crushedoranges
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User ID: 111
crushedoranges
3d ago
American healthcare is also insidious in that A) emergency care is mandated to to administered, regardless of circumstances and B) if the patient can't pay for their emergency care, then the provider eats the costs.
For SOME reason, Americans can't do the math and realize that this means that paying customers are charged more, and that's why their ER rooms are over-capacity from being used as a universal health service.
To fix healthcare costs, either emergency care is paid for by the state - or emergency care is not administered to those who can't pay.
crushedoranges
11d ago
Before I address the essential thrust of your argument, I would like to state that although many people say that Martin's work is morally complex, I believe that it is not true. To say that 'war is bad' is a rhetorical tool is comic over-exaggeration. In truth, I believe that his work is not even strong enough to state such a thing definitively. That is the nihilism of which people speak. There is no message. Things happen. There is no meaning in the cruelty and goodness of these characters: it might as well not have been written. Their deeds don't effect the world. At times, they hardly effect themselves.
It is an exhausting and alienating element of which detracts from the work as a whole.
And that is the fly in the ointment. You can get away with things happen (that's what slice of life is all about, after all.) If the characters are compelling and interesting enough, you can get away with it. But he has slaughtered his best characters and introduced new ones which also meander around, and in an even less interesting fashion. The Dornish characters, Quentyn and Arriane, exemplify the issue the best. Brienne of Tarth wanders around in a futile quest looking for a girl who we know isn't there... Sansa cools her heels observing intrigues that strain the memory to remember.
Perhaps this is more realistic. But he has gone too far. He has deconstructed not just his predecessors, but his own story, and he is unable to put together his magnum opus. If the true quality of stories is the human heart in conflict with itself. then why does his later books make me feel nothing? Why do I feel bored? Why should I give a damn about his silly characters if they do things that change nothing?
Martin's characters are hypoagentic: the plot (read: his notional outline that grows increasingly distorted as characters spin their wheels, waiting for their cue) drives them where they need to go. They have no volition of their own, they are constantly driven by circumstances beyond their control. Neither heroes or villains, just people... perhaps a poignant philosophical point, but terrible for a coherent narrative. He looks into the abyss and sees in it reflected his own helplessness and lack of meaning.
There is nothing romantic about that.
This is a good essay, albeit, one that I disagree with vehemently, so I will attempt to rebut concisely and with the most gentle of rebukes.
If the sum of his contribution to the fantasy genre is that 'it's more complicated then that' and shades of grey, I'd reply: 'no shit'. He muddles... in a very liberal kind of way. In a way that does not add clarity, but obfuscates. In the way Samwell Tarly (his favorite character and probable authorial stand-in) is. Feast for Crows is him saying 'war is bad'. No shit! Don Quixote tilting at windmills. You mean to tell me that this author who desires to add nuance to the fantasy genre, comes up with the moral... war is bad'. Is his target audience literally children? Are they morons? Are they liberals?
He doesn't have to tell us that the world is full of piss and shit and cum and tax returns, we know that. There is a genre of Japanese novel, of which is called pillow books, which can be best summed up as... things happen. Things happen, in his underedited, over-bloated work, but nothing much of consequence actually occurs. (This is mostly talking about 4 and 5, rather than 1-3.) Contrast it to his own work - the Dunk and Egg novels, which are superior, which reiterate the core themes of ASOIAF - because they are short stories, and they are not allowed to meander into irrelevancy where things just Happen. They have plots.
To sum it all up (and to not be hypocritical about brevity being the soul of wit) if you're going to write a fantasy epic that is very long, write the transcendental and heroic. If you're going to be an indulgent ride where bad people do horrible things to worse individuals (Black Company is very fun) admit it. There's nothing wrong with that kind of writing. It's unpretentious. Don't be a fat fraud, a stammering pussy, and write about sex and gore and baby-smashing and then waggle your finger at the reader with liberal platitudes.
If Martin was honest about his anti-war and feminist beliefs, he would have written Vinland Saga, but he didn't. He chose to write this. And yes - we can judge him for it. He certainly doesn't hold back with his political opinions. He should extend his audience the same courtesy. But he doesn't. I think that sums it up very nicely.
crushedoranges
11d ago
I don't care what others think, I like Kaladin and I will fight you to the death in defence of his wholesome bridgemen.
But I will agree in part that Sanderson does not know how to write a convincing heterosexual relationship. I suppose it would be too much to ask a Mormon to write erotica. But then again, Meyers of Twilight fame can do it, why can't he?
crushedoranges
12d ago
I am not sure what he is specifically speaking of, but the French are in debt to the tune of 130% of GDP and are constrained by EU regulations which forbid the country from deficit spending. (They can't devalue the Euro and they can't increase the ratio any further.) Hence, budget cuts... which are despised on both the far left and the far right.
If France - one of the core members of the EU - is in trouble, then normally it would be Germany who would shoulder the burden. But in this case, Germany is in trouble too. So there's no help from them. France is more likely to have a revolution than dismantling its own welfare state... if the EU bureaucrats attempt to enforce a decision made by the troika (EC, ECB, IMF) then the French people will burn down the country. Three-way civil war.
If they don't, and do the pragmatic thing and give France an exemption, then the entire EU will ask for exemptions as well. Either way: doom.
crushedoranges
12d ago
It's always acceptable to bully intellectuals. If there was a French chad in the 1970s who called Foucault a fag and exposed him as a homosexual pederast, then the modern world would be much more tolerable.
If Carl wasn't called the soyfather by some internet frog, he probably would have written a well-received, New York Times best selling 'How It's Based To Marry Single Moms and Raise Another Man's Child." Intellectualism is not an end of itself: you get off once you reach the desired destination.
crushedoranges
24d ago
I would attribute that to the population getting older in general. City life, and its progressive paeans, are more attractive to the young who seek opportunity and change. They are willing to tolerate things like noisy neighbors and the homeless because they are willing to bear that burden, even if it annoys them privately. The old and those with families wish for the reverse and move away to where they can get away from that within their financial means.
It very well may be that the blues diminish because their societal bedrocks self-select and become redder in the bargain.
crushedoranges
25d ago
No.
But only because my answer to all calls for empathy, unbidden and spontaneous, is no. I'm not going to participate in the hyperreal fixations of others. Nor am I going to be coerced into accepting the implicit axioms such worldviews come with.
Others may support you. I will not.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
They tried this when Musk first bought Twitter with Facebook-backed Threads. It didn't work out, mostly because the people just weren't there. Network effects are very powerful. I haven't heard anything from it since.
Truth Social, Gab, Mastodon and the like are also-rans. I suspect Blue Sky will be the same.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
I think the big benefit of autonomous cars is that they are both a taxi and a valet service in one. Your car drives you to your desired place of work (for simplicity we assume the hypothetical person works in the downtown core.) It then shuttles itself off into a place where space is cheap, to charge itself. Perhaps in an old industrial zone. When its owner gets off work, it dutifully begins to make its way ahead of time, travelling in packs of five or ten.
Because there is no need for a steering column, the interior of a autonomous vehicle can be structured in a radically different fashion. The interior can be made much more luxurious, especially if it is for a single occupant! Since it's going to have an internet connection anyway, there's no reason not to do it up like a office, or put in a bed if desired. And when it drops off its occupant, it goes to another warehouse to charge. The convenience factor of not having to negotiate two permanent parking spots in a major metropolitan area is extremely high.
The increase in commute time could be greatly mitigated by the comfort factor, in my opinion.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
I apologize, I wasn't making an argument of 'the most effective thing to do.' I agree, making a martyr of him would be grossly unproductive for the people on the left. But you can't peacefully transfer power to Hitler. You can't peacefully protest a Hitler. Leftist rhetoric is begging for armed resistance that can never happen. They made such a big deal out of it. Now they look like so very weak and shrill.
Their self-perceived Hitler arose, and they are unable to stop him. What a pathetic display.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
Well, certainly not the liberals.
There's a popular conservative cliche: the ballot box or the bullet box. It's chest-puffy masculine bravado, but something completely lacking in their enemies.
Right now, the political left is awakening to the fact that their leaders are not only gaslighting liars, but spineless collaborators to a man they see as Hitler. There are no riots in the cities, no drama or fervor. Exhaustion.
At least the January 6th people showed up. I doubt this time around the left will muster any sort of response. There's no stomach to oppose him anymore. It ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I'm not going to play the whataboutism game.
Did some people call Biden Hitler? (given reducto ad Hitlerlum, probably.) But Trump didn't call Biden Hitler. He didn't tell his followers that they were going to be put into camps and there was going to be a genocide. That's crossing-the-rubicon rhetoric.
You could say that 'stolen election' is that kind of rhetoric, too... but unlike so many, I have memories of the year two thousand of our lord when the Democrats thought Bush stole the election. Nothing happened to the American Republic. Life continued as normal.
If he is actually Hitler - and a minority of people seem to believe this with all their heart - then peacefully transferring power to him is what a cuck would do. Either that, or they never really meant it. That's all what I mean.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
If people truly believe Trump is an existential threat to democracy and is literally Hitler reborn and going to put them all into camps, then they should stop squawking on their social media and friend groups and buy weapons to assassinate him.
I'm not kidding, either.
That is the logical end point of this rhetoric, if its assumptions and principles are genuinely held. If he is a tyrant, then that is what the Second Amendment is for. If he is not, then what has been perpetuated upon Trump is the most pernicious and cowardly slander campaign in American history.
Put up or shut up.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
A child, when introduced to the concept of probability, gives equal weight to the possible outcomes. Two choices means 50/50 (a coin flip.) A pollster that isn't better than a coin flip is useless. You might as well ask a child. (I believe the children's election - 52/48 in favor of Harris - being +2 D, while being wrong, was more accurate than any of the left-leaning pollsters could muster.)
crushedoranges
1mo ago
She's a good candidate in the same way your child's crappy Christmas pageant was a good show.
...bur seriously now. Do we have to be performatively agreeable, here of all places?
She lost to Donald Trump: arguably the weakest and most divisive candidate since the Civil War: and to a degree in which even Hillary Clinton did better. At least she didn't lose the popular vote!
The one thing political candidates need to do - absolutely and without a doubt - is to get elected. She didn't get elected. The prize for getting second place in politics isn't a silver medal: it's being publicly humiliated as a also-ran loser and run out of town tarred and feathered. If Kamala Harris is a good candidate, I hope that the Democrats get many, many more good candidates.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
I didn't think it was real either. Iowa D+3 would have meant a Democratic sweep of historic proportions uncaptured by any other pollsters. But experience has taught me to avoid a mental states which invite punishment for hubris: the night isn't over quite yet.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
I called him Nate Bronze back in 2016: I'm calling him Nate Bronze now.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
I'm going into the crosstabs and your sample size of one is highly suspect. Young males (especially those in the 0-3 demographic) are extremely low propensity voters. If Trump is counting on the baby vote to get elected, he's about to be very disappointed.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
I think Trump will win. I think he's being underestimated again, and low propensity voters and undecideds are splitting for him. The Democrats found the one politician less charismatic than Hillary Clinton. But then again, I also believed that he'd win against Biden, so I'm curbing my expectations this time around. But that's what I'm reading the vibes right now.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
I'm a relic of a time when pro-choice advocacy was 'safe, legal, and rare'. If that's the definition of pro-choice, then I understand (if not in favor.)
The modern incarnation is not that.
I cannot imagine being fired up to vote for the new, aggressively feminist formulation of it, that views an abortion as a empowering, independent act of a liberated woman bereft of moral weight or consideration. Or rather, I don't want to understand the kind of woman that would be attracted to that kind of rhetoric. If there are enough women like that to sway an election, it would make me very sad.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
I have to control for my own partisan bias and wishcasting, but the Democrat confidence in abortion being such a powerful swing issue as to decide this election is baffling to me. Does it have such a powerful grip on the female vote?
In my opinion, it's what Democratic operatives want to be true rather than reflecting the reality of the electorate - in that the most ardently pro-life voters are also women. Kamala is already winning her base of single affluent women by a lot. Increasing their turnout doesn't seem like a winning play - especially with her losses everywhere else.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
Really? Huh. Hm. Shows what I know.
crushedoranges
1mo ago
What I think was likely was that he was escorted off premises with Secret Service agents and sheltered in place in his home. Machismo aside, perhaps he thought it was like Lincoln in that there was a coordinated conspiracy with shooters assigned to him and Trump. Of course there was no such thing but you can't fault a man for having family on his mind.
Scargill and the like had toppled a labour government: humiliating the PM at the time and dragging the country into a standstill. I would focus on Thatcher's predecessors (Callaghan, Wilson) as she was largely a reaction to their failed policy. If unions will sabotage the pro-Labor party, there's no point in government negotiating with them. By the time Thatcher came to be the public wanted the government to destroy the power of the unions and once that was accomplished they dispensed of her for more amiable neoliberal money-men: she was just the hatchet-man.
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