the sphere, which just extends outward forever, like scientists claim "space" does.
The US government maintains a time travel base on Mars. They bring future Presidents to the base to show them their future to guide and/or control them.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
I admit I had never heard of USIP before yesterday, but there seems to be a critical disagreement over basic facts about what USIP actually is. I see sources saying it is an "independent" "private" organization, and therefore DOGE and Trump have no authority over it. Meanwhile, it seems to be funded by direct Congressional appropriation, forbidden from accepting private funding, and its board has to be nominated by the President and approved by the Senate. Those two sets of facts do not seem compatible to me, even given that there is a spectrum of organizations between fully public and fully private.
Whether the Administration's actions here are legal depends on which set of facts is really true.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
Would you mind expanding on that? If Poilievre gets the security briefing and couldn't share what's in it, how does that make him less effective than not getting the security briefing in the first place? Either way, he can't talk about it. What am I missing?
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
As I typed that, I wondered if someone here would have a solution I'd never heard of, and you came through almost immediately!
It's temperate enough here that I'm probably usually in too small of a heat gradient, but I appreciate the new rabbit hole to go down.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
Yeah, that would have been it! Though I was not one of the 129 in the survey.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
It's not a bad negotiation tactic to stake an initial position that you don't really want so you can give it up later. Trump's problem is that everyone knows he does this, so he has to go to even further extremes and repeatedly insist on them to draw the other side's estimate of what he really wants closer to his side.
The old chestnut is that we should take Trump seriously but not literally, and I think with Canada that's true. The global left for decades has talked about the American Empire and Trump has said, well, why not? That doesn't need to mean formal statehood but it does need to include personal deference to the emperor.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
I'd call him up and have frank negociations on what he really wants
That's exactly what Trudeau tried to do when he visited Mar-a-Lago. But a big part of what Trump really wants is fealty from his imperial vassals. Reshoring, unity against China, unity against Europe/whoever doesn't matter as much as personal loyalty to him. Trudeau has been far too opposed to Trump before to credibly demonstrate loyalty now, and I doubt that he even tried.
Another big part of what Trump really wants is to come away from the whole exchange with "a good deal." He knows he can get a better "deal" by holding a constant and ever-changing threat of tariffs over everyone. He doesn't care about the cross-border companies trying to figure out if they'll be able to pay their truck drivers next month, as long as in some way Trump can say the other side caved to his demands.
Now Carney has a tough balancing act. If he doesn't appease Canadian anti-Americanism, he'll quickly be out of a job. But he can't do that and give Trump the victory that he wants. In normal negotiations, there'd be room to say one thing publicly and do something else privately, but I don't think private acquiescence would be enough for Trump.
whenhaveiever
1mo ago
Years ago, I bought a CO2 monitor after reading something about indoor air quality (maybe gwern? I don't remember). Even just cracking the window makes a huge difference in the CO2 level. Sometimes I notice a difference in my drowsiness/motivation, sometimes I don't.
What I really need is some kind of magic vent over the window that lets the air freely circulate but keeps the warmth inside.
I am saddened to hear that.
More options
Context Copy link