TitaniumButterfly
No bio...
User ID: 2854
TitaniumButterfly
5hr ago
The men of Victorian Britain were straightforward in their class bias and sincerely believed the lower classes were fundamentally-distinct in terms of inclination and potential, and talked about this openly.
Obviously everyone still understands this on some level but in the current context it must be denied at least publicly, and I'm surprised to find that such attitudes persist to such a degree as to result in the lack of outrage we see today.
And yet the same logic isn't applied to immigrants? I'm not trying to be cute when I say that this confuses me.
Like, I can throw cynical epicycles at the problem (something something signaling) but at some point I'm just speculating and every answer seems to raise further questions.
TitaniumButterfly
6hr ago
TitaniumButterfly
1d ago
Vibecamp seems to cater to people who delight in sexual transgression per se.
TitaniumButterfly
2d ago
I agree with both of you. Shrug
TitaniumButterfly
3d ago
High-stakes negotiator.
Actually tried to pursue this but discovered that 'hired gun negotiators' aren't really a thing.
TitaniumButterfly
3d ago
Feed it into Claude and tell it to add punctuation for you.
TitaniumButterfly
3d ago
I'm just thinking about how insufferable the inevitable movie is going to be if Iran wins.
TitaniumButterfly
3d ago
Elder Race is the only one of his I've read and what I recall is that the spunky princess spends a lot, a lot of time wringing her hands over the possibility that he'll try to make moves on her and due to the power disparity she'll have to go along with it, but in practice he's a perfect fedora-tipping gentleman without any trace of toxic masculinity who would never treat m'lady so.
It's been a while but I recall the whole thing feeling extremely reddit.
Based on the one book I decided I wouldn't be reading anything else of his. We're spoiled for choice anyway.
TitaniumButterfly
4d ago
I like it. Reminds me in many ways of Lord of Light.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
Thanks! Was just wishing for this earlier this week. I don't like blocking people but it can be hard sometimes to keep track of the ones I've decided to not respond to in the future.
Also details about people I do like. =)
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
We've addressed this and I invite you to move on to another topic. (And should mention that I'm about done with Motte time for the day)
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
No, I don't concede that. There's nothing stopping parents from just having another child (outside of etc. etc.) and having both is much better than killing one and only having the other.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
We could also trade off dumb and ugly and sad children for better ones, I guess. It's not a slope I'd care to find myself on and I have zero faith in others to not keep sliding down it.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
Not only have we shifted the goal posts to what I agree is a highly non-central situation at best, but even people who happen to be in that situation can't, in practice, know whether they are.
Seems just as plausible to me that if they're at the end of their child-bearing years they might abort what would have been their last (and in some cases only) child and not be able to conceive again.
Bird in the hand and all that.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
I'm not. I'm arguing that they're missing out, in fact impoverishing themselves, by not having and loving every child God gives them.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
Waiting for a promotion opportunity can feel like torture too. How much easier might life be if your boss unfortunately, unexpectedly passed away when you're the obvious candidate to replace him? Or if that competitor who's making business hard just vanished one day, not to be heard from again? It'd probably be really good for your kids, too.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
This seems to assume that having a Down syndrome child precludes having another child afterward, which strikes me as odd.
Not OP but that doesn't seem to follow in the slightest, no. The child is (obviously) denied a rich tapestry of experience and so is the parent. This doesn't imply that on the parent's side it's worthwhile to maximize for diversity of weird and unpleasant challenges. Only that if they do get a child with those differences, they're missing out on something by not experiencing the child and the relationship they'd have had with him or her.
As an inveterate baby-maker (on the male side) myself, my concern isn't for the burden on my wife and I. We'd rise to it well, I think. My concern is for the dampening effect it might have on the lives of my other children. I don't see murder as a reasonable solution, though; if I did, I can think of a lot of other people whose deaths would probably also improve my children's lives.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
I think 'human flourishing' is a dodge; a nice-sounding but ultimately empty referent. Sure, just wave vaguely in a direction that most people agree has appealing vibes. But is that really a basis on which to build any sort of worthwhile moral system or institute policy?
TitaniumButterfly
6d ago
How can you love a football team consisting of a rotating selection of foreigners and guys born on the other side of your country? And sold to the highest bidder, who also happens to be foreign a lot of the time, if not a literal multinational conglomerate?
But people do. (shrug)
TitaniumButterfly
7d ago
I think the more relevant way to look at the matter is whether there are important IQ floors below which substantial efficacy is lost. Replacing hard men with above-floor IQs with much softer men who happen to be even smarter wouldn't go great, I think, no. I also don't think it's especially pertinent to mention.
TitaniumButterfly
7d ago
See here:
The Effectiveness of Rifle Fire Across Cultures by Kulak.
Long story short, even with the same guns the minds of the people using them count for a lot.
Does the moral status of 'pogroms' change when less-unpleasant approaches have been attempted and failed?
People get arrested over there for expressing concern about it. I don't know what they're supposed to do, exactly.
Girls Jumping On Trampolines.
My mom saw me watching that once (I'd have been 17 probably) and got angry and demanded to know how I'd feel if it were my sister jumping on the trampoline.
I told her I wouldn't be interested in watching my sister, but these women were not my sister. We looked at each other for a bit and then she left.
More options
Context Copy link