domain:mgautreau.substack.com
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
Not gonna lie, gearing up on an absurd amount of survivalist gear for a long winter hike, only to head to the local bar and get shtifaced with the bros, does sound quite fun.
MollieTheMare
1hr ago
so an OoM less than trillions
In case anyone really cares about the technical definitions of order of magnitude. The numbers 175x10^9 and 10^12, might correctly be said to be of different orders, but the former is not an order of magnitude less than the latter.
To differ by an order of magnitude two numbers X and Y must satisfy abs(log10(X) - log10(Y)) >= 1. In this case log10(1000) - log10(175) ~ 0.76. It did seem a bit hyperbolic to say trillions, but it's not technically an OoM less.
On the other hand, to express the order of magnitude of each number individually, the conventional range for the significand is [1/sqrt(10), sqrt(10)). In this case 1.75x10^11 and 1x10^12. So the first has an order of magnitude of 11 and the second 12.
TowardsPanna
1hr ago
Depends on the variant and how it mutates. If it becomes an easily transmissible virus that attacks the lungs it could get much worse than covid. Ferrets, who are quite similar to humans as far as respiratory system goes, afaik, have a terrible death rate to h5n1.
There was a campaign video (which I haven't seen) where Vance tried to present himself as a "regular dude" by going into a donut shop and buying a box of donuts. Apparently the person behind the counter wasn't interested in taking part, Vance stumbled over his words and the whole thing was awkward and uncomfortable for everyone.
Southkraut
A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
1hr ago
Leaving, but turning around long before they get there. It will be an in-joke, and we get to make fun of the idiots who actually fly to Alaska.
Southkraut
A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
1hr ago
What do you mean? He all but name-dropped each and every one of us individually and hand-wrote the themotte.org URL on every surface in the world!
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
I will not be satisfied until young men leaving for the Hock each winter becomes a tradition.
justmotteingaround
2hr ago
Threats to our community aside
Are we going to move to an onion site now that the VP candidate made a 5 second vague reference to a writer whose comment section inspired this forum?
Southkraut
A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
2hr ago
Please explain for someone out of the loop.
HorthyMiklosKatonaja
2hr ago
Terms that were popular only in small, socially ostracized circles of internet weirdos and incels are now mainstream.
I still have yet to see "Bayesian", "quokka", "defectbot", "epistemic status" or "toxoplasma" in the Washington Post. Heh.
He says it's actually the Russians funding the German Green party, not even hedging or speculating.
It was going around in the news a while back:
Has the Russian Federation been funding environmental activists around the world? A few more voices point in this direction.
WWF Germany, BUND (Friends of the Earth), and NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union), three environmental organisations who were avowed opponents of Germany's NordStream pipelines with Russia, dropped their opposition after Gazprom promised funding for environmental protection, according to a 2011 report from the European Parliament. A foundation set up by a German federal state, environmental organizations, and NordStream (controlled by Gazprom) had filled its coffers with €10 million with representatives of the environmental organizations sitting on the board. Did these groups drop their opposition to the pipelines because of Russian funding? Whether they did or not is anyone's guess.
Another striking example is Belgium, where the federal energy minister Tinne Van der Straeten (from the green party "GROEN") has sought to dismantle Belgium's nuclear energy capacity. Van der Straeten’s former job? Lawyer and associate at a law firm whose largest client is Gazprom.
It shouldn't really be surprising, as this is the straight-forward result of everyone's incentive's on the issue.
Greens were pushing for no fossil fuels,
The Greens were pushing first and foremost for shutting down nuclear power, at which they have succeeded last year. They would have done so sooner, but the Ukraine war erupted just as they were first scheduled to shutdown their last reactors, and the uncertainty over energy security made it impossible to shout down people raising questions like "uh... is this really the best moment for that?". Which doesn't mean they didn't try. They first said the shutdown process is in motion, and impossible to reverse for technical reasons, to which the staff of the last functioning power plant said "uh... we can run this as long as you want, it's just a question of getting more fuel", to which they tried to say "well, we can't get nuclear fuel on such short notice", to which the US said "we'll gladly sell it to you, with Amazon Prime next day delivery included", to which they finally had to say "fine... we'll keep it running for one more year, but don't think this will avoid the shutdown!".
They have done so with full knowledge it will increase carbon emissions, and only offering the excuse that a switch to renewable sources will drive it back down later on, in the long term.
Dean
2hr ago
This is months after you wrote this and I was not the intended audience, but after re-seeing this by chance of you linking it in another post I want to leave my regards to it. There is hard-earned wisdom in this that speak to me. It has been an aid in resisting certain mindsets I am not immune from, and I would be a lesser person without it at times, which is to say I would be a better person if I remembered it more often.
Thank you for writing it, and I hope you keep linking back to it in the future.
Add in that the war has increased food prices because the “breadbasket of Europe” can’t plant crops
This has little to do with food prices because the EU doesn't import much of the kind of foods that Ukraine produces. The EU is a massive food exporter, both cereals and more processed goods.
The reason food prices are up is due to increased fuel and fertilizer costs (and to a lesser extend a lack seasonal workers), which has to do with the war but not the economic disruption of Ukraine. Disruption of Ukraine farming primarily drives up food costs in the middle east and Africa, not Europe.
Ioper
2hr ago
The 60% billion from the EU is just financial aid, there is also 47b in military aid.
Your point still stands but European aid isn't so low as just 60 billion.
mrvanillasky
2hr ago
Delhi smog is caused by the terrible industrial setup in India and people burning agricultural waste in punjab. Blaming diwali for smog is the same as blaming GTA games for shcool shooters. Fireworks are not healthy but the underlying cause is far far worse which is farmers in punjab and Indias abysmal living conditions.
Look up the river yamuna or ganges, like every Indian water body they get raw sewage dumped in them. This is also why Indiasn congregate to goa as literally every other water body is polluted to the point where it stinks from a mile away. Yamuna looks like its a free bubble bath due to the fucking foam.
Also swastikas are everywhere here lol, I helped paint some yesterday. It is a holy aryan symbol, just that euros and north americans cant use it.
Folamh3
2hr ago
Tangentially related but this reminds me of a tweet playfully mocking Vance which I found pretty funny, primarily just for how it was phrased:
[vice presidential debate]
moderator: what makes you smile
tim walz: my kids
jd vance: pass
moderator: what’s your favorite donut
jd vance: what if i killed you
LiberalRetvrn
3hr ago
It's interesting that Vance can see the parallels between pride parades and civil religion, but I wonder if he can see how christianity and wokeness fit in. Pride parades are positive rites - they celebrate the existence of LGBTs without demonizing straight people. Then wokeness came along, and its core thesis was original sin: you are born racist, sexist, and homophobic, and only through listening to marginalized voices, unpacking your racism, and de-toxifying your masculinity can you ever hope to be saved.
NunoSempere
3hr ago
I think I'm mostly focused on terrible outliers, and the mortality for H5N1 just doesn't seem that high. Say 0.05x to 3x covid, something in that range. You then have to add long-term effects, which are hard to estimate &c, but it just doesn't seem very existentially threatening.
NunoSempere
3hr ago
Why doesn't monkeypox excite you? It could fill in the niche that smallpox previously had.
Reuters: Diwali celebrations hit air quality in New Delhi
New Delhi topped charts on Friday as the world's most polluted city after revellers defying a ban on firecrackers to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, helped drive air quality to hazardous levels.
Thick smog wreathed the Indian capital, shrouding the presidential palace in the central district and the surrounding gardens popular with joggers and cyclists, after Thursday's celebrations.
Local government officials have banned use of firecrackers during Diwali and the winter over the last few years, in line with Supreme Court directives, but have had difficulty enforcing the measure despite the threat of jail.
In New Jersey, the posting of celebratory swastikas by Indian immigrants is causing some confusion.
After the Montville Township Police Department received a few phone calls about swastika sightings in October, it posted on Facebook to explain why.
The reason? Diwali.
"With Diwali coming up this October, I want the residents and citizens to be aware that a common symbol of this holiday is a Diwali swastika," the Oct. 16 post read. "...This post is in light of our police department already fielding calls regarding people seeing this symbol on cars and houses. We are trying to eliminate any unwarranted hostility toward any person displaying this for their religious purposes."
aeqno
3hr ago
Except tried to overturn the results of an election and coup the most powerful country on Earth.
MaximumCuddles
3hr ago
Is JD Vance here? Maybe, maybe not.
But if he was here, I don’t imagine he would be a prolific poster. Very busy guy, you see.
He’d most likely be a lurker that posts in inspired bursts and then slinks back into lurker mode for days, or weeks, or even months. He might have even got an AAQC or two.
He’d have been lurking around since SSC and the split with the subreddit, so he’d have some intermittent poasting history over at /r/themotte but probably not before.
I imagine he checks TheMotte regularly between his busy work life that doesn’t allow him much screen time.
He’d also be mega-based, undoubtedly.
Anyways, I’d look out for a guy like that.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
3hr ago
The fact that he’s into Moldbug also suggests Rat adjacent. I mean I’m not surprised at all that someone reading Moldbug also reads Slatestar.
ControlsFreak
3hr ago
I want to point people back to my old comment on Grants Pass, because this logic has really infected tons of things. They were so successful in playing this game with sexuality (going all the way to effectively banning Christian groups from campuses) that it's almost hard to blame them for thinking that they could get away with it everywhere else, too. I don't really like to let my mind drift to partisan politics (rather than just focusing on understanding what is actually true), but it's hard to not have the thought floating around that we could easily have been two Clinton appointees in place of two Trump appointees away from this stuff metastasizing even more. Frankly, it just makes it annoyingly harder to simultaneously follow the news in the legal realm while also trying to stay personally philosophically coherent when to even explain what has happened requires constantly reminding yourself, "Of course this is complete philosophical bollocks."
JD Vance comes off as a normal guy. More normal than Kamala, Trump, Joe, Pence IMO. Obama had charisma, but his artifice was obvious in longer conversations — too effortful. Vance is so normal that if you removed the political parts and told someone Joe picked a random guy off the street, it would be believable. And his audience isn’t some biased conservative audience, it’s about as average Joe as you can get, and the conclusion in the comments is that Vance is just a normal dude. This isn’t always the case — comments often criticize guests for being blowhards or criticize Joe for not letting guests finish.
This cements my thought that the “Vance is weird” campaign is a fully enclosed propaganda ecosystem, as in, it isn’t exaggerating some aspect of Vance (eg “Trump lies”), it is just totally made up. And that’s really spooky, because there’s a section of the public that will believe whatever the DNC wants them to believe. If they can make you believe Vance is weird they can make you believe anything.
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