domain:betonit.substack.com
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
2m ago
I don't think anyone is thinking about it that deeply
Sure, but you don't need to think deeply about it to have an intuitive understanding of what things (policies, ethical commitments, artistic portrayals, etc) will be helpful or harmful to your agenda. People tend to have good noses for these things.
If progressives wanted to avoid the perception that femininity could be dangerous they wouldn't have imposed toxic femininity - e.g. totally unchecked forms of feminine-coded social combat like gossip and cancelling
I mean, the point of accruing power is that you have to exercise it at some point, and that's necessarily going to generate some pushback. That's unavoidable. That's where the thought policing comes in, to try and minimize dissent.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
2m ago
Where are the historic sedentary-by-modern-standards men full stop?
Based on my own calorie requirement, a "sedentary" lifestyle without a car requires at least an extra 500 calories per day compared to a US-suburban sedentary lifestyle.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5m ago
It looks like the specific departments where >75% of the employees were fired (primarily ad sales and content moderation, on my understanding) did fall over - ad revenue crashed, and content moderation is (quite deliberately on the part of Musk) no longer happening, except when Musk wants to ban one of his political opponents on a whim. There were also some moderately serious legal problems that looked like they stemmed from too many HR/finance/etc. staff being fired too fast. (If you fire the HR lady first, you replace her before you fire anyone else).
I think the fraction of the core technical staff fired was closer to 25%. And, per Jack Welch et. al, any organisation which hasn't been purged recently (which Twitter so hadn't been) can usefully fire the lowest-performing 20% of the staff - so the cull of the technical teams was no big deal.
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
10m ago
I started Dance Dance Dance on my Thanksgiving trip flight and it has all the hallmarks of the Murakami novels I prefer.
hooser
13m ago
Alas, I can't comment on those three. I put the first one on my viewing list because on it's on the streaming service I have.
However, I do recommend the 1994 "Queen Margot" (French, "La Reine Margot"), which is a very good adaptation and does a great job developing the logic of that story consistent with the norms of the time. Its two main female protagonists (Margueritte and her mother Catherine de Medicci) use various aspects of femininity to secure their positions. They do not wield swords, and they're no strangers to wounds or death.
DirtyWaterHotDog
18m ago
In your 30s, cherish each moment with your parents.
Especially true for immigrants. I visit my family annually. If my dad lives till a ripe old age of 80, then I'll only meet him 20 more times.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
24m ago
Well, if there’s one thing that would elevate your risk, it’s a front-row seat to world war.
DirtyWaterHotDog
27m ago
Pretty much everybody who knew anything about anything predicted Twitter will fail catastrophically very soon after
Did they ?
Twitter was well known for the being the most do-nothing company in big tech for some time before 2022. My friend (deliberately) joined there in 2021, and did zero work. I mean it. He wanted to start a startup, so he he built his own product full time and free-loaded as a Twitter employee. Yes, he likely would've been laid off even without Elon's interference, but any other org would've kicked him out within the first 2 months.
Twitter at it's first user peak (around 2015) had 3500 employees. In 2022, It had 7500 without any additional user acquisition. In 2024, it has 2800. Twitter was a bloated company in dire need of layoffs. Twitter was totally fine in 2015, and it's only down 20% employees from that period. Twitter's work life balance is well known to have gone to shit. If every employee is working 20% more time, the effective hours worked haven't changed much.
A lot of twitter projects were 'growth projects'. They were trying to expand to other markets, build new products and worked on optimization. All of these people got fired. Some deserved it, but many were already net-positives for the company from a revenue standpoint. Eg: 2% code improvement = $2 million saved for $400k spent on an engineer. That sort of thing.
Elon has separated the AI org out of twitter. XAI already has 100 employees, and will quickly scale up to a few hundred. It may not be counted as part of twitter, but pre-elon twitter was trying to do exactly this under their cortex [1] org.
TitaniumButterfly
27m ago
Were there a table before me I should pound upon it, sir!
hooser
37m ago
The idea that femininity could be manipulative and dangerous is a bad look for women, so obviously they would rather not depict such characters.
Except that they are still portraying a woman who is manipulative and dangerous. The difference is that their character is dangerous in a direct way (sword-though-your-guts), and manipulative in a direct manly way (overt seduction). Why isn't this character a bad look for women? Is it because she is so unbelievable that the audience disregards her as an obvious fiction (like they would Wonder Woman or She-Hulk)?
If that's the case, maybe that's what makes the original Milady such a compelling character. She is extraordinary, but not beyond the realm of possibility. We can indeed imagine a smart, resourceful, and utterly amoral woman who is a master of feminine wiles.
Throwaway05
39m ago
Yes there are general differences in competency and knowledge within the field, but this is mostly the system functioning as designed, if you go to the ED (which most doctors will recommend if their is any concern, because they don't want to get sued), and then the ED whose job it is to make sure you aren't dying will pan scan the hell out of you to make sure you aren't dying (because they don't want to get sued).
In another country they'd probably just send you home or admit you for observation and not do much.
Whether anyone in the ED actually suspected a less typical Mono presentation is very orthogonal to what they actually do.
In any case we already have a surplus of residency spots, posted about that elsewhere.
anti_dan
40m ago
I haven't seen any evidence that puberty blocker hormone prescriptions are down or anything of the sort.
Wokeness has lost a lot of battles, particularly in court recently, but that doesn't mean it stopped trying. Its just more land they still need to conquer.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
43m ago
I don't think anyone is thinking about it that deeply - it's just a denial of difference born of the fear that women will be discriminated against if differences like this are acknowledged* (which you are right would hurt women inclined to full competition with men).
If progressives wanted to avoid the perception that femininity could be dangerous they wouldn't have imposed toxic femininity - e.g. totally unchecked forms of feminine-coded social combat like gossip and cancelling- on everyone, enforced by female HR reps and public figures.
* This is what also leads to the attempts to make big game hunting gender egalitarian. I guess going to hunt == work while doing all of the essential work around the community == 1950s suburban nightmare. So it can't be divided by gender.
Throwaway05
45m ago
You don't train for routine issues, you train to know when an issue isn't a routine issue (and for how to deal with it).
If a patient comes in with abdominal pain, some times they need to fart and sometimes that person is going to die if they don't get transferred to a hospital immediately. You do the training so you don't get this decision making wrong, because society has decided it is unacceptable for us to get this wrong (which...fair).
Complicating this is the way that our regulatory and billing burden constantly pushes back against correct clinical practice, the science and practice are being always updated, and patients are grossly unreliable/muddy the waters.
Do keep in mind that a huge portion of clinical practice is not outpatient practice. What happens in a hospital is wildly different.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
49m ago
@Belisarius @jeroboam @Jiro @crushedoranges @FiveHourMarathon
I think the steelman of this argument (though a lot of steel's involved) looks something like this: select a Republican candidate who's not Donald Trump, because the backlash will be weaker and that has two major effects:
- you might actually get more done to roll back SJ because they're not sabotaging you quite as relentlessly (also because someone younger might be more switched-on)
- raising the CW's temperature is bad for America, because it raises the spectre of a fifth column if there's war.
This is an argument I actually accept and have made here before. It still has some decision-theory issues, and it's Machiavellian, but this is a place where I'd be willing to compromise on that.
Now, of course, this has long since been water under the bridge. Neither Trump nor Harris was a good candidate for CW-temperature purposes, and certainly Harris would not have served conservatives' cultural purposes. I still vaguely preferred her due to Trump's advanced age, but then again I don't have to live in the 'States. But I just felt I should point out that there was at one point a version of this argument that didn't totally suck.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
54m ago
Detroit and Baltimore are typical examples. Both have areas where blue-affiliated people were moving (though to enclaves), though I don't know if they still do.
Rosencrantz2
1hr ago
A conspiracy theory typically involves some shadowy group doing something in a centrally planned way. Your bullet points are all just badly worded versions of perfectly reasonable observations about uncoordinated human behaviour.
A conspiracy theory such as flat earth or Qanon are in a completely different category.
Throwaway05
1hr ago
Here's a citation re: open residency spots
https://www.nrmp.org/match-data/2024/06/results-and-data-2024-main-residency-match/
Table 1A - pretty normal for about 5-10% of offered spots to be unfilled.
sun_the_second
1hr ago
This argument suffers from linking a thread about Aloy having a bodily feature that women are known to have, rather than any examples of her looking mannish or behaving in a masculine manner.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
1hr ago
Maybe I get this impression just because I avoid leftist spaces like the plague, but it really does seem like the right is more inundated with obvious, low-quality grifters.
Since the left holds the high ground of academia, their grifters are defined as higher-quality. Ta-Nehisi Coates comes to mind. Nikole Hannah-Jones (1619 Project) also.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
1hr ago
The academy is the "high ground" in the sense that a defeated tribe can hide out in the mountains and wage guerilla war until a suitable opportunity arises (like Hilary wanting a way to attack Bernie from the left) - not in the sense that it is the key strategic terrain being fought over.
No, it's the latter also. As @magic9mushroom points out, it can effectively gatekeep a large number of professions, and it can provide anointed Truth.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
1hr ago
I think the real lesson from 2012 is that pundits are wont to proclaim realignments, because they desperately want to live in interesting and historic times.
We've just seen, for only the second time, the re-election of an American President who lost an interim election. We're still seeing the echos of the fall of the Soviet Union (e.g. the Ukraine War). We recently got over a global pandemic causing worldwide oppression. We ARE living in interesting times.
We're going to have a divide, but subgroups have switched from one side to the other before (e.g. blacks in the 1960s) and they will again.
I'm going against this advice, albeit temporarily. The counter advice is -
In 2024, I took the 'just do it' advice. I wanted to start a startup asap. I began moonlighting. Built decks, figma walkthroughs, demos, talked to customers. But, all I have to show for it is a YC reject. I lost my cofounder (still my best friend) when he decided to pursue family goals instead. I couldn't do the startup justice while juggling another taxing job. I burnt the candle at both ends, and ended the year with a bad health scare.
I should've 'set myself up for success'. But the desperation to move at all costs put me on the back foot. I still want to start the startup, but I'm now going to do it by going back the basics.
2025, I'm taking a chill stop gap job. I want to take my time evaluating the right cofounder, getting health sorted so I can do a startup long-term and proposing my GF so my long term relationships are solid. It seems like a detour, but I'm hoping it'll make the start up doable the next time I try.
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