cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
3d ago
EVE Online had a similar high stress feeling to combat. A loss in battle could cost you hours of your time because your ship is blown up and gone. The salvage from the wreck is now in your enemy's hands. It also had the added horror that large scale wars could erase years of your effort and progress.
It really got the blood pumping. Maybe too much.
cjet79
3d ago
I had a sort of mild depression my whole life, that would sometimes escalate to above mild. Felt like I always had a reason for it for a long time. About a decade ago life was going stupidly well. I was getting married, had a good job, lots of friends, etc. And I still felt kinda like crap. I reached out to Scott and he pointed me to his old article Things That Sometimes Help If You Have Depression. Followed his advice and just talked to a regular doctor. They were able to prescribe me a low dose SSRI. It helps. The mild depression is gone most of the time, and instead of occasional escalations to above mild depression, I'll have rare escalations to just mild depression. I'd say it has been a success story.
cjet79
4d ago
TheMotte is not for all purposes. Political jokes and political satire specifically do not fit here very well.
Go to X or reddit for that
cjet79
5d ago
Aww I wish I'd seen this when it was originally posted. I'm an atheist. Terry Pratchett is my favorite author. The only books I've ever managed to read twice. Your thought that he has such anger at the world feels so totally alien to me. It wasn't anger it was hope. And it wasn't an empty hope. The world of terry pratchett does in fact get better!
Ankh-morpork is a rotten, polluted, cesspit of a city. Its main defense against invaders is to allow them in and corrupt them so completely that they stop being invaders. The river can be walked on, when its not on fire. The magic university suffers accidents constantly that leave the surrounding areas of the city steeped in weird magical effects. But over the course of many novels it gets noticeably better to live in the city. Crime becomes more restricted to the darkest and worst places of the city. Races of all kind can go there and leave their old world prejudices behind. Material wealth is skyrocketing. New mail systems like the telegraph (clacks) are sweeping the city, trains are being developed to shorten the travel distances, and culture is booming enough for new music styles to be born.
The aggressive conquering religion of the Omnians is softened from something like Islam to something more like modern christianity.
Death learns to care about life in the form of his apprentice.
A wizard and his travelling luggage get to visit Australia and other interesting cities.
A war for a silly island is averted.
etc etc.
The stories of discworld are undeniably hopeful. Its in some of his other stories where he shares authorship that I realized hoe much the hope of his stories shines through. If you've ever read "The Long Earth" series, co-authored with sci-fi author Stephen Baxter you'll see what I mean. Terry Pratchett had failing health and eventually died before the full series completion. The story gets darker and more depressing as each book passes. What starts as kind of a hopeful series about new lands and places to explore, ends with self-sacrifice to thwart a species that appears to be a paperclip maximizer type threat. I thought this was maybe Stephen Baxter just being depressed about losing his co-author. But I read one of his other books, and no that is just how Baxter is.
cjet79
6d ago
You can generally treat anything said in a dating app as an aspirational preference. "I want a tall, handsome, rich man" yeah but she will settle for someone 5'10" ok looking and with steady employment.
"I wont date a republican" probably settles to something like "don't embarrass me in front of my friends with your icky conservative views". Meanwhile you are at a cookout with her girlfriends and all of their partners and lo and behold every other guy there is also some version of conservative-lite. With even the "liberals" being pro-gun or against extreme welfare state handouts.
Hysteria and hyperbole abound online, but the real world is full of lots of quiet compromise and people getting on with their lives.
cjet79
6d ago
My first immediate reaction is to press blue. My second reaction is that I hate voting. The larger the franchise, the more I'd push for me and everyone I know and love to vote red. If the people I love insist on voting blue, id do it too.
cjet79
8d ago
We wrote down the spirit of the rules in the sidebar here. Many laws are often proceeded by a section dedicated to the purpose of the law.
Some laws are handled in spirit rather than just the letter. Murder is an example. We do not ban all the ways in which you can commit murder.
cjet79
8d ago
I got 100% on the quiz. Seemed straightforward to me.
My experience as a moderator has definitely colored my opinions on the law and rules. I think the intention and purpose of a law are very important. And the letter of the law is not very important. Also people can violate rules and the authorities can decide 'no punishment'. Thus police car and ambulance are violation of the rule, but not necessarily a punishable violation.
cjet79
9d ago
Its amazing and frightening how long serial criminals can get away with crimes by:
- Not having a prior personal connection with their victims
- Not trying to make money
On the tamer side, graffiti artists can literally sign their names while defacing property and expect to get away with it.
cjet79
9d ago
I think Israel is an interesting example. They have had a constant stream of terrorism and attackers for a while now. The systems that can be hardened to prevent attackers have been hardened, but holes remain. It does seem like specific targets and locations can be secured. But that the general public and general public areas cannot be protected (or at least not at a tolerable cost of money and hassle).
The hardest thing about good security is just maintaining the defensive mindset, because good security is often a hassle to those it is meant to protect.
cjet79
11d ago
There was that lady in Australia that poisoned like five dinner guests and got away with it by claiming ignorance and that was an accident, despite her food being safe to consume.
cjet79
12d ago
Ordered Chinese food tonight and then watched Kung Fu Panda with my 5 year old and wife. The older 7 year old still doesn't like movies, hates any kind of tension building or "scary" parts as she calls them. Solid movie. Any other kid+family movies that still kick but?
cjet79
12d ago
I didn't have a plot to derail.
Mostly i wrote situations and starting settings and only had a vague sense of where things might go in a chapter or two. I would lean towards interesting stuff happening.
This was partly a result of my experience being a dungeon master. The people I played with would always derail whatever I had planned. So I learned to only prepare for the session I was hosting and no further.
I've tried to write out extended outlines and plans for stories. But I always got bored writing those stories, since I knew what was going to happen it stripped me of my main motivation to write more.
cjet79
12d ago
Ah my bad
A lot of people getting put on the street
It’s getting harder to avoid pajeet
He comes home every night to browse zillow
And wonders how much longer he can stand his low thread count pillow
cjet79
12d ago
A lot of people getting put on the street
It’s getting harder to skeet
He comes home every night to beat
And wonders how much longer he can use my feet
cjet79
14d ago
In a world where government is representative of the constituents, these are effectively the same thing.
In that world Mao Zedong as supreme ruler is the same thing as democracy.
There obvious differences between direct democracy and representative democracy. Senate was supposed to be two layers removed from direct democracy, house and president just one layer.
I know why California regulations impact the whole US. If California was 1/50th of the US market it probably wouldn't be worth it. They are instead about 15% of the US economy. Which is enough that manufacturers will change to their requirements.
I'd be fine with Texas and Florida splitting up as states as well. New York should split. Virginia should split. Probably a few others.
cjet79
15d ago
How badly the author is getting pilloried on the internet for this? You maybe mentioned some twitter reaction, but I don't think you linked it. I am mostly just curious. I shared the bare details of this story with my wife and she immediately had a WTF reaction to the author. Especially the "your not in trouble" line. Also turned out that line was a lie anyways given how things ended.
cjet79
15d ago
Senators shouldn't represent people anyways. They should represent state governments like they were supposed to. And California should split into multiple states if it wants better representation in the senate. But they'd be dumb to do so because they get far more government control of the country by just having their state legislature act like a mini-national government and pass a bunch of regulations. Corporations/manufacturers are basically forced to comply because of the size of the California market. I'm unsympathetic to these complaints. On paper they have less representation, in reality they have an outsized influence.
cjet79
15d ago
I'd be happy with structural changes. I hope if this passes it makes certain structural changes more likely as they are seen as one of the few workable ways to prevent this kind of bullshit.
cjet79
15d ago
You must write with way more tells than me. I've tried this before, multiple times, it never identified me. Just tried with Gemini. It thought my recent Virginia election day post was by the user @Tailsteak. There is no user with that name on the site. That is the screen name of a web cartoonist, and maybe a furry as well. Oh and that is after I gave it the website and when I posted it. Prior to those hints it thought the post was by The_Clash_of_Paper on lesswrong (a user that also doesn't exist I think) back in 2020.
cjet79
15d ago
Despite sharing it and finding it interesting I'm against it. I think the actual result of this would be to weaken congress and strengthen the president/bureaucracy/supreme court/main parties. Congress is already weak enough.
It would be more difficult to gerrymander all of these districts.
cjet79
15d ago
There were lots of articles saying that Trump said Republicans were "entitled" to 5 more districts in Texas. Which is why I blamed him in the first place. Your comment got me to go research it more.
I place less blame on Trump now. This seems like a fight the Democrats were itching for and they picked up on a minor interview thing.
Virginia is voting on redrawing their congressional districts today. Here is the Wikipedia entry.
The main highlight is that it would change Virginia from 6-5 democrat-republican split to a 10-1 split. It is being sold by Democrats as an effort to counter Republican gerrymandering in other states. It is being panned by Republicans as unfair representation, and an election map that looks like Fairfax county (rich county in northern Virginia) gets to elect about half of the state's representatives.
I'm a Virginia resident. So I've been getting lots of mailers about the issue and simple vote "yes" or "no" signs are everywhere.
I'm very frustrated with the whole thing. First for Trump kicking off this fight. Second with the Democrats in Virginia that have made a ridiculously bullshit map. I still have yet to hear anyone from the "yes" side explain how this is good for Virginia other than "fight Trump". I even read one article that had a title implying it would be about voters not feeling represented, and it turns out the content of the article was about democratic leaders addressing the democrat voters in the now single solitary red district. No content about how Republican voters might feel in the 10 other districts.
If this level of bullshit is on the table I feel like other proposals that get shot down for being "crazy" in normal times might end up back on the table. Like a bunch of Virginia counties seceding and joining West Virginia. Or the right to giant congress
- edit - it appears the redistricting effort has passed.
This has always been morally insane.
I can't think of any other areas where society and law has some justification along the lines of "well it wasn't you, but someone needs to pay for it, and you are the easiest to catch."
Imagine this justification used for crimes:
[state]: pay the fine for running a red light
[person]: but i didnt run a red light
[state]: Well someone ran that red light, and we can't let it be known that running red lights will go unpunished. You were nearby and I've already captured you, it would be too much work to go get the real culprit if it turns out it wasn't you.
That is a light crime and it already feels heinous. More serious crimes with more serious punishments feels even more heinous. Imagine the above but for a crime that carries a lifetime prison sentence.
Just reversing the gender roles shows how insane this can be. A husband and wife. The husband wants kids, the wife does not. The husband manages to somehow adopt a kid without the wife's knowledge or consent (or he even forges her signature and commits some level of fraud in getting her assigned as the adoptive mother). Or the husband gets a surrogate to carry his baby, then he and the surrogate lie at the hospital about the mother's identity and he brings home a kid that isn't the wife's.
The wife then files for divorce because the husband clearly betrayed her trust. The wife then must pay child support to the husband for the raising of the adopted kid.
One of those scenarios might be the only way such insane parenting laws get reversed. Or they will just carve out an exception and send the man to jail without the slightest hitch in their step at the dissonance of their actions.
Its also a weird take on the responsibility level of the women involved. A women can't be expected to know for certain who the father is, but can be expected to raise a child? Like what?! Raising a child is way harder than knowing who the father is. In most cases not knowing who the father is would also be a demonstration of incompetence. If you claim to care about the welfare of the child, maybe having them raised by a woman that can't keep track of her sexual partners is not a great idea. Even if they aren't keeping constant track, once they know the due date of the baby they should be able to narrow down the conception to a 1-2 week time frame.
In a sane world we would be using this as an example of why Utilitarians shouldn't be in charge of writing laws.
Scenario: A person roles into the hospital with a gunshot wound to the [organ that can be lived without]. The shooter has the same blood type as the victim.
Question: Is it ok to take the organ from the shooter to replace the organ of the wounded person?
Utilitarian: You can take the organ from the healthy person in the waiting room, they are easier to find and might have been the shooter anyways.
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