domain:cafeamericainmag.com
Turniper
16m ago
My last story was up on Royal Road and some forum sites and got in the low 5 figures of readers and all the commentary that entails, both good and bad. I have an open offer to get it professionally published, but I'm taking time away from it to write something else atm. Having a stranger post a long review detailing exactly the things you know you got wrong is exceedingly unpleasant to experience. It's easy to shrug off the inevitable lunatics, but a well reasoned critique from someone who likes the story in the abstract cuts deep.
WhiningCoil
17m ago
Man, you're importing water on Vulcanus? I think you should get acid neutralization soon. Maybe when you start harvesting calcite?
I tried leading the demolisher around by the nose, but I couldn't pull it off. Their lava geysers always got me eventually. In the end I just put down turret pods in their territory and let nature take it's course. I've heard other people have great luck with mines.
I basically completely abandoned the original planet for Vulcanus. The only thing it's missing is Uranium, and I'm not really missing it with 400% solar efficiency. I even got everything so automated I can completely manage it remotely to keep that factory growing while I bootstrap Gleba.
UwU
23m ago
Good question. Just off the cuff I feel like it should be the majority to justify the framing.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
25m ago
I don't get to play as much as I'd like these days, but I got a spaceship sorted out after three iterations of redesign, and sailed easily to Vulcanus. I came down with a pretty good selection of material to work with, and the last few nights have been figuring out the basics of the new environment in the landing zone. I made the annoying mistake of building my first dozen smelters using an assembler rather than the first smelting machine, but it's a minor hiccup and I'm getting my bootstrap base built now. Coal liquefaction is going, but I'm handicapping myself by trying to run the oil system off orbital ice rather than acid neutralization; this makes everything slower until I can get launch capacity back up and build a serious orbital ice farm. If worst comes to worst, I can always cannibalize my ship for the purpose, but pushing through the production chain the normal way seems doable at the moment.
I've unlocked orange science, and the obvious next step is to start worm hunting to expand my buildable territory. My current plan is to build a tank and a bunch of piercing shells; even with the constricted environment, it seems like it should be pretty easy to kite the worm while the cannon grinds it down. I really appreciate how they've added and expanded more "breakthrough" moments in the game's design, where you can see a goal that will significantly change what you're doing, plan how to achieve it and execute the plan; right now, that's securing minable tungsten so I can stop relying on the bits and bobs from harvested surface rocks.
I started messing with quality on nauvis, but that's on hold while I deal with the million things that need to be built-out on Vulcanus. I'm salivating over the launch capacity available there once I get a proper factory set up.
Eupraxia
27m ago
My main concern isn't whether a ~2.0 TFR is attainable, it's whether it's sustainable. The reactionary route of mostly/entirely restricting women to the homemaker role seems to result in fertility rates higher than really needed, and all other approaches seem to converge on sub-replacement fertility. For as much as we've avoided Malthusian collapse, the prospect of population growth outpacing productivity is theoretically sound, and I don't want to push our luck much further.
For nearly all of human history, populations were kept stable despite TFRs of 4.5+ by massive infant mortality, appreciable maternal mortality, and more death in general. The social technologies that ensured fertility was kept that high are now mostly unneeded, potentially harmful, and crippled by the Pandora's box of contraception. In their absence, the paradigms that have emerged haven't been any more adaptive, to say the least. I have no idea what the optimal arrangement for fertility in industrial society might be, but I'd bet it won't be as simple as retvurning to tradition.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
43m ago
Wow, what a great point. And this applies to so many other groups, not just vegans. Thank you so much for this, I’m stealing this.
cjet79
45m ago
That is interesting, I didn't know there was a term for what I had. I've done Keto diets before, but didn't have much effect. I think I just have a slightly longer circadian rythym. I've managed to not let it effect work, but it definitely got worse over covid when I was at home and able to easily nap.
WhiningCoil
1hr ago
Yeah, I dropped off with near everything I needed, plus a landing pad, and a ship to automatically ferry additional supplies. Basically the only thing I'm fabricating locally at the moment is repair packs, turrets and ammo. Valcunus has so much automated, and so much launch capacity, that it's simply not worth the frustration to do it all again with infinitely worse logistics thanks to things perishing, seeds needing to be sent back, spoilage getting sucked out of all the loops, etc.
The worst part starting out was I was constantly running out of seeds because I was processing the fruit and nuts with assemblers instead of biolabs. Oops. I didn't want to have to deal with even more loops for nutrition and spoilage, but it turns out you only are seed positive if you process in biolabs. With that problem sorted I'm finally growing the factory to my satisfaction and getting into the pre-requisites for launching rockets. Still going to need a lot more harvest spots though.
Distant belt of land mines plus clearing a dead zone before you leave (maintaining it with artillery later, they're slower to re-expand than biters)
You definitely need a checklist of supplies to bring to have an easy time setting up there.
And never never never use solar there: check the stats. Burn trash in heating tower, heat exchanger, turbine. Split in your jelly->rocket fuel production on low prio so it burns trash before fuel.
WhiningCoil
1hr ago
My Factorio: Space Age playthrough hit a brick wall at Gleba. This will not become an industrial hub. It took forever but I finally got some iron and copper production going that doesn't stall out constantly. Now I'm just trying to get the bare minimum going to build a launch pad and start shipping out research. I'm importing all my belts, drones, solar panels, etc from Vulcanus, and I give zero fucks about that. I haven't really had to build any defenses yet, but I can see pentapods creeping closer on my radar. Big ones even. I got some turrets and ammo automated, but I think I'm going to play around with delivering ammo by drone to gun pods and see if that can keep up with threats.
WhiningCoil
1hr ago
This is my preference, but I'll work in whatever the code base I'm playing in already has.
SteveKirk
1hr ago
Do you have one of those gradual brightening wake lights?
My system for winter mornings is having one of the bedside lights on a cheapo dial timer (the whole setup is dumpster loot for testing the concept). It works, but it's a bit too sudden a change in light level. Looking for something better.
The variable alarm apps that listen for you stirring are also very nice, since you won't be broken out of a deep sleep.
Astranagant
2hr ago
People thinking that vegans in general are obnoxious and morally self-righteous because those are the only vegans they notice. They might pass plenty of vegans in the street and just assume that those people are meat-eaters, since eating meat is the default. But obnoxious vegans draw attention to themselves, hence come to represent vegans in general in the public mind.
I'd like to bring up the opposite problem, too;
Vegans claim to never meet pushy, irritating vegans, and like to assert that those people simply don't exist. But the reason they don't meet them is because the irritating vegans simply have no reason to be preachy and irritating to someone who is already a vegan, creating a massive blind spot where they refuse to believe that the type of vegan who annoys meat eaters at every opportunity is not just made up because those people, who might even be standing right next to them at the salad bar, just never display those behaviours towards them.
felis-parenthesis
2hr ago
One complication is the Golden Rule and private autogynephilia. Let me start with a three way sub-classification of private autogynephilia.
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Repression It would be so easy to buy a dress on line or at a thrift shop and dress up and blush. No! That would be wrong. One makes ones mind a battle field and victory is not giving in to temptation.
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Binge and Purge One gives in to temptation, dresses, make-up, maybe even a wig. Then one gets disgusted by what one is doing, and throws them away. But a year later one does it all again.
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Limited, private indulgence One gives in to temptation. Release turns into relief, and one puts ones cross-sex items away, in a suit case or a drawer, knowing that one will be tempted again, and indulge again. But also aware that the over-all effect on ones life is negative. Without turning ones mind into a battle field, one tries to avoid temptation and leave off for months or years.
The Golden Rule is often written as
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
All three classes of private autogynephile see autogynephilia as a misfortune. It takes them away from seeking a girl friend or a wife. It takes them away from sublimating sexual impulses in other, satisfying alternatives. Yet it is so horribly unrealistic. They are a bloke, not a girl; autogynephilia involves fighting a war against reality and reality always wins. And they cannot expect any-one else to join in and humor them.
What would they have others do unto them? They hope that others will refrain from encouraging them. No "woman of the year" for a man. No "Stunning and brave" for a man. No inviting a man to use she/her pronouns. They hope to avoid cultivating and strengthening their fetish. They don't want to get outed. They don't want to have to say "please stop talking about positively about transition, because I'm both tempted and sure that it would work about badly for me." It is the same as when the ex-alcoholic is invited to go for a drink. He doesn't want to reveal his private past and he doesn't want to be cajoled.
And what then does the Golden Rule command them to do unto others? They see it as partly idiopathic and partly social contagion. They keep it private to avoid contaminating others. They oppose publicity and encouragement around transition. This is rooted in compassion for those with autogynphilia. It is a net negative for them. As best they can judge, it is a net negative for others. They wish to avoid harming others by encouraging the fetish, just as they hope that others will avoid harming them by validating and encouraging their fetish.
Jiro
2hr ago
I think there are plenty of trans people who are chill, but on both the left and the right people are motivated to elevate the obnoxious, deranged activist subset of trans people.
Yet I'm sure you can name groups for which this doesn't happen much. This isn't something that automatically happens with every group; some groups have more extremists and less control over extremists, than other groups.
Jiro
2hr ago
Gay men generally don't want to do things that would have a different impact on other people based on whether they are gay. The trans do. There's also a lot of worry about trans children being encouraged into irreversible treatments, which isn't a problem for gay children.
Indian Tycoon and alleged oligarch Gautam Adani is about to be in deep trouble given the indictment by the US for bribing inidan government officials and the amount is 265 million. South Asia is super corrupt and Adani has been very close with Modi for decades now. The Indian supreme court did not investigate Adani for what seems like very obvious case of mass bribery if the evidence with the US is true.
Reactions on this have been mixed so far, quite a few Indians want him gone stating how indulging in obvious corruption that too as stupidly as his people did is worthy of having your stocks tank. Adanis firms were under fire by the Hindenburg report on him which did cause some turbulence in his stocks. people at Hindenburg also pointed fingers at the cheif of SEBI, the SEC equivalent here and SEBI simply refused to talk about it. This indictment also came with a cancellation of deals in Kenya. The people involved in this includes pretty much the entirity of Indian political elite, irrespective of their geography, though he is still seen publicly as Modis guy.
The reactions to this are not surprising, BJP supporters are not defending him as fervently as last time which is not a good sign, no one in Indian stock market wants to fuck with stocks that are deemed suspect by the US so they probably are trying to cut ties with him without flipping 180. He is being defended quite a bit by tech bros many in finance are telling others to abandon ship. These are not ideollgically motivated people either. I had never expected to see people who talk about free markets come and defend out and out crony capitalism, the government changed its laws to let Adani bid and win multiple auctions, this is extemely well-documented too.
The tech bro argument can be boiled down to "he may be super corrupt like the nation but you are prosecuting him because he has control over Indian ports and is trying to move to international markets"." In contrast, some finance people just think that a firm that has had so many issues with regards to moral lapses is a terrible investment from a monetary perspective. Adani bought the only non BJP supporting new outlet NDTV which is an ultra progressive media house and just unwilling to say anything at all.
To any americans here, how bad is Adani case? Is this simply something being done out of fear of investors losing out on much or are the allegations of political turmoil true?
teleoplexy
3hr ago
The meme-ness of it is the main reason I'm opposed to widespread normalization of trans minors. I've seen multiple young people (my relatives even) playing around with the idea of transitioning based on the social and online groups they were in. All of them stopped being interested in gender when separating from those groups. One push from a gender-related medical specialist and I can totally see any of them cementing gender beliefs into their identity.
roche
3hr ago
The primary lesson is that it all falls apart once you get to the edges, so we shouldn't dwell too long there. Hence most of our bright philosophers like Descartes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Leibniz doubling as scientists, historians, politicians, missionaries and giving the rag of philosophy a squeeze to extract whatever potential was in it. Any effort you'd like to invest in philosophy should be redirected toward psychology, IMO.
The trans debate suffers from the very common problem of "the most loud, obnoxious, and obvious members of a group come to represent the group in the broader population's minds".
Other examples of this phenomenon:
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People thinking that vegans in general are obnoxious and morally self-righteous because those are the only vegans they notice. They might pass plenty of vegans in the street and just assume that those people are meat-eaters, since eating meat is the default. But obnoxious vegans draw attention to themselves, hence come to represent vegans in general in the public mind.
-
People thinking that individuals who are concerned about climate change are all annoying lefty activists who want to destroy capitalism.
-
People thinking that the majority of black Americans are inner city gangbangers.
Etc.
I think there are plenty of trans people who are chill, but on both the left and the right people are motivated to elevate the obnoxious, deranged activist subset of trans people. On the left, there is a purity spiral - "Do you even support trans people at all if you criticize these trans activists for being obnoxious and insane??? How dare you??? Are you even a leftist?". On the right, there is the obvious motive to focus on the most annoying trans activists and act as if those people represent trans people in general, since that helps the right overall get a culture war win.
Personally, I have never had any issue with trans people. I just find many of the more vocal trans activists to be repulsive. Not because they are trans, but because they are shrill and irrational fanatics.
On a side note, one thing I find interesting when other men say that they find male homosexuality disgusting is that I do not experience this, to the point that it's hard for me to even understand having such a reaction. The idea of having sex with a man repulses me somewhat, but there is no moral dimension to this feeling, for me it's just a subset of "the idea of having sex with someone I am not attracted to repulses me". When I see two men kissing it does not bother me in the least bit. I do wonder why some men grow up finding male homosexuality to be a fundamentally disgusting thing and others simply don't.
One thing I've learned over time is that it's true, "love is love". To me, a loving homosexual relationship is much more beautiful than a bitter, hate-filled heterosexual one.
One thing I want to mention about your quote:
Holding her hand is electric. You just want be with her forever, to sweep her into your embrace, and damn it, why the f&!k are you getting a boner right now, you were having this pure and chaste and beautiful reverie and now you're thinking about sex.
I think this is the classic "Madonna-whore complex". Or, more broadly, this kind of attitude is a limiting and in my view incorrect view of love and sexuality that separates it into, on the one hand, "pure beautiful love" and, on the other hand, "dirty sex". This is a very damaging way to exist, psychologically. It's damaging not just to oneself, but also to one's sexual partners. I say this as someone who used to have this kind of psychology when younger, but have since largely overcome it. I'm someone who is into some pretty kinky, rough, BDSM sex and I can say from experience that nothing about that kind of sex is incompatible with love and tenderness. Fulfilling each others' sexual appetites, no matter how raunchy and wild those might be, is one of the most loving things that two people can do for each other.
roche
3hr ago
Oh sure. Deep sleep is insanely important and basically changes your life. Most of my post was a bit of contra-doomerism, which is probably good on this topic because anxiety plays a sinister part in the insomnia loop. Glad to hear you recovered.
Rov_Scam
3hr ago
It's not a plea bargain, but a non-prosecution agreement. Whether or not jeopardy attaches is irrelevant because the court didn't overturn the conviction on double jeopardy grounds. The court ruled that, as a matter of public policy, prosecutors have to honor non-prosecution agreements once the defendants have performed their end of the bargain. They note Santobello, where a defendant had struck a plea deal where he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a favorable sentencing recommendation. He plead guilty, but the prosecutor asked for the max and got it. The basic premise is that if the defendant gives something of value in reliance of getting something from the prosecutor, the prosecutor can't reneg.
Here, Smollett agreet to forfeit his bond in exchange for the charges being dropped. He forfeited the bond, and a nolle pross was entered. Cosby gave up his right to Fifth Amendment protections, Smollett gave up cash. You may think that one is more valuable than the other, and that dropping the charges for $10,000 wasn't justified, but that's irrelevant—deals like this don't work if you allow the court to second guess whether they were worth it or not.
the prosecution cutting a (corrupt) deal to drop the charges without the court's involvement doesn't cut it.
The court's involvement has nothing to do with it. The deal is between the defendant and the prosecutor, not the defendant and the judge. In Santobello, the problem was that the prosecutor didn't make the promised recommendation, not that the judge didn't impose the desired sentence. Santobello plead guilty on reliance of the prosecutor's promise, but the judge can typically impose whatever sentence he wants to. There are compelling reasons I won't get into here why this rarely ever happens (and why if a judge has a problem with a plea deal he'll usually give the defendant the opportunity to withdraw the plea), but it is technically permissible.
More specifically, in the case of dropped charges where no guilty plea is involved, the prosecutor doesn't offer a dismissal with prejudice because this isn't within the prosecutor's power. Prosecutors can't dismiss cases; judges can. Technically they could file an unopposed motion and a judge could sign off on it but they don't do this because they've never had to before, and because it gums up the system when you have to wait 2 months for a judge's signature. And I don't even know if this would work because the practice isn't customary and until some custom develops around it the judge's default is always going to be to dismiss without prejudice. I've been an attorney for over 10 years and I've never seen a judge dismiss anything with prejudice. I've heard of a few cases, but these are either criminal cases that involved constitutional violations so dire that the judge wasn't confident the prosecutor could ever make a case, and one civil case where the pro se plaintiff was obviously nuts and the judge didn't want to deal with it anymore.
And won't cut it in future cases when the political element isn't included.
Future cases are one of the reasons the case went the way it did. The opinion is pretty clear on this. There are various diversionary programs where defendants are given the opportunity to have their cases dropped if they complete them. They get nolle prossed and if they flunk the charges are pursued and if they pass they stay nolle prossed. It would be perverse to suggest that someone would participate in such a program and be prosecuted anyway after successful completion. Some of these programs have high success rates saying that prosecutors aren't bound by these deals would put them in jeopardy.
the prosecution cutting a (corrupt) deal to drop the charges
What's corrupt about the deal? Do you have evidence that Smollett paid a kickback to the prosecutor in exchange for lenience? Or is just that you don't like the politics that you assume was behind the decision?
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
3hr ago
When you are forced to refer to an MTF transsexual as "she", you are being compelled, under social duress, to assert as an ontological truth that this person just is a woman (and all parties are aware that that's plainly what's going on here - otherwise it wouldn't be such a heated topic of disagreement in the first place). I can't accept being compelled to assent to such a contentious position.
This is the crux of my objection as well. I have issues with the idea of taking a healthy human and mutilating their body to make them a crude facsimile of the other sex, but at the end of the day I think adults have the right to choose self-mutilation if that's what they want. But what I will not play ball with is the attempt to try to get me to affirm a lie (that a trans person really is the sex they claim to be) as the truth.
I try to treat trans people I encounter with respect and compassion; they are my brothers and sisters just like everyone else. And Lord knows that they have enough on their plates without me disrespecting them. But "respect and compassion" does not include telling bold faced lies just because that is what they want to hear. I'll avoid the topic of gender as much as possible for their sake, but if it's unavoidable then I'm not going to lie about it.
hydroacetylene
3hr ago
The Greek-Catholic belt in Eastern Europe, Georgia the country, and the American red tribe have TFR’s ~2. It’s achievable even if I couldn’t really point to the unifying factors- western social conservatism, religiosity, and ruralness, I suppose.
I think something important to note here is the sheer volume. Especially for those who spend a lot of time online, there’s a firehouse of memes, and because of the silo effects, you simply don’t hear anything from the other side. It’s always been rather hilarious to me that the leftist response to free speech on Twitter was to leave almost immediately. And it’s rather the wrong approach to a radicalism spiral on either side. If you’re going down a black hole, the critical thing that can keep you from going too deep is seeing the other side. If I’m becoming a radical lefty, seeing conservative content and specifically memes opposed to mine will at least keep me from thinking that my Marxposting peers are in the mainstream.
The other thing is to unplug from media. Go camping and leave the phone at home. Read books, draw, paint, make warhammer figures, bake stuff, who cares. But unplugging from the firehouse is probably the best cure for radicalism.
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