cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
2d ago
I don't understand why you kept putting classical liberal in quotation marks.
I'm pretty adjacent to classical liberals. It might be the second or third term I describe myself with (an-cap and libertarian being the other words). I feel it necessary to respond to your descriptions of classical liberals.
"Classical liberals" like to hit sentimental ideologues with cold hard facts.
This is a fun thing to do. I think I liked doing it before I was ever an-cap/classical liberal/libertarian. Back then it was arguing evolution vs creationism with people in myspace groups. But other people like Ben Shapiro are not classical liberals, and that is like his whole shtick. The classical liberals are also sentimental about quite a few things, Adam Smith, the founding fathers, the enlightenment, etc. So I'd call this a weird and mostly uncorrelated description of classical liberals.
A true "classical liberal" would treat his ideas the same way he treats everyone else's, as hypotheses to be tested against reality.
I'd say that is more of the rationalist's shtick. Its again another weird description where it sorta fits, but fits other groups better, and also doesn't fit in some glaring cases. Most classical liberals will point to American and Britain in the late 1700s and 1800s as sort of shining beacon examples. They do in fact happily and openly privilege ideas coming out of those time periods.
"Academic freedom" sounds good and all, but what happens when it's implemented in real-world universities? As the "classical liberals" freely admit, the results are often not stellar. So what's their solution? Doesn't seem they have one.
The results have not been stellar, but they've also been fighting back against it longer than conservatives have even been aware that it is a problem. FIRE is one such organization. They have also carried out and implemented their solution. Classical liberals generally outnumber conservatives in the university. Ya they are both super outnumbered by liberals and the left. But the libertarianish/classical liberal guys have go on a targetted campaign to develop stellar academics and an academic support network that can allow their own to survive in an otherwise hostile environment. Do they have society wide solution for the problem? No, of course not, they don't have society wide power to even think about implementing such a thing. That is for the conservatives to carry out. But there is no point in trading one enemy for another.
Haidt seems to object not to the specifics of what DeSantis did, but to the notion that any radical changes could be made to even a single college unless they're driven from within the academic caste.
Quick aside: I hope you don't think Haidt is a classical liberal, here is a quote from the man:
"But it’s also that once I switched my research over from culture to politics, and once I began criticizing the ideas on the Left and the Democratic Party — for many years I was doing it to try to help them win."
He calls himself a political centrist these days, but I still think he is mostly a democrat that thinks the democrats went a little too far. Either way he is not a classical liberal.
There's nothing "classically liberal" about the notion that an institution is entitled to receive money from the taxpayer while not being accountable to said taxpayers' elected representatives. But that's the "classical liberal" brain-worm.
You are right in the first sentence. It is certainly not classical liberal. Which is why most classical liberals don't like it. Most classical liberals do not think universities should be subsidized at all. You'll find some that are sort of adjacent to classical liberals that think basic research should be funded (Tyler Cowen). But anyone with an ounce of understanding of economics can realize that education is a private good, and that private goods are handled just fine by markets. It misses the mark so badly that I can't help but think maybe you are again talking about some other group. Until I read your last few paragraphs, and you seem to have understood their actual ideology all along.
I don't know who you are reading that is calling themself a classical liberal. I'd read these guys if you want an actual example of classical liberals examining higher education: https://www.amazon.com/Cracks-Ivory-Tower-Higher-Education/dp/0190846283
cjet79
2d ago
I admittedly laughed when I saw the Trump in a pope outfit and a headline about what he said.
Hard to explain humor. It was just someone ridiculous doing something ridiculous.
I can also understand that plenty of people might not find it funny at all.
cjet79
4d ago
Ha! Yeah thinking back on that cartoon, it must have been written by the nerdy stereotype that hated those kinds of guys. Johnny Bravo types in reality were pulling all the babes.
cjet79
4d ago
I grew up in the 90's and 00's. I always had the sense that women did not enjoy sex and barely tolerated men. This somehow came up in a drunk conversation with my mother at some point and she was a bit horrified. "No I never told you that! Women like sex! Your dad and I..." I cut her off at that point, didn't need to hear more. But it feels pretty clear to me that I picked up this idea from media sources. And yet I can't point to a single particular example.
I can't imagine how things have gotten even worse since that time.
I do feel that putting the onus on parents to either raise better men or women is misplaced. I'd first turn to Hollywood or other culture makers and say "stop making such shitty culture". I have memories and can point to specific times when my parents took the right approach with me. My dad telling me that he was never willing to have sex with a woman he didn't want to have a kid with (he seemed to want kids though, so I don't know how much of a restriction that was), and him making jokes about not sticking your dick in crazy. My mother being concerned for my emotional well being after silly breakups in middle school, and her insisting on us watching a discovery channel show that was basically sex ed. Them telling their kids that they wanted grand babies, just not while we were in highschool or college. I remember them showing signs of affection towards each other, and forgiveness after they fought with one another.
TV shows and movies still managed to do a number on me, and on those around me. After all I can't count on how other kids are raised but I can usually count on them having a similar cultural soup they grew up in.
From a practical perspective applying the social responsibility to cultural producers also seems easier. It feels like they've weaseled out of that responsibility somehow. I'm happy to reward shows like Bluey that have good parental figures. But they seem like rare glowing exceptions instead of the rule.
Should we expect all parents to explain to their teen kids how Chani's love in Dune seems slightly off, or should we lean on Dennis with criticisms of the film that his interpretation of love sucks. Of course we can do both, but the latter seems fat more effective for the level of effort involved and reward expected.
cjet79
7d ago
I only got the brief description that it was one of Biden's "moonshot" research programs. I'm guessing it just was unlikely to have payoff for learning about human cancers. Instead it was likely to have payoff for treating dog cancers, but she thought that was a bad use of taxpayer money.
cjet79
8d ago
I think there is a degree of stickiness when it comes to trust. That institutions can be bad or against a certain party and still enjoy reputational effects for a while. I think this happened in the Obama and first Trump term when the military and intelligence agencies were still strongly trusted by the right.
cjet79
8d ago
Scott's post begs the question though: what does he think reform of the institutions looks like? I think what we are seeing is what we should have expected.
Governing institutions in a democracy cannot survive by being only trusted by one political party.
What will it take to restore most Republican's trust? Either gutting those institutions entirely, or reforming them with punitive measures until they seem cowed and fully cooperative.
Thatcher and Reagan in the 80s are some of the more recent examples of this phenomenon.
The left isn't capable of reforming institutions, just like the right isn't capable of reigning in their strong-men (and women). They need each other to play those roles. And obviously if you identify more with one side than the other you don't like having to be the side that reigns in the other. My side's honest mistakes and forgiveable excesses, are the other sides willful maliciousness and unforgivable escalations.
I recently spoke with my mother who has worked on cancer research contracts with NIH. She is a lifelong moderate Democrat (pro choice). She had spoken in fearful tones about Trump and Doge. But recently when Doge began taking an axe to medical programs she sounded pretty happy. Apparently they cut some kind of dog cancer research program that my mom always thought was dumb (there is some joke in there about DOGE's meme name sake, but I'm too lazy to find it). Her words were basically that they cut the things she would have cut.
I live in the northern Virginia area. I know many people who work in government. The common refrain is that "yes they definitely needed to trim the fat and slim down government, but this just seems crazy the way they are doing it". But there was an opportunity to trim the fat during the Biden administration and they didn't take it. They were too busy starting dog cancer research programs. So maybe this is the only way you cut things, with a side of bad ideas from a strongman willing to do it.
cjet79
8d ago
It is however frustrating when you are speaking to a particular individual and you say "X1 makes no sense in this context" and they say "well I just want X2 so its fine". And then you say "well X2 makes no sense either". Then they leave the chat and someone else enters to say "well i don't care too much about X2, I just want X1".
No one has an obligation to make their ideas easier to attack, but don't be surprised when we point out the internal inconsistencies.
cjet79
9d ago
The US government was small enough to be funded by tariffs and alcohol back in the day. I'd like it if it was that small again.
The US imports about 4 trillion in goods and the government budget is about 7 trillion. It's mathematically impossible to fund the budget with tariffs.
Protectionism and revenue raising are also at cross purposes for tariffs. For protectionism you want the tariffs high enough that the goods do not flow into the country. For revenue you still want the goods flowing because otherwise the tariff doesn't get paid and doesn't raise money
cjet79
9d ago
Yeah I'm a libertarian Atheist, I don't feel like this place always sides with social conservatism.
It can probably fairly and correctly be called anti-woke and anti-immigration. But those aren't only positions of social conservatives.
cjet79
11d ago
I have kids so that changes my preferences a bunch.
Cheap fun:
Nature walks. Kids make this more fun as they will ask questions or spot weird things, or make it fun for you to spot weird things. Also you have to explain things.
Museums. They always seem underpriced to me. You will definitely learn something new.
Cooking. This isn't always cheap, but you gotta eat and if you just subtract your normal meal costs it's not too expensive. I'd recommend playing around with chili recipes, making custom pizzas, cooking eggs different ways, and finding some less common items that you want to perfect (my dad makes perfect Reuben sandwiches, I judge all Reubens in comparison to his, and none I've had are better.)
Crafts. School has a way of ruining things that can actually be fun. I thought I didn't like crafts, because I was forced to do so many dumb crafts projects in grade school. I should have realized before having kids that it could be fun, I already knew reading and writing are fun outside of school. Pipe cleaners, straws, glue, tape, paper, and foil are enough to build a lot of things. And then since it's not school you can also buy firecrackers, a lighter, and a pellet gun and have fun destroying your crafts in cool ways.
cjet79
12d ago
To clear up some things:
You are not getting any form of special leniency.
What I was trying to say is that there is a law of large numbers effect going on. If user A and user B both have about a 1% rate of a rule breaking post. But user A writes 1000 posts and user B only writes 10 posts then user A is way more likely to get in trouble and get banned. We don't want this outcome, so we will try and get a sense of the rate of violation (that 1% number).
Having upsetting beliefs is allowed, because to do otherwise creates a failure mode for all discussions.
There are often times where someone comes in and makes a post with clearly upsetting beliefs. Sometimes that person is a Nazi, one time that person was someone that believed child molestation should be allowed, most times it's just a belief that your political opponents should suffer (and some of those political opponents are on this discussion board).
What then happens is someone makes it personal or attacks them "you are a Nazi scumbag" or "you should be castrated". They then get banned. It looks like we allowed trolls to bait a response and get someone kicked out.
The simple alternative to this is topic bans of anything that might upset a bunch of users. This is the alternative that most of the leftist web embraced in the mid 2010's. The leftists then weaponized this, and got most topics that they didn't like banned from their spaces.
We don't do topic bans. We've tried to find another approach where we don't ban any topics but we try to find etiquette rules where people don't write the original post in the most inflammatory way possible.
We do not like permabans. They are an option of last resort.
I think we average like one, maybe two permabans a year for power users. They are rare. They are often proceeded by a dozen or more warnings and tempbans and usually a complete lack of quality contributions. The mods usually have multi day long discussions and usually we have full consensus before we carry it out.
A one day ban like this would not sway anything in regards to a permaban decision.
You are not my enemy, and neither are most users. Some users choose to be our enemies.
They mostly are not a good fit for this forum and they want us to do things differently. Usually not enforce rules against them or their allies, or enforce extra rules against their other enemies. Their method to get changes to happen is often to badger us and annoy us anytime we do our standard duties. And undermine anything we do. Their feedback is always "this ban is bad", and thus their feedback is useless as a comparative barometer.
The most mature of users who don't fit do not become our enemies, instead they voluntarily leave. Sometimes they will ask us for a permaban that we will grant to them.
Those that stay and cause trouble like to be rules lawyers and twist everything we say against us. It's exhausting and annoying, which is their exact goal. The more annoying it is for us to conduct moderation the less we will do of it. I have no doubt that I will regret writing some part of this open view into moderation here. Maybe I'll tag you when it happens to show you what I mean.
cjet79
12d ago
There is a form of comparison
AA : AA :: BB : BB
This comparison is not meant to say that AA == BB.
cjet79
13d ago
I read your posts and just hope your children against the odds manage to become well-adjusted adults despite your efforts
Perhaps this is my bias as a parent, but insulting the way people raise their kids is often a step beyond insulting them personally.
"You are an asshole" is less antagonistic than "Your kids are assholes, and it is your fault".
Take a time out. 3 day ban.
cjet79
13d ago
Here it is, an amazing moment for you:
I am not perfect. I have definitely made mistakes in moderation. Based on what the other mods say and what users say I am often too harsh in my moderation. I have in fact been overridden on my moderation decisions and have had them scaled back before. If self_made_human, amadan, and netstack (or just zorba) say I have been too harsh I trust their judgement and I'm willing to say I was wrong. This has happened a few times. There have also been times where any of them have realized they are too close to an issue and have stepped back and asked other mods to step in and make a ruling. This is basically what I consider a normal process of modding here on themotte. If some mod was totally unwilling to admit fault and completely bull headed they would not last long as a mod.
Generally these moments are not highly publicized and catalogued. If that bothers you, then tough shit. Welcome to the world we live in. I'm not gonna ask any user to make a public flogging tour for every minor mistake they make. Consider any politician or public figure that you like and respect. Should they be forced to go on a public apology tour for every mistake they make? Or would you look at such a request through obvious culture war eyes and realize that your enemies are just trying to get one over on you?
You probably don't get dinged much because you don't post much. This is a problem we are aware of. For highly prolific users we are aware that there is a numbers issue, speak up too much and eventually you might run afoul of the rules. But we are also super forgiving of highly prolific users. As long as they don't violate very specific and enumerated requests we will let a lot of shit go. This is the case with steve, we had a very specific request that he not make these shitty "mods suck" type comments, and we tried to be as clear as possible that he needs to stop them, immediately.
He didn't.
So tell me, what the hell are we supposed to do when a user violates a clear, specific, minor, and reasonable request we have for them?
Common suggestions:
- Let it go, because someone else was being bad.
- Let it go, because this user is usually not so bad.
- Ban them forever, because I hate their opinions.
Steve has vocally been in favor of option 3 before.
cjet79
13d ago
Stealth archer was kind of the ultimate build for Skyrim. I played oblivion so long ago, and before the internet was where I went for all gaming info.
Is there an ultimate build for oblivion?
cjet79
13d ago
Zorba has expressed a lack of interest in sacrificing his life and well-being for this place.
Personally, a media shitstorm, police investigation, etc would be enough for me to drop this place like a hot potato.
This place might continue to exist, but it will be different enough that it will be dead for many of the people that call it home.
cjet79
13d ago
We've extended a great deal of charity to Steve. We've asked him to stop making these sorts of comments. He chose not to.
He has also been warned many times for antagonistic behavior, both on this account and the previous account. He was very close to earning a permanent ban with his previous account's behavior. We made a note to ourselves to not completely ignore his previous account's bad behavior, but we mostly did and proceeded to be lenient with him as if he was a newish user.
Other people's bad behavior, even if it is a mod's bad behavior, is not an excuse for bad behavior.
If we specifically ask any user not to do a specific thing. We mean it and we will take note of it. If Netstack had broken every rule we have and gotten de-modded for his comment I still would have banned Steve for his comment. This is a 'fuck around and find out" moment. We literally only have two punishments in our toolbox, the first is asking people to stop doing a thing, and the second is bans.
I clearly said in my comment that no one else has been asked to not provide feedback. Only Steve, and only those types of comments.
I personally think netstack's ban of @WhiningCoil was fine. Its only that he should have been harsher with @Capital_Room. 5 days at least for capital room for clear fedposting. And just one day for whining coil cuz it sorta looked like fedposting.
As far as I am concerned fedposting is one of the few existential threats that this board faces. The other two are zorba kicking the bucket and a democrat party crackdown on free speech on the web.
One day bans are minor and basically nothing. That is us saying "yes really, this is a rule we will enforce, don't do it". For anything resembling fed posting I'm also willing to hand out bans like candy. Don't fucking do it. We can choose to be lenient when it is just the rules we care about enforcing. But this is a rule that the world will enforce upon us if we don't self police. Be annoyingly verbose and add a bunch of disclaimers if you insist on doing it. We still might ban you, because again we aren't really the ones making the rule on this. Sorry it sucks, I don't like it anymore than you do.
cjet79
14d ago
You've been asked to not do this in the most clear way possible.
Not any other critics of modding have been asked to stop. Just you, and just these kinds of dumb comments.
I am tempted to take your advice and give you a permaban:
Letting obvious trolling go on this long is a bad look, but the mods are such easy marks for it.
After all these sorts of comments you make are obvious trolling.
Community sentiment is generally against perma-bans these days. 30-days for you
cjet79
16d ago
What's the best blue collar job for me?
Current/former programmer. Dad is a carpenter.
Things I don't mind:
- Being uncomfortably hot
- Weird hours
- Being careful and slow
Things I do mind:
- Disgusting things, extreme amounts of dirt, any amount of poop, or bugs.
- Travelling far from home
I am willing and happy to read AI generated stories.
I haven't tried too hard to generate my own. But if one of the stories I was following on Royal road turned out to be an AI story I wouldn't be unhappy except that most of them have a release schedule that is clearly within human abilities, and I'd want more. Once they got revealed I'd expect them to stop sandbagging it.
My limited attempts to get AI to generate interesting stories have kinda sucked. In one instance it took my writing and declared it too adult and I legitimately wasn't sure what the hell it was talking about. Those were early chatgpt days though.
I still have this unverified sense that AI can produce pop, but not jazz. Meaning average mass appealing stuff, but weird individuality is harder for it to generate.
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