SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
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User ID: 225
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1d ago
Thanks, that does put things into perspective. Like you said, I don't work with these kinds of numbers at all so I really had no idea how much this stuff costs.
Why on earth would I have any more idea what other countries spend on defense than I do with the US? I don't think you're factoring in how little basis for comparison the average person has here. To an individual, $892 million is an enormous amount of money. Even if I lived 100 times as long as I will, I still wouldn't come close to having that kind of money (I've done the math and figured I'll make about $2 million in my lifetime if things go well). I have no idea how much military equipment costs. I don't even have any idea how many people the military employs. So I don't even have figures I could use to try to make a rough estimate (not that I would've bothered, because I could just look it up easier than that). This is simply not a topic which your average person would have any reason to know about.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1d ago
Thank you. I had no idea what the spending actually was, so I didn't have a frame of reference to judge numbers as making sense or not.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1d ago
It's not passive aggressive, and I did not in fact know that. I'm not sure why you would expect most people, let alone everyone, to have the faintest idea what US military spending is.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1d ago
Is there a typo somewhere in your post? You said we spend $892 million on the military and Trump wants to go to $1 trillion. Elsewhere people are talking about a 10% increase in spending. But going from 900 million to 1 trillion would be way, way more than 10% to say the least. So I figure one of the numbers has to be in error here.
SubstantialFrivolity
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3d ago
Bring back handwriting lessons in lower grades, to start with.
It seems like they should do that regardless. Computers should be a tool to aid you in being more effective at things you could do anyway, not something with which you can't get by. Kids should be learning how to write by hand even though they can write on a computer, just like they learn how to do math even though they can do it with a computer.
SubstantialFrivolity
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4d ago
To be even more precise, it means that the people who trade in the market believe it's a net negative for those companies. They may not prove to be correct.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
4d ago
I don't really drink much, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis drink fairly sweet drinks where you can't taste the alcohol. My go-to is Malibu and pineapple juice, but even just a screwdriver can be good (cause orange juice is delicious).
SubstantialFrivolity
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5d ago
Maybe, maybe not. But that's still a choice.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
5d ago
This is why I personally didn't like Commander Shepard filling such a special role in Mass Effect rather than being the right soldier in the right place at the right time to save the universe.
It's especially bad because as Shamus Young pointed out, that's the story Bioware originally set up! Shepard, in the first game, was a soldier who happened to be in the right place at the right time, got a bunch of Prothean knowledge crammed into his/her head, and was positioned to save the universe because of that stroke of good fortune. Then the ME2 writing team completely scrapped that for whatever reason, and made Shepard a chosen one. It was a real unforced error from Bioware.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
5d ago
Nobody is choosing to be in a proxy war with Russia, we are at war with them whether we like it or not.
That makes no sense whatsoever. A proxy war is always going to be by choice. There is no law of nature that says we have to arm Russia's enemies, even if they were to take more territory. The only point at which we don't have a choice is if they decide to start knocking on our door.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
5d ago
I certainly felt attachment to the characters in Warcraft 3, and I liked Arthas. So your experience was not the one everyone had. In fact, I thought that the story in War3 was overall pretty good.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
5d ago
Carmack definitely wasn't right. But he wasn't entirely wrong either. Not all games need a story, let alone an elaborate one. For example, Tetris would not benefit from the blocks having elaborate backstories. But some games do need a good story (gestures at the entire RPG genre). It's all about what you prefer and what kind of game you want to make. Carmack's error was in assuming that the kind of game he wanted to make (gameplay-heavy, story optional at best) was the only kind of game worth making.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
5d ago
I would second that. Mass Effect 2 was effectively Bioware changing from making an RPG to making a shooter because that would sell better. On top of that you have all the writing problems, which Shamus Young covered in great detail. I think that the only reason that ME2 gets remembered fondly is because of the large cast of characters who are by and large excellent. If not for that, I think it would be more widely recognized as the beginning of the downturn for Bioware.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
6d ago
Down thread, @UnopenedEnvilope said that this particular power was delegated to the president by an act of Congress. Maybe this will wake people up to the dangers of Congress abdicating their jobs and giving control to the President, but I somehow doubt it.
SubstantialFrivolity
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7d ago
Can't have losses if you never put money in the market. taps head
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
7d ago
No idea. It's just something I've seen kicked around on the motte in the past; I'm way too ignorant of Chinese goals to say if that's something they'd want even if offered it.
SubstantialFrivolity
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7d ago
The relentless naked blood libel from my "betters" directed towards me is insufferable. If any other country attacked the US with intentions to conquer it, I'd at least be willing to hear them out.
Yeah, I get what you mean. We've had some posters talk about how they wish China would take over the country, and on the one hand that's an obviously bad idea. The Chinese government really is a repressive, authoritarian government with a culture very foreign to ours. It would be rather miserable to have them rule us. But on the other hand, I get why people say it. There's only so much naked hatred and contempt you can see your countrymen show for your values and your way of life before you go "fuck it, maybe at least those other guys would consider letting me live the way I want. I know this group never will".
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
7d ago
And once you understand such a thing, and understand that “the news of record” has no interest in telling unbiased news, and will happily distort, misreport, play up or down different stories in order to create the impression that they want you to have. Learning that basically killed my trust in mainstream news.
Agreed. The mainstream media is a joke - even "reputable" institutions like the NYT have very little interest in providing balanced coverage of things. What interest exists is generally from an older generation of journalists, who are aging out and being replaced by young zealous partisans. And by and large, people not only have no interest in fixing it, they don't even have interest in seeing the problem! See smug slogans like "reality has a liberal bias" - that sort of attitude is just not indicative of genuine intellectual honesty and willingness to see things from other points of view.
If that were the case, it seems that at least some of them would come out t9 be socially conservative, or economically libertarian.
In fairness there were libertarians in the economics department where I went to college, so that does happen some of the time. I don't know how often, but it does at least seem that some academics do come out the way you describe.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
7d ago
How can people trust with this level of malfeasance? How do we get the trust back?
The same way you get trust back in a normal human relationship: you apologize unreservedly, make concrete steps to prevent the issue happening again, and accept that it will be a long time (if ever!) before the trust is rebuilt to what it used to be.
In this case, that means that first, everyone who repeated this false evidence needs to retract it, and apologize for their error in repeating it. No holding back because they think that fighting racism is a noble goal, no minimizing to try to avoid reputation damage, nothing. Full on admit the fault and apologize. Second, this man himself needs to be banned from ever doing research again without supervision from someone more trustworthy. Third, publications which repeated this falsified research need to brainstorm a plan for how they will catch future problems like this, and that should include a good honest look at how their own biases helped it to happen (because I have very little doubt they didn't check too closely because this research confirmed some editors' biases).
The medical profession needs to do that not only for this case, but for any other cases that come to light. And then wait. They will no doubt be beaten up in the short term by people who are angry at having been betrayed. They will get this thrown back in their faces from time to time. But eventually, if they are patient and keep acting with integrity, the wound will (probably) heal and the trust will be back. It's not an easy or fast process though.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
8d ago
Oh, the other was "obligationship" - ie when you spend time with someone because you have to, not because you want to. Think stuff like hanging out with your significant other's family.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
8d ago
You believe that the Rationalist movement is an "utter failure", when it has spawned the corporations busy making God out of silicon. Even if they fail at their ultimate goal, they've proven you can get staggering intelligence out of stirring text into a pot and applying heaps of linear algebra to it.
I'm not seeing the connection here. How did the rationalist movement spawn any of that? They're just garden variety tech industry dudes as far as I am aware.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
8d ago
It's ok, "methgineering" still made my day. Honestly one of the top two words I've heard recently.
SubstantialFrivolity
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8d ago
I kept hoping for an "all craftsmethship is of the highest quality", but didn't see one. I was sad.
I'm not sure if I agree with that, but I certainly don't agree this is one such case.
But you do need to know that the military has that many people. I certainly don't, and said as much.
Also bear in mind the context of this whole sub-thread. I never claimed to be good at estimating what the military budget is. Hell, I never claimed to be good at anything. Hydroacetalyne is the one who accused me of being passive-aggressive, on the basis that "everyone knows" the military budget is way bigger than $892m. All I'm saying here is that everyone does not know that, nor is it realistic to expect them to.
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