domain:astralcodexten.com
aaa
6m ago
satanic religions of old
There is no old satanic religion. Satanism was invented in the 60s by a topless bar manager.
spiky_fungus
14m ago
Nice, fedposting, consensus building and stupid rolled in one.
Not entirely sure is it trolling or genuinely advocating for civil war. And unsure which one would be sadder.
I disagree because if the vote on the side you actually like cannot win, not only are you not getting what you want, but often moving the country in the opposite direction.
I honestly don't understand how anyone could actually believe this. Sure, it's a common argument. But the only effect it has en masse is to ensure that people who don't like either party, never have any impact at all. And responding as if I just didn't understand the math is insane, because the whole point is that if you understand math at all, you already know that your vote is exceedingly unlikely to matter.
I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, but I've lost track now of how many people I have to remind of this:
Your vote is more than 99.9% likely to make no difference at all.
The idea that your vote might bring about your preferred policies is mathematically absurd. For the same reasons, the idea that your vote might "mov[e] the country in the opposite direction" is also absurd. Indeed, it is more absurd, since the major American political parties agree on more than the disagree on (e.g., neither is monarchist, neither is communist [yet], etc.). Whether you vote, or do not vote, and who or what you vote for, will very nearly never alter the outcome of an election.
"But if enough people believe that..."
It doesn't make any difference! Yes, strategically, you want as many people who agree with you, to believe their vote makes a difference and to cast it accordingly. Yes, strategically, you want as many people who disagree with you to believe their vote makes no difference and thus stay home from the polls or vote in a way that does not otherwise hurt your desires. But statistically, if a lot of people understand that their vote doesn't matter, they are very likely to be more-or-less evenly distributed across both "sides!" Furthermore, you probably have no influence over the voters of either "side" anyway, so talking about voting in this manner is an exercise in pure imagination; it is a power fantasy. Now, granted: if you're Donald Trump, or you're Kamala Harris, or you're Taylor Swift, or even if you're maybe Scott Alexander, and you have the power sway voting blocs? Sure, this is a great piece of rhetoric, a potentially useful lie to tell, etc. I don't deny that major political parties (and their partisans!) have every reason to peddle this claptrap.
But as a matter of fact, everyone has some actual reason to vote (or not) as seems best to them, and virtually no one has any reason to vote as a bloc (if that's not what actually seems best to them)--with the exception of vanishingly rare edge cases where their one vote actually makes a difference. This sometimes happens at the local level, so the fewer people there are voting in a given election, the more actual reason you have to cast your vote strategically. But also: in such cases, it's virtually guaranteed that you are actually voting as seems best to you, and not merely casting a vote to prevent the greater of two evils from taking office. (Many local elections are lucky to get two whole candidates in the first place.)
If making a difference in politics matters to you, then you need to secure political office for yourself, or become famous enough that a lot of people take their cues from you--ideally, many many thousands. At which point you will have some actual reason to tell this lie. (Just be careful not to fall for your own marketing--it's not your vote that matters, it is your influence over many votes!) Until then, the vast majority of people who say/believe the "you must vote for one of the two viable candidates" lie are merely someone else's useful tool.
spiky_fungus
17m ago
he? I thought that Deiseach is a woman.
Why you expect it to be a high risk? Even if Russia would nuke Berlin and Warsaw - then USA, France and UK would not nuke Moscow back.
And reaction would be likely strong enough (China would join) ensuring that Russia will not nuke NATO countries or even Ukraine, as benefits is not there.
And if Putin/Biden/Kamala/Trump would be insane enough to launch full scale attack... There is not much we can do with that.
It doesn’t get nearly as much as attention as it should, here or elsewhere
Maybe because when I seen it, it was in "Russia has nukes, we must satisfy all their demands" form which does not encourage treating it seriously.
existential crisis
Even full scale use of all nuclear devices would not cause end of civilisation: it would cripple it and set us 50-100-200, maybe 300 years back and kill billions - but would not end existence of humanity.
Yes, people claiming that we have enough nukes to kill all humanity were stupid and/or lying.
ControlsFreak
27m ago
A comment from @JTarrou from many years ago still lives in the back of my mind:
The current Republican president is always the worst person in history. The last one is always surprisingly human. The one before that is always a pretty decent dude.
The current Democratic president is Star Trek Jesus with sprinkles, the last one was a corrupt liar who wasted his vast potential, and the one before that was a Republican.
I don't know that Obama has quite followed that trajectory yet, but since the connection to Biden is so strong and he is still 'around' and influential enough in the party that some folks think he's still pulling many strings, maybe he'll just be a bit delayed on the path. I'm watching that one as well as looking forward to Trump's trajectory once he's actually out of the picture politically.
Folamh3
54m ago
I mean, we do have our token progressives. Darwin/guesswho was active as recently as April, and I had a spirited and productive debate with @TokenTransGirl more recently than that.
Deiseach is still active in the ACX comment section. Reading between the lines I get the impression he lives they live in Ireland.
mottetert
1hr ago
The correct solution to climate change is directly controlling the temperature by releasing sulfate aerosols in the upper atmosphere. At a cost of $5-20 billion per year we can hold temperatures in place or reduce them, even as CO2 levels rise. These people want to destroy industrial civilization over a glorified nothingburger.
That won't work forever. Those aerosols don't stay in the air nearly as long as CO2 does. So if we depend on them, we'll likely continue to raise the CO2 to dangerous levels while temporarily covering it up with the aerosols. It'll work for a while, but on historical timescales sooner or later something will happen that will disrupt the flights that deliver the aerosols. It could be a war, natural disaster, oil depletion, or anything that disrupts modern civilization and trade. Then the temperature will shoot up to where it would have been without the aerosols, but it will be worse because it will happen much quicker with no chance for people to adapt, and it will compound with whatever crisis caused the disruption.
sohois
1hr ago
I've had posts appear in the "Highlights from the comments..." threads under a username in the past. Not seen any bias towards real names, the bigger issue is that it's likely too late for a comment to get noticed amongst thousands of others
TowardsPanna
1hr ago
Yeah. That's one of my fears too. The more trash we put into orbit, the higher the risk goes of making the satellite space unviable forever.
Boeing keeps winning.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
2hr ago
Maybe try an eliminating diet to check if the food you're eating is causing the problems. I remember having a similar problem when I initially became lactose intolerant. Stopping all milk consumption fixed it.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
Fair enough, in the end neither am I. Just remember someone posting about it on /r/stupidpol.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
2hr ago
That sounds rough. I got a single shot of tramadol after the surgery and that's it, they offered a nightcap shot, but I refused it and didn't need any meds after that, just felt like shit for three days.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
2hr ago
Surgery?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2hr ago
it's an argument for why we should grab our guns and start shooting.
Please stop saying this.
BahRamYou
2hr ago
But doesnt that require you to have some special insight about elections? I agree with nate silver, this election is too close to call and i have no idea what will happen. I certainly wouldn't want to wager millions of dollars on it. If you have some special insight, you could probably becone a celebrity forecaster like nate silver and make more that way.
Lost
3hr ago
Yeah this is a fairly accurate take, although I also made a good amount of money (nowhere near your bankroll, natch) betting on Trump in '16 when his odds were extremely undervalued, both in the primary and the general, up until the last couple months
f3zinker
Its A/B testing all the way down
3hr ago
If a M100 works, you didn't need a gaming mouse to begin with, just one that works at all. `
TowardsPanna
3hr ago
May I ask what gives you confidence on where crypto is headed? What sort of bets did you make?
sapph
4hr ago
The crypto election markets (ie polymarket) dont have those problems. You can bet millions without changing the odds too much (assuming you spread your bets out a little). Spread and withdrawal fees are very small. You are probably thinking of the situation with predictit which did have all those issues.
Note: I specifically do mean election markets. Elections, especially presidential elections, have by far the most liquidity. But you can bet tens or low hundreds of thousands of dollars on all sorts of markets. Liquidity varies but many markets have decent liquidity.
Anyone starting to feel like there's nothing really that dystopic about A Clockwork Orange?
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