The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
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User ID: 174
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
Because of this, we’re generally stuck when it comes to innovative ideas and deep thinking in philosophy or the arts.
The US is anything but stuck when it comes to innovative ideas. And no, they're not ALL from immigrants (and some of the immigrants were educated here). As for deep thinking in philosophy, if that means we have neither Foucault nor Derrida.... uh, good? The arts (assuming you mean non-commercial) everywhere in the First World seem to have disappeared into either pure self-referential naval-gazing or been eaten by lefty activism.
We definitely don't need more Asian-style schooling. We don't need to break intelligent kids and turn mediocre kids into grinds.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
Yeah, both Sectumsempra and Levicorpus were Snape's. He wrote them as a teenager, IIRC, being a dark genius himself. Still, even if you don't count those, there's plenty of DoDA spells that work just fine on good guys.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
DoDA works on everyone; as I think Sluggy Freelance points out, levitate someone out a high window (perhaps after disarming them) and they're as dead as if you used the killing curse. And of course they DID learn the unforgivable curses; Harry tries to use two of them. There's Stupefy (stun), Petrificus Totalus (body bind), Sectumsempra (cut), Bombarda (explosion), Confringo (blasting), Incendio (fire), Levicorpus (hang someone in the air by his feet; strangely specific but probably quite useful for interrogation). Lots of good stuff that works on everyone.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
I'm pretty sure the rules of the church are not doctrine; violating them isn't heresy, and their violation isn't indication of some fundamental flaw in Christianity or even Catholicism.
If there's a long-standing bureaucracy where the rules aren't often "more like suggestions" when those at the top want them to be, I haven't seen it.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
The American belief goes back to the Revolutionary period, long before the US was the most powerful country in the world.
The Finnish Armed Forces and the state they are embedded in, of course, cannot be trusted. They'd be happy to appease their big Eastern neighbor by oppressing their own people rather than fighting; they did it before, after all.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
No, these are not the same and in context are close to opposites. Trusting the Finnish Armed Forces would be like trusting the Ministry of Magic.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
Apple used to use a bespoke variant called "Apple Garamond" in all their marketing material. It's not quite the same as ITC Garamond Narrow but close enough.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
It is simply an accord of convenience, which we may rescind if the night watchman becomes drunk on power.
Again, I must point out that this is not Hobbes. The delegation of sovereignty, for Hobbes, was irrevocable, not just for a lifetime but forever including the descendants of those who so delegated and of the sovereign.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
The government has already changed the ideological makeup of the military. Trump and Hegseth are currently attempting to change it in another way.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
R. Daneel Olivaw (Asimov's smartest robot) is superintelligent but not incomprehensibly so; imagine a synthesis of all the most intelligent humans in every field, add millennia of experience and perfect recall, and later on, telepathy. The Minds, by contrast, are basically godlike.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
I suspect Rowling is simply completely unaware of the real-world implications of Defense against Dark Arts, and would instinctively shy away from recognizing the analogy. A more charitable view would be that she recognizes it but thinks that the world of wizarding is a throwback to earlier times when such things were necessary, and in our civilized world we have government to do our defense for us -- that sort of thing is not uncommon among American gun control supporters. It clashes with the idea that the magical ministries are pretty obviously satirizing the real ones, but whatever. There's a 0% chance Rowling meant people to take the lesson that children should learn to defend themselves effectively with deadly weapons, and if people actually took that lesson I am sure she would be horrified.
It's also an instance of a more general problem of fiction aimed at minors; you typically have to make people of similar age the major players in the book, and to do so you have to give them far more responsibility than they have in the real world. Or maybe the problem is not actually with the fiction.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
In that they are literally a part of the US Department of Energy (a.k.a US Department of Energy and Nukes), yes.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
Yes, the problem with classical liberals is playing cooperate-bot. The answer to academics wanting to enforce orthodoxy is not to invoke academic freedom to protect them from those with power who oppose the orthodoxy; they have to be driven out somehow.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
I have a pretty radical solution for that: move all university STEM research (including all the grad students) to national labs.
I don't see how you can avoid ideological capture by making research explicitly part of the government. That's just begging for ideological (specifically, political) capture.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
Indeed. Even Isaac Asimov, who thought intelligent humanoid robots were great, wrote stories where their use resulted in the destruction of a portion of humanity.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
2d ago
Jimmy Carter had a way of messing up the USA. (To the tune of the Oscar Meyer theme song, which probably only makes sense in America)
Inflation. Unemployment. Energy crisis. Iran hostage crisis.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
2d ago
Unfortunately for our Trade War Commander in Chief, I'm fairly sure movies are not subject to the authority he used for the other tariffs. Since he didn't do this by executive order but is letting the Department of Commerce handle it, probably their lawyers will tell them that. 50 USC 1702(b)(3).
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
2d ago
Conservatives pooh-pooh "magic dirt theory", but I think there may be something to it. Polyamory isn't really a rationalist thing; it's a San Francisco area thing. It got into rationalists because they're in the San Francisco area. Possibly rationalism is also a San Francisco thing, but even then, it's common cause, not one causing the other (despite rationalizations of same). If rationalism had begun in LA, it'd be all about hookers and blow instead.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
They're not really on strike, though. In a strike, the workers are hurting themselves in the short term for benefits in the longer term. And they're coordinating it. The boys here have left the job because the working conditions are terrible and the paychecks aren't coming.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
"Both" in practice puts all the burden on the boys.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
"Weird far leftists being mentally ill at each other" have had a major impact on mainstream culture, and if we're hearing about these kids, it is unlikely they are actually as isolated from that as their community would prefer.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
Were they? There are some male nerds who are even despised by other male nerds, but it's almost a tautology that the "Star Trek posters in the workplace are Not Inclusive and Not Okay" sorts of woke blather were coming from non-nerds;
Yes, much of that was coming from non nerds. (in fact, you can name the person -- Dr. Sapna Cheryan -- who gave academic backing for that particular one). But there was some which was not; there are female nerds who are not particularly enamored with some of the trappings of nerd culture (male nerds too, but no one cares), and they were happy to use the weapons provided by the non-nerds.
There are many male nerds who are basically perceived as romantically undesirable by most female nerds, as in the old "the odds are good but the goods are odd" joke in so many gender-lopsided environments, but there's a big difference between being unloved and being despised (although I'm sure that difference feels academic to the chronically unloved).
It's not just "unloved", it is "despised". One reason given for this is that the women would be romantically approached by male nerds they found undesirable, and this was wholly unacceptable and makes male nerds despicable. However, as with most things in the area of male-female relations, that reason probably should be taken with a grain of salt.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
It's not an acceptable strategy, which is why the whole PUA thing is so despised.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
As for Woke Culture being the fault of nerds...debatable. I recall when nerds were the irreverent types. If anything, that was the line of attack: nerds were low SMV types who were inordinately pleased with themselves and resentful at women for not agreeing.
There's a strand of woke culture which comes from women in tech -- "Geek Feminism" is probably the term to search for. Some of these women were various sorts of hangers-on (looking at you, Shanley Kane) but some were actual female nerds who despised male nerds for whatever reason (probably mostly the same reasons non-nerd women do). I believe a lot of earlier woke male nerds got woke trying to impress or appease that group.
They DO, though. Well, "Mad-Eye" does, but he is the DaDA teacher at the time.
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