domain:themotte.org
No_one
12m ago
Did it feature the people doing the uploading being secretive about it bc they lived in some paranoid future USA ?
I read such a novel once, written by some non-writer. It wasn't entirely bad. Basically bunch of researchers clandestinely mind upload, then optimize the copies to run fast, develop some nifty tech and then all die when gov't figures out what has happened, logically sees them as a threat and blows them out of the sky as they were trying to run away to the moon using some novel-physics abusing engine creating antimatter for itself.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
26m ago
Attacks on free speech have been coming from both sides for some time here: the Biden administration leaned on Facebook and others to censor user posts about COVID vaccines. Biden also nominated Gigi Sohn to the FCC, who had previously tweeted strong negative opinions about Fox News (the Senate did not confirm the nomination). We also had the short-lived "Disinformation Governance Board."
Separately: Is Fox News even broadcast OTA anywhere? They don't need an FCC license to exist on cable networks. I know Kimmel is/was, and the "official" statement said gave OTA channels pulling the broadcast as the cause.
Thank you for summarizing it so succinctly.
Arguments built on gerrymandering definitions and framings are tedious. Doing so to re-re-litigate the aftermath of a political assassination is... I'm not sure what the right term is.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
34m ago
The best way I've seen it put is that the Right isn't actually against cancelling those outside the Overton Window, they were just protesting the arbitrary narrowing of the window by a handful of powerful state and corporate actors. In that frame, the recent cancellations make sense and look less hypocritical.
ThisIsSin
PC is for progressive-conservative
37m ago
with the woke cancellations it was mostly twitter mobs pressuring private companies
But beyond that, it was governments pressuring banks. Like, Operation Chokepoint was a thing, and arguably it continues to be a thing with the credit card companies still being pressured by plausibly-deniable paragovernmental organizations (that whole porn ban thing).
I don’t think it changes much that it’s blatantly public, though it certainly does for others who are not aware that their pressure wasn’t just the people power they think it was.
Corvos
49m ago
If you have any friends or acquaintances who went off to get jobs in other places, prepare to drop them a line explaining the situation and ask them if they know anyone who’s hiring.
The layoffs happening sound large so it’s not your fault, just cost-cutting. People will likely be sympathetic. Worst comes to the worst, maybe you could band together with some other guys from the same company and try founding a startup.
Some have tried to claim that the Right’s version of cancel culture is different in some vague way that makes these statements not hypocritical, e.g. it’s OK to cancel someone if they’re “celebrating the death” of someone, but I generally find these arguments unpersuasive.
Your whole post could have been reduced to just that single sentence. Of course if you're going to handwave the differences and not really address them, then there are no differences that matter. That's pretty much tautological!
That's also why you had to claim that initiating violence and responding with violence is a type of acceptable hypocrisy. If you said that it isn't hypocrisy, that would be because the two situations are different, even if they are both violence. If differences don't matter, the only choice is to put them in the same category and call it hypocrisy.
Rov_Scam
55m ago
Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention to your posts, but I got the impression you were looking to buy new for that price, since most people buying used don't have much option wrt features or brands, especially at the lower end of the used market. Maybe things are better where you are, but most of what I see on FB marketplace/CL is junk, and the specialist bike sites are more along the lines of "This year-old $6500 bike is a steal at $3000". It's for that reason that I usually steer inexperienced (i.e. if you have to ask) buyers away from used models, because they simply don't know what they're looking at or if they're getting a good deal. The one exception would be buying use from a bike shop, where they often have fairly-priced trade-ins that are guaranteed to be in good mechanical condition.
That last point is something to consider and take into account. Any 10–20 year-old used bike is going to need a chain, probably a rear cassette, probably tires, probably new cables. The parts aren't expensive and you can do the repairs yourself if you're willing to learn, but there can be specialized tools involved (that are cheap to come by), and if it's your first time doing this work you simply aren't going to get it dialed in the way it should be. there's also the issue that if you don't know what you're looking at, it's going to be difficult to even know what parts you have to order. It's usually along the lines of if you can find out what the bike originally came with you'll find out that they don't make that part anymore. They make a close-enough equivalent (actually several) that will be compatible provided that you make some minor adjustments. These are the kinds of things bike shops will do without even telling you but that can give you fits if you try to do it yourself. At that point, it's almost easier to just take it to a shop and have them do it, which will cost approximately what you paid for the bike, which is why I tend to recommend buying used bikes from a shop that paid a lot less for the bike itself than you would have and with parts, labor, and profit can sell it for approximately the same price as if you had bought it yourself and had the work done, which may sound like a wash but at least means you can take your bike home and ride it on Day One without any surprises. I'm not trying to say this to discourage you from buying used, because I generally think it's a great idea, especially for what you're looking for, but it's something to be aware of.
Now that I have a better idea where you're coming from, I can give you some detailed advice. Most people here have said that anything from a reputable brand will be good, and they're right, but it's useless information if you don't know what a reputable brand is, and there are a few caveats. The issue is making sure you get a "bike shop bike" and not a "department store bike", which is generally easy to do if you buy at a shop but harder on the used market due to a variety of factors. First, anything by the following brands, from any era, can be recommended without hesitation: Trek, Specialized, Giant, Cannondale, Scott, Norco (unless you're buying it in Canada), Co-Op (REI's house brand), and Kona. GT and Diamondback must be approached with caution, as they make both higher-end models and models that are sold at places like Dick's. I wouldn't recommend one unless you really know what you're looking at. Schwinn and Mongoose are in a similar boat as they used to be good brands until they got sold and deprecated by their new owners. The goodwill has been gone long enough that few people would even be fooled these days, and require some convincing that one from the 90s is actually a good purchase, but unless you're looking at something really old they're best to be avoided. Raleigh, Jamis, Fuji, and Nishiki seem to have had various identity crises over the years where they can't decide whether they want to be a legitimate brand or a budget brand; a used model could be a find or could be crap, and there's no way of knowing unless you already know. Brands like Huffy, Next, Murray, Roadmaster, or anything with the name of a pickup truck is department store crap and should be avoided at all cost, as is anything that weighs about a thousand pounds. Someone mentioned Motobecane and Gravity's ID bikes earlier. They're basically cobbled together from spare parts, and can be great value for money, though buying one used is asking for an adventure. People also mentioned other internet direct brands, and there are innumerable boutique brands that also make excellent bikes. While I obviously wouldn't want to discourage you from taking advantage of a deal on these, most of them specialize in Serious Mountain Bikes or Serious Road Bikes, not what you're looking for, and in any event you aren't likely to find one for cheap at a bike flea market.
As for what you are looking for, I'd recommend a hybrid. They kind of get a bad rap in the bike community because they aren't particularly great at anything, but for someone who wants to do relatively short rides on the road or easy trails they can't be beat. There's a reason why manufacturers sell more of these than anything else. To explain why you should get one, it's easier to explain why you shouldn't get something else. The road bike may feel better on the road, but there are two big caveats. The first is that the riding position is going to be more aggressive than what you're probably used to, and while that's a good thing for the long haul, if you're talking about ten miles max at this point then I don't know if it's worth it to get used to it. More importantly, they aren't made for riding off-road, period. I know you said you plan on riding on roads, but crushed limestone rail trails can present a challenge, and gravel is pretty much off limits. If I only have one bike in the quiver, I want something that will be able to handle a dirt road in a county park that small children can ride without hesitation.
For similar reasons I would recommend against hardtail mountain bikes—if most of your riding is going to be on the road, and you don't have any intention of doing serious off-roading, a mountain bike isn't the best choice. The wide, knobby tires they're equipped with don't perform well on pavement and if you don't change them immediately you will soon enough, since asphalt wears them down quickly. Of more serious concern, though, is that these will probably have some kind of front suspension that will require its own maintenance and is another thing prone to breaking, except the bike is unrideable with blown out suspension forks and replacements are really expensive. Some hybrids will come with suspension forks to make things seem sportier; avoid these as well, for similar reasons. It's actually more imperative to avoid hybrids and low-end hardtails with front suspension because the cost of the forks takes up a significant proportion of the total cost of the bike, and requires sacrifices elsewhere. The forks are usually of low quality and will be the first thing to break, especially after 10 years. If you are considering a bike with suspension at all, only buy RockShox or Fox products and run from anything Suntour. A fully rigid mountain bike might be worth looking at, with the caveat that you'll want road-appropriate tires.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention gravel bikes, since others have. While this would be a good option, combining road bike geometry with a stouter frame and wider tires to handle the off-road better, they are a relatively recent development and have only become popular in the past ten years, and only within the last five or so at consumer-friendly price points. For full disclosure, these are great and this is what I use for all my road riding, rail-trail cruising, touring, and light gravel riding. The isue for your purposes is that there isn't likely to be anything available at the price you're looking to pay. A bike that sold for $2,000 in 2019 isn't going to lose 90% of its value in 6 years. If by some miracle you can find one, go for it.
Since you're likely getting a hybrid, a word of caution about what kind of hybrid you want. I've seen the term used for everything from old-lady comfort bikes to wannabe mountain bikes. I'd recommend something on the sportier side, with the cautions about suspension. These used to occasionally be marketed as "fitness" or "sport" bikes. You want to make sure that the riding position is similar to a mountain bike with you leaning fairly far forward and a fairly low rise to the handlebars. Some hybrids have handlebars with a lot of rise, favoring a mre upright riding position, but this puts too much pressure on your asshole. I'd also add that bike fit is more important than the bike itself.
I really don't get what I get other than "new" for more money than that. Enthusiasts try to explain it to me and I don't get it, it feels like they're telling me I have to buy a new Mercedes and a Camry just won't do.
I bought a brand new gravel bike last year. Before that I was riding a 1999 Cannondale hybrid that had seen thousands of miles and one partial rebuild. I was looking at parts for rebuild number two and was beginning to doubt the wisdom of sinking money into something that should be hanging on a wall by now, but it worked for what I needed it for and I didn't want to spend the money one a new one, or a new to me one. Then I was looking at my REI dividend statement that had been ballooning for years and now stood at $750 or so, and I had been using it to make minor purchases like chain lube because I hadn't had any major equipment needs in five years. Then I saw an ad that a $1200 gravel bike was on sale for $999, which meant that I could get a brand new bike for only about $300 out of pocket. Though I admit that's not a typical reason.
Certain enthusiasts need to have the newest and baddest shit that will be a failed, forgotten experiment in five years, though I guess that's not typical, either. The real reason is that buying new is just easier for the kind of money involved. Spend $200–$300 on a used bike and another $200 on parts and labor to get it up to spec and you aren't too far off how much you could get a comparable new bike for. The process involves a lot less friction than buying used, because you can just go to stores and test ride bikes and talk to a knowledgeable salesman about what would be best for you and go from there. When you're ready to buy, the bike is going to be there, and you pay with a credit card. Buying used means you need a certain amount of knowledge to know what you're looking for, can mean driving around and testing one bike at a time at a guy's house, which guy probably can't be of much help to you. You have to know what you're looking for in terms of mechanical issues. If you don't make a decision right away, the bike might not be there when you call again. You're going to need to give a stranger cash and be stuck with the purchase. No warranties will carry over to you. If it's a dud you could be out a lot of money. I bought the most expensive bike I own used, but for the casual rider looking at a first purchase, it's not something I'd recommend.
quiet_NaN
56m ago
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that with the woke cancellations it was mostly twitter mobs pressuring private companies. By contrast, with Kimmel it was directly the head of the FCC applying the pressure, not MAGAs cancelling their Disney+ to make them fire Kimmel.
So this is not tit-for-tat, but (tit+1)-for-tat. Expect the next D president to apply an FCC commissioner who will try to revoke the license of Fox News at the slightest provocation, and spend tons of public funds to ruin them in the legal system if they do not comply.
More generally, moral constraints, refraining to go tit-for-tat for some things, can serve as a foundation of a positive identity. If the other tribe puts your tribes kids on the BBQ whenever they catch them, but your tribe holds a principled objection against cannibalism even if it puts them at a disadvantage, that would cause me to like your tribe.
Whenever Trump does something bad, like being corrupt af, cancelling people and so on, the main response I get from his defenders here is that this is just tit-for-tat for the evils of the other side. It is about as convincing as hearing someone loudly complain about the child-eating monsters of the other tribe while munching a baby's leg.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
56m ago
Well UnopenedEnvilope specified it was the "Biden administration" that did it so I'd appreciate some clarification on what that refers to, given the "Biden administration", as the term is colloquially understood, didn't exist for another 3 months.
quiet_NaN
1hr ago
Argument 4: Sometimes refusing to engage in hypocrisy is self-defeating. The classic example is violence. We can all agree life would be better if everyone swore off violence categorically. The only problem with doing so is that refusing to engage in violence of any kind leaves you vulnerable to those with less scruples.
In most cases, using defensive violence is not hypocrisy, because there is a clear moral difference between violence of aggression and violence of self-defense (though things can get murky in practice, sometimes). For example, Ukraine is not hypocritical by both complaining about getting invaded by Russia while also invading parts of Russia in retaliation.
I think that there are some actions where tit-for-tat is fine, and some where it would still be horribly wrong.
For example, "their military is trying to incapacitate our military personnel, mostly by killing them" is something which can be answered in kind. By contrast, "their military is rounding up and shooting our kids" is very much not a reason to respond in kind. (Which category "they are nuking our cities" belongs to is difficult.)
In politics, things are even murkier, partly because there is no single entity making all the strategic decisions. Ideally, political competition should be about genuine differences in terminal values. If you are willing to sacrifice any values you hold on the altar of victory, the race to the bottom will result in a meaningless competition of almost identical parties.
One terminal value I feel strongly about is genuinely trying to make world models more accurate. Unlike slander, Sarin, doxxing, rhetoric, assassination, cancellation, which work equally well for any side, this is intrinsically an asymmetric weapon:
Logical debate has one advantage over narrative, rhetoric, and violence: it’s an asymmetric weapon. That is, it’s a weapon which is stronger in the hands of the good guys than in the hands of the bad guys. In ideal conditions (which may or may not ever happen in real life) – the kind of conditions where everyone is charitable and intelligent and wise – the good guys will be able to present stronger evidence, cite more experts, and invoke more compelling moral principles. The whole point of logic is that, when done right, it can only prove things that are true.
Cancellations are incompatible with truth-seeking. (So are assassinations, but the median supporter on either side does not support them. Small mercies.) I think that a lot of the differences between the blue and the grey tribe from the SSC era come down to that.
And as far as truth-seeking is concerned, MAGA is not an improvement over the wokes. While wokes have long twisted the truth hard to their ends and engaged in groupthink, Trump is completely detached from simulacrum level one. He will make whatever sounds he thinks will help him best to secure his power, if they happen to sound like a statement about the world that is completely incidental.
When I look at woke, I see an evil monster which had started out with some virtues but long been turned evil by its lack of other essential virtues. At some distant point in the past that creature had some minor redeeming qualities. When I look at MAGA, it seems like someone had taken all the vices of the woke monster, doubled down on some of them, then inverted its surface level beliefs. But fighting a particular evil by being just as evil is still evil.
zeke5123a
1hr ago
Relevancy? The government did it. The problem — if you believe in democracy — is that the government did it clearly against the wishes of its elected leader.
zeke5123a
1hr ago
Killing Kirk was a direct attack on free speech. The goal was to silence his voice. Celebrating the murder is anti free speech. This is where you actually get into Popper’s tolerance paradox. If we want free speech, the first rule is you don’t support murdering people for speaking and if you do then you aren’t allowed in polite society.
Large patches of the left celebrated the death (ie were anti free speech) and then are claiming to be champions of free speech. Chutzpah to say the least.
stuckinbathroom
1hr ago
I don’t think Argument #4 (refusing to engage in some amount of hypocrisy is self-defeating) is as strong as you seem to think. To continue with your example of non-violence, you could just adhere to the non-aggression principle: it’s categorically wrong to initiate violence, but responding to violence with violence is justified. Boom, now you have a principled rationale for self-defense without any hypocrisy!
Markass
1hr ago
Looking at https://jobs.now/, these companies deliberately post job listings in low-circulation newspapers to be able to claim that there are no American workers. I think you're right on the money.
wemptronics
1hr ago
Because, "lies, damned lies, and statistics." Check the right side Y axis.
It's not less in absolute terms. December 19, 2022 is that first red major dip: https://www.themotte.org/post/240/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week. For whatever reason (technical probably) it is the only thread to receive <20k (16884) views, but it also received many (1806) comments. The graph is created in a way that is meant to show a relationship between comment:views. This weirdo week breaks an otherwise easy to see relationship. Whether this was a smart way or a good way to go about doing this I leave to the floor.
Markass
2hr ago
Maybe I'm heavily biased, but as the user of a website that has faced numerous deplatforming attempts for several years over completely legal speech, I find it hard to genuinely care if people get censored for saying the wrong thing about Charlie Kirk. In reaction to his death, some may say "and the world kept turning", and in reaction to people who are targeted for saying things like that, I say "first time?"
Is this hypocritical? Maybe. But my position is that going after people for completely legal speech has been a thing for a LONG time now. I'm not saying it's a good thing that people are having their lives ruined for making comments about CK, but I am saying that people have been raising the alarm bells over free speech for YEARS and yet basically nothing has been done about it. So I'm not surprised to see this happen and the only thing I have to say is: What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do to ensure that America is a place where anybody can speak their mind freely? Because this is very, very far from being the first time something like this has happened.
Cancel culture was always a thing, but it became a Thing with the emergence of a faction of illiberal progressives that had the clout to actually apply pressure and a desire to do so. This inversion of the 'proper' order of things was deeply upsetting to the many conservatives who saw themselves as rightful hegemons of American culture.
Losing hegemony was being mocked on every late night show as the party of schoolmarms and people who hated the poor. Utterly losing swathes of the academy and other important cultural institutions. Decisively losing a cultural issue like gay marriage and so on. It wasn't fun and people did complain.
When you declare such and such is beyond the pale and is not even to be seen let alone heard you're not denying them hegemony. You are denying that they should even have the same stake in the country and where its discourse goes.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Au contraire, there is a Catholic patriarch for these sees.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Yes. Oneness Pentecostals deny the trinity and are rarely progressive. Jehovahs witnesses also.
Mihow
Lipstick on a guitar
2hr ago
I explained my own take on Kirk here, how I was horrified that anyone is dying in political violence, but that Kirk was hardly some “martyr for truth”. He was just a mundane political operative -- a commentator/e-celeb that wasn’t particularly noteworthy prior to his death. The idea he was “promoting dialogue” was completely hollow when what he was really doing was farming infantile leftists for dunk opportunities that he could then post on TikTok and elsewhere for money and clout. I certainly don’t think that’s evil, but it’s also not some great public service. Is my opinion sufficiently insensitive that people on the Right think I should be fired? Based on the types of people that are being targeted in the screenshots above, I’d say it’s plausible to think so.
He was the main voice of the online and young right.
He was more noteworthy than every political pundit from: late night shows, main stream media (cnn msnbc Fox News), etc possibly put together.
Add up his followers / listeners or TPUSA numbers and see how noteworthy he actually was.
His death will not be a watershed moment because we are going through a transition from the 50’s-9/11 to whatever the fuck is going on in our world right now. But it has the feel of it if you have an understanding of his impact.
I’ve never listened to the guy, not once! But I can look and see what his impact is / was and what he actually did.
I do not think your lookey look into his life post death is accurate whatsoever.
What comes to mind for me (not about you … I’m just pontificating now) about Kirk is: they will call you a Nazi, then they will kill the Nazi, then they will cheer the Nazis death, then they will be outraged that people are aghast at their own behavior of cheerful murder of completely mundane people.
I do agree there's some degree of hypocrisy here but also this particular unique issue (A literal political assassination of a major popular youth figure on one of the sides) is unprecedented in modern American politics and therefore should be handled differently. It's fairly telling the main line of comparison for this is the George Floyd saga and with all due respect for Floyd's body of work an extended period of national mourning and unrest for a career criminal who might not even have been 'murdered' is silly in comparison.
You essentially have to be willfully blind of the difference between Popular Demagogue shot on stage versus the overwhelming majority of recent Left cancellations for wrongthink.
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