domain:thezvi.wordpress.com
HalloweenSnarry
8hr ago
Perhaps the argument could be made that we can in fact throw the book hard at drug offenders, and that we have indeed done so to the point that DAs, lacking a less-harsh punishment, choose not to punish at all.
ThisIsSin
The boob tube emits harmful XXX-rays
8hr ago
are far more severe than in the West.
The economic opportunity per capita in the West is higher than it is in the East, and if you assume the Easterners are better workers that only serves to compound the problem (i.e. they need an even greater level of opportunity to function correctly than even the average American does simply because they're more efficient at exploiting it, so a lack of that opportunity is going to be harder on them).
That's part of why the US leads Western TFR (despite the generous terms European countries give to their citizens to have children it doesn't seem to be helping, but remember that the average European is significantly worse off compared to the average American even before the US sabotaged their gas supply). Twice the population for the same regional GDP paints an awfully grim picture and that's been true even before the MENA human wave.
And the Indians aren't a refutation of this, because their urban areas (40% urbanization) are just as bad for TFR, but perhaps it's a different story when your standards are that low? (I'd argue the same for China, but maybe that falls apart considering I also made this point about 100-year-ago US, which kind of had the same thing going on.)
solowingpixy
the resident car guy
8hr ago
For the extreme example, /r/raisedbyborderlines. It's actually kind of a fascinating place in that the median poster there is from an oddly niche demographic: They're usually the daughter (in an otherwise male-dominated website), almost always consider themselves the scapegoat child (and their brother the golden child who usually remained enmeshed with the mother and is thus some variety of emotionally stunted), and have a spineless father who remained married to their mother (when BPD isn't usually correlated with long-lasting marriages).
Anecdotal, but in my experience material concerning mothers with borderline personality disorder seems strongly oriented toward women, while the material oriented toward men is far more concerned with getting over a borderline ex-GF/wife than dealing with a borderline mother.
Butlerian
Not robot-ist just don't like 'em
9hr ago
The only reason 4B ‘works’ in Korea (or at least doesn’t instantly collapse as farcical) is precisely because Korean society is actually great for women. In Africa if you try to withhold sex from men in general, or especially your husband, you’ll just get raped, and everyone will call you an idiot because OBVIOUSLY that’s what would happen.
Say what you will about sexual violence’s moral deficiencies, but it does keep women in line, as the fertility rates in Africa demonstrate.
Felagund
9hr ago
Thank you!
Given that you have more experience than most, then, what do your opinions look like on trans-related issues?
urquan
9hr ago
I didn't post the meme originally, but several people had just expressed they didn't understand it and I was just trying to be helpful.
gattsuru
9hr ago
The current HHS head is a HerbaLife fan.
I’d love to have better options, and I’m disappointed that the Trump one is this, but I think people badly underestimate how bad our institutions are.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
9hr ago
For what it's worth, I thought it was an excellent meme, quite amusing, and certainly fit for a fun thread.
grognard
Intel Pentium III 450 / Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra / Corsair 128MB PC133 / ABIT BH6
10hr ago
Something seems to be going on, not just between men and women, but just as importantly, women and their mothers.
A phenomenon I didn’t even know existed. Where can we learn more?
HalloweenSnarry
10hr ago
You forgot to expand your asterisk.
The people making this meme don’t think he’s “slightly less hawkish.”
That was an injection of my own thoughts, I can see how it could be confusing. I was simply trying to gesture at Trump's differences of opinion on foreign policy from the mainstream.
Also, I don’t think anyone says he’s “literally in bed with dictators.”
Sigh. Here we go again.
On national security, he’ll sell out Ukraine and get in bed with dictators, most prominently Russian President Vladimir Putin. A liaison with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán isn't out of the question either.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327/
The Republican nominee’s preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/opinions/trump-dictators-putin-xi-erdogan-ben-ghiat/index.html
Trump continually praises dictators and who he is trying to reach with this kind of talk. Some of it is no doubt Trump airing his fantasies of the kind of authority he could exert as president. He praises Hitler, Chinese leader Xi, Russian President Putin and others because of their absolute power, not in spite of it. He repeats these leaders’ cult of personality propaganda in presenting them as so strong and feared that it is useless to resist them.
From the Kamala Harris compaign:
https://www.facebook.com/KamalaHarris/videos/harris-vs-trump-harris-walz-2024/1092590845847573/
Donald Trump admires dictators—and he wants to be one on day one if given the chance.
Also, from the first Trump administration, who could forget SNL making a joke about Putin fucking Trump:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/snls-homophobic-trump-putin-jokes-need-to-stop/
"Honey, why you still up?” Bennett’s Putin says, emerging from a hotel room door bare-chested with a randy, horny smirk. He seductively pats the small of Baldwin’s Trump’s back. “Come back to bed, babe!"
Maybe "admires dictators" is different, but at least one of those pieces expliclitly said "in bed with dictators," and the implication was all over the past year of the campaign -- let alone the first Trump presidency.
Perhaps I made some mistakes in my presentation, but I was simply trying to provide my best understanding of the meme in terms that people who disagree with it might be able to understand. I would not have posted, particularly in the friday fun thread, if I thought I were going to create a debate over all this. It's a silly polandball meme.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
10hr ago
Related: As a software developer I can make a small change at work to save the company hundreds of thousands in processing costs or performance SLAs. Is my work really worth that amount, and should developers be paid according to what they're 'owed' instead of just a salary? (Ignoring the boring question of "only the salary was negotiated")
Aside from the practical issues of how to measure each developer's 'worth' (or maybe I am drilling into the details here), the fact is the savings are only possible because of the massive platform and software that the company already has, which I did not create.
The charger is critical to the win, but a bystander demanding too much money is being an asshole. Your struggling startup is obviously providing most of the value.
Gaashk
10hr ago
There's some battle of the sexes going on, but 44% of women still voted for Trump, and an actual majority of white women. The very active pro-life organizations that are out running crisis pregnancy centers, right to life dinners, and petitions for heartbeat lives are largely supported by women.
(unedited, meandering thoughts)
Something seems to be going on, not just between men and women, but just as importantly, women and their mothers. There seem to be a lot of women, of the making histrionic remarks on Facebook variety, who are into looking at the faults of their mothers, and "re-parenting" themselves at 35. I've heard from acquaintances about their mothers gently nudging them about how if they want a family, now is the time to do it, they're in their 30s, there won't be another chance -- and the women getting frustrated and offended about that. Why are Korean mothers in law so demanding? It sounds like they've had hard lives, but also they're not stupid, and should have noticed their bad reputation, and that they're scaring the younger women. From the thread below, LLL has been important partly because mothers stay out of their daughters' business when it comes to childbirth and feeding of infants, though sometimes they step in to babysit every now and again.
I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago, where they were talking about the female archetype with Maiden, Mother, and Crone, and how the Mother and Crone archetypes are currently rather broken. There aren't very many older women I respect and want to be like. My own mother is fine, and it's basically fine if I'm like her, but I feel this in general, like older women are kind of just playing around, with very little purpose. Perhaps this is related to the trivializing of women's work and running the household. I was reading the other day about Matushka Olga of Alaska (1916 - 1979), who's community considers her a saint because she was well loved, a good midwife, and was always making warm clothing to give to people. They talk about people in the other villages wearing socks and mittens she made for them, and how happy they were about it. George MacDonald is a lovely writer, who's books are full of very old but still lively grandmothers and great grandmothers at their spinning wheel. Sometimes they spin wool, or magical thread that will let the adventurers always find their way home. He said he remembered going to his grandmother's little cottage, where she was always spinning, back when that was important and necessary work, and loved the sound of the spinning wheel, and the stories of his grandmother. My godmother knitted me a huge wool scarf that I would wrap up to my nose when the cold winter winds blew, for years. I moved a few times with only a suitcase since then, but it was the coziest scarf I've ever warn, with both wool and effort.
It's nice that I can just order a totally adequate coat online for less than four hours of labor and have it delivered to my house, where my dishwasher and laundry machine are running in the background. But despite quite a lot of training in home economics sorts of tasks, I don't make much of anything, because it feels redundant. Many of the women in my community make art, and sometimes I go to the local gallery, or the studio tour. It's nice to paint the hills, or "work with printed textures" or whatever, but it seems disconnected and trivial, like it's a visual expression of a crisis of meaning. The whole lifestyle of sending a six week old baby to daycare so you can go file papers in an office to pay the mortgage in the neighborhood with the adequate schools so that your daughter can get a college degree so that she can send her newborn infant to daycare while she sends emails thing is... not ideal. And then you retire and go to workshops where you paint the hills or make abstract acrylic collages or something, and babysit the grandkids a couple of times a year, if you're fortunate enough to have any grandkids. It sounds a lot worse in S Korea. You work in some dull office all day to send your kid to cram school at night so that she can go to college to get a job that lets her send her kid to cram school. Nobody receives love and recognition for vacuuming her mother in law's house every day.
Maybe I'll take my kids to church tomorrow. Apparently they had a tamale making event today, and a potluck tomorrow. They built a new building, with a metal dome that's still under construction, and it looks rather nice. Someone is hand carving an iconostasis.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
10hr ago
In addition to what @bonsaii observed about being first—it was also the most accessible to the U.S. following the war. While we were bombing Korea and refusing to talk to China, we were actively occupying Japan. While we were bombing Vietnam and trying to get an in with China, we were still using and trading with Japan. By the time we had regular relations with the majority of East Asia, Japan was coming into its own electronics and heavy industry, securing its position in the West-dominated economy. That’s when tourism really started to take off.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
10hr ago
Senator Gillibrand recently said about UAPs: "We don't know whose they are. We don't know what propulsion they use. We don't know the tech. We don't know it. It's not off the shelf stuff."
Hearing in the senate on UAPs scheduled for the 19th of this month.
Exciting times!
netstack
Texas is freedom land
10hr ago
The people making this meme don’t think he’s “slightly less hawkish.” They think he’s outright sympathetic to Putin and will explicitly, not just effectively, lead to Ukrainian defeat. Hence side-switching and not, I dunno, kicked for griefing.
Also, I don’t think anyone says he’s “literally in bed with dictators.”
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
10hr ago
Women are asexual unless Chad is around. The upturn in their identification rates is just an upturn in hypergamy. I'm not sure if Korea's situation is the same.
Also, 50 Shades isn't porn for women; Tinder is porn for women. That's probably part of the situation, too.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
10hr ago
Next thing you know, they’ll be appointing antivaxxers and naming departments after crypto.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
11hr ago
I'm not sure Nature has an opinion on who reproduces. That's what the phrase "fitness landscape" is for. The fitness landscape can change. It seems like you're trying to abdicate value judgements. It's fine if you don't care who reproduces, but this kind of appeal to nature shouldn't persuade anyone.
If two demons are fighting over to change the fitness landscape, you wouldn't care?
(After re-reading my post, I see I am making essentially a "postmodern"/subjectivist argument, kinda)
I didn't use the word "compassion" in the posts I wrote about vaccines, and that's not what I was asking for anyway. I was asking for understanding - an understanding of the conditions and values that cause people to do what they do and think what they think - but that's different from compassion.
Fair enough. Yet compassion is the more excellent way.
But I don't think that evolutionary fitness is tied in any direct sense to your ultimate moral worth.
Let us review what you wrote:
Humanity will not go extinct; but if it does, it'll be because it deserved to
And to the extent that this "conflict" does have a basis in reality and isn't purely virtual, it's largely a good thing anyway, as its primary effect is to prevent evolutionarily unfit individuals (largely male) from reproducing
Those are judgments based upon moral worth.
I’d also add that you were quite literally saying “it’s not happening, and it’s a good thing.”
You’ve attempted to retreat to the Bailey, by saying you were only descriptively stating “nature’s judgment” as “an objective fact”, but the motte is right there for all to see. You were clearly describing these things in terms of what is good and deserved. “It deserves to” is a moral claim of moral desert.
As it so happens, saying “you are defective, and it is good and desirable that fewer people like you exist in the future” is sneering, and is a moral judgment. If you think it is not so, I find your perspective quite perplexing indeed.
Can you to be more specific about what effective interventions you're thinking about?
A focus on reducing obesity and preventing sickness would be a welcome change. Will it dramatically increase life expectancy? Maybe not at first, but it's a start. And it might at least stem the rapid increase in costs. We're getting very little for our expensive medical system.
What changes would you propose? Cities like Chicago and DC have done literally everything that establishment figures say is good, and look at the results. These are intractable problems. The state can't simply snap its fingers and will away problems. Except crime. That can be made much less via mass incarceration.
The US prosecutes violent and drug crimes far more harshly than Europe, as I'm sure you are well aware. Tolerance is not the issue.
I am not aware. Here in Seattle open air drug markets are tolerated and people who have been arrested for dozens of crimes (including violent crimes) are frequently released onto the streets without trial. It's hard to imagine a more lenient system.
AppleyOrange
11hr ago
Georgia. 2024.
Give me a link.
I'm not expecting anything conclusive. But Trump's poll watchers and attorneys don't seem to be claiming there was any fraud in Georgia, and the various fraud proponent parasites don't seem to be interested.
So I'm not asking for evidence.
Where's the rank speculation of vote fraud in 2024 Georgia?
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
11hr ago
Lastly, it seems self limiting: as women drop out of the relationship market, the women who choose to remain in it move up in terms of the quality of the men they can get.
Seems that the discerning liberal woman can use the Trump victory as a plausibly deniable way to get the competition out of the market. I won't say all the American 4B'ers are "in on the joke" but maybe the most rabid are? See also: "wokefishing," and a post in this space a couple years back suggesting that a lot of progressive-coded dating dynamics are because the gender ratios of woke spaces skew heavily female.
If 4B was a cup size, how big would it be?
erwgv3g34
11hr ago
Agreed. Governments hate cash for the same reason they hate crypto; it enables people to escape their control. The state can't get of the cash yet, but they are sure as fuck not going to make it more convenient to use by printing bigger bills. Instead, it will watch as inflation slowly makes the $100 bill as irrelevant as the penny.
From "In Praise of Cash" by Brett Scott:
The psychological assault is working. The Netherlands – where I face my vending machine – has become one key front in the war on cash. Here cash is becoming viewed like an illegal alien on the run, increasingly excluded from the formal economy, drawing dirty looks from shop assistants. Signs say ‘Card only’. Who is Card? Card is a glamorous socialite, welcomed into stores. Card is superior. Look at the bank adverts showcasing their accessories for Card. Nobody is building accessories for Cash.
The frontlines, though, are now creeping to poorer countries. India’s recent so-called ‘demonetisation’ was a brutal overnight retraction of rupee notes by the prime minister Narendra Modi to bring discipline to the ‘black economy’. It was an exercise that necessitated choking the poorest Indians, who depend on cash and who often lack access to bank accounts. Originally cast in popular terms as an attempt to stem corruption, the message was later ironically altered to cast cashlessness as a way to create economic progress for India’s poor.
To be fair i think this goes for men too. I don't think this has to do with denigration of women's work or anything but with the very extended retirement and generally privileged existence of a good portion of the current generation of "elderly". The retirement, where people are protected from a lot of current hardships through various policies such as Medicare, inflation protected pensions or the abolishment of property tax (while simultaneously massively benefiting from their inflated value) leads to a sort of reversed and very prolonged adolescence where slightly diminished but perfectly capable people mentally, socially and spiritually degenerate through disassociation from the economy and purpose in general. Being a reality divorced leech isn't very admirable, regardless of age.
Men aren't protected from this much more than women, even if they often retire a bit later and aren't stay at home moms with kids in school.
People who keep working usually are worthy of respect though and I do respect most of my seniors at work, men and women. There are a few retired people I respect, they are almost always very active with helping out caring for their grandchildren, but can also be active in some kind of local charitable organisation.
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