I don't understand why many right-wingers appear to a) have such strong distaste about claims like "trans women are women" and b) are so absolutely certain that their beliefs are objectively correct.
It's one thing to have object-level policy positions that are trans-exclusive, eg like thinking trans women shouldn't use women's bathrooms (I disagree), or that they shouldn't be in women's sports (I weakly agree), or that government funding shouldn't be used for gender affirming therapies (I strongly disagree).
It's another to have strong ontological beliefs (which afaict are wrong or at least confused) and then *assert those beliefs as fact without debate and people who disagree with you are laughably wrong*.
I'm not confused that conservatives are wrong about this issue. That's normal! Plenty of people are wrong about plenty of things, and I'm sure they think I'm wrong too. But I don't understand where the *confidence* is coming from. Ontology isn't an easy question and people tend to get them wrong all the time[1], even when there's a clear "truth of the matter."
And in this case most of the debate doesn't even have a "truth of the matter" to begin with. (eg it's hard for me to identify an empirical crux or prediction about object-level reality that'd cause the majority of proponents to predictably update if it turns out True/False). So I don't understand the level of confidence, or the associated meanness.
[1] some sample questions that are much much easier and yet people can reliably either disagree or get them wrong:
I don't see a single argument in your post that would support your point of view. In fact, I can take your post, mirror it along the left-wing/right-wing axis, and it would make just as much (or as little) sense.
For example:
"I don't understand why many left-wingers appear to a) have such strong fondness of claims like "trans women are women" and b) are so absolutely certain that their beliefs are objectively correct. "
Or:
"It's one thing to have object-level policy positions that are trans-inclusive, eg like thinking trans women should use women's bathrooms (I disagree), or that they should be in women's sports (I weakly agree), or that government funding should be used for gender affirming therapies (I strongly disagree)."
Or:
"I'm not confused that liberals are wrong about this issue. That's normal! Plenty of people are wrong about plenty of things, and I'm sure they think I'm wrong too. But I don't understand where the *confidence* is coming from. Ontology isn't an easy question and people tend to get them wrong all the time[1], even when there's a clear 'truth of the matter.'"
My point isn't that you're wrong and they're right, or any similar gotcha. Rather, I want to show you that your beliefs aren't as objectively and obviously correct as you think they are. Dig deeper. *Why* do you believe what you believe, and why might conservatives believe what they believe?
"Rather, I want to show you that your beliefs aren't as objectively and obviously correct as you think they are" lolwut.
I feel like you're confused about my comment. I think you are treating it as if I was trying to advance my own position in a debate, whereas that was explicitly not what I was going for.
I think if left-wingers have extremely strong confidence that their subjective beliefs are objectively correct, that'd be a problem! And in fact I do try to criticize them when they act like their moral preferences have more "truth of the matter" than they actually do.
So I don't find your attempt at symmetry particularly convincing.
> I think if left-wingers have extremely strong confidence that their beliefs are objectively correct, that'd be a problem!
That is already the case. I don't see any indication that left-wingers have less strong confidence in their beliefs than right-wingers, insofar as such generalizations over large population groups make sense at all.
> So I don't find your attempt at symmetry particularly convincing.
Of course you don't. You've made up your mind that your outgroup's beliefs are more wrong than your ingroup's. Which is why the following statement:
"I'm not confused that conservatives are wrong about this issue. That's normal! Plenty of people are wrong about plenty of things, and I'm sure they think I'm wrong too. But I don't understand where the *confidence* is coming from."
sounds perfectly reasonable and self-evident to you, while the mirrored statement:
"I'm not confused that liberals are wrong about this issue. That's normal! Plenty of people are wrong about plenty of things, and I'm sure they think I'm wrong too. But I don't understand where the *confidence* is coming from."
sounds non-sensical and obviously wrong to you, even though they're objectively symmetrical in their reasoning.
Note that I'm *not* saying that all beliefs are equally right or wrong, far from it! It's just that any argument or claim you made in your original post works just as well (or as badly) for your position as it does for the opposite position.
I feel like you're still claiming that I'm making an argument/thought my comment was strong enough to be persusasive by itself, which was not my intent. Compare: "I believe Green is a better color than Blue, for XYZ reasons, and people who think otherwise are dumb" to "I happen to think Green is a better color than Blue, but I don't see why people who think Blue is objectively better than Green are so confident in their beliefs."
-- Conservatives believe in hard money; progressives believe in fiat.
Broadly, conservatives believe in concrete properties. Progressives believe in abstract theories. Conservatives say their beliefs are obvious and common sense, and that progressives engage in wishful-thinking. Progressives say their beliefs are righteous and just, and that conservatives are uncouth bigots.
On a deeper level [0], I think conservatives are pessimistic realists (e.g. doomsday prepping is conservative-coded), whereas progressives are optimistic idealists (utopianism is progressive-coded). In fact, I'd argue that optimism vs pessimism is what fundamentally differentiates conservatives from progressives. (N.B. I think the right-vs-left axis is a separate dimension altogether, which pits hierarchy vs egalitarianism.)
Now let's examine the trans question. Conservatives: "M/F (qua sex) is biologically-real, HRT doesn't erase facts such as big forearms". Progressives: "M/F (qua gender) is socially-constructed, my feelings are of prime importance".
You and I have both read Scott's writings about categories. But from a conservative perspective, can you now intuit how one might conclude that the progressives are trying to gaslight everyone else about aspects of reality that are "obvious" and "common sense"?
On top of that, progressives have really been feeling their wheaties lately. So I'm not super surprised about a proportional amount of kneejerking from the conservatives.
Thanks for your hypotheses! I appreciate the explanation, sorry if my replies come across as rude and you absolutely should not feel an obligation to respond! :)
Firstly, I'm not that interested in "conservative vs progressive" as a an analytical lens on trans issues for this comment, I'm more interested in "conservative vs correct" on this issue[1].
("Broadly, conservatives believe in concrete properties. Progressives believe in abstract theories. Conservatives say their beliefs are obvious and common sense, and that progressives engage in wishful-thinking. Progressives say their beliefs are righteous and just, and that conservatives are uncouth bigots."), I think your generalities are too broad here. Let's go to the examples:
"Sex-realism dovetails into a certain narrative.
-- Conservatives believe in human-nature; progressives believe in blank-slateism. -> I think framing conservatives as "believing in human-nature" seems pretty loaded here. Most progressives will say that they believe in human nature as cruel (eg racism, sexism, whateverism, corporate greed etc) whereas conservatives are overly optimistic about people, especially their preferred groups. Now I think progressives are often wrong here (corporate greed isn't a good explanation for inflation, which is better modeled as very impersonal forces of supply and demand). But it certainly doesn't seem like conservatives have a monopoly on understanding human nature!
-- Conservatives believe in race-realism; progressives believe in racial-fungibility. -> Is so-called "race-realism" really the majority belief among *conservatives* writ large, rather than some weird internet randos?
-- Conservatives believe in moral-realism; progressives believe in moral-relativism. -> But morality is an extremely abstract thing! What does it even mean for morality to have concrete properties?
-- Conservatives believe fetuses have souls; progressives believe souls don't exist. -> Huh? Suppose you're explaining American culture to an alien. You tell him that humans have roughly two factions. one group believes in an immortal soul that can not be measured concretely in any discernible, whereas the other group are materialists. Which faction do you think the alien will guess are the more "concrete" vs "abstract" groups?
-- Conservatives believe in hard money; progressives believe in fiat." Again I think believing in "hard money" (what does that mean concretely, gold?) is more of a weird internet rando thing than a common belief among conservatives, even the libetarian party doesn't talk about ending the Fed anymore.
[1] I will separately be interested in debating "progressive vs correct" at a latter point though I think I understand the left's departures from reality more intuitively.
"one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens."
Here's an easier example. Consider abortion. Both conservatives and progressives agree in the abstract that "murder is wrong". But their modes of reasoning can nonetheless diverge. Because it's possible to reason that
A) killing babies is murder -> killing babies is bad
B) killing babies is murder
C) => killing babies is bad
but you can also reason
A) killing babies is murder -> killing babies is bad
B) killing babies is not bad
C) => killing babies is not murder
Which syllogism is "objectively correct"? Both! These are both valid syllogisms! And yet they're incompatible! Once you understand this on a deep level, you see this everywhere.
Homework assignment: how does this apply to the gun control debate?
My impression is that *most* of the gun control debate comes down to empirics. Leftists believe that outlawing guns will reduce gun violence, rightists believe that outlawing guns will increase gun violence ("if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns")
Unlike some of the other questions discussed, this is actually a fairly resolvable empirical question.
These are tactical considerations rather than strategic. I mean, do you honestly believe that "violence reduction" is the motivator behind the anti-gun-control faction?
"What's the best way to reduce violence in the world? . . . . . . . . . I know! by joining the NRA and lobbying for 2nd amendment rights! So many QALY's!" said no one ever.
Humans are not automatically strategic, or consequentialist. Leftists reduce racism via protests in the US, when it's almost certainly the case that the best way to reduce racism would be in places with a higher baseline level of racism, and less antiracist messaging. Prolifers spend almost all of their pro-fetus efforts on reducing abortion, rather than reducing other sources of fetal deaths like early miscarriages, or increasing contraception access and promoting homosexual relationships. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5443340/
> I'm not that interested in "conservative vs progressive" as a an analytical lens on trans issues for this comment, I'm more interested in "conservative vs correct" on this issue
"all models are wrong; some models are useful."
I wrote the game theory essay [0] and also this essay about classification [1] just for these occasions. Ontological statements (including about truth and falsehood) are only useful insofar as they streamline some decision-making algorithm.
Suppose you visit the store to buy bread. The cold and uncaring universe doesn't guarantee that any particular loaf is actually made of bread. It could be adulterated with sawdust, or sand, or asbestos. If you didn't know what went into your bread, you might be inclined to chemically test every single loaf so you don't get randomly poisoned and die like a Victorian. Fortunately, the FDA promises us that the labels that are assigned to the loaves accurately reflect the loaves (up to a certain extent). I.e. accurate categories help streamline our purchasing decisions.
You can also observe that categories are instrumentally subordinate to decisions by noticing that the resolution of name-space collisions depends on how you plan to use the labels. E.g. botanists categorize tomatoes as fruits because they care about anatomy. dieticians categorize tomatoes as vegetables because they care about nutrition. They have different categorization schemes because they plan to take different actions with different consequences.
So what im saying is, framing the trans question at the level of "correct vs incorrect" is a crude level of analysis. They should be thought of, not as ontological statements, but as implicit bundles of policies which help navigate an uncertain environment. I.e. you should be thinking "what pros and cons does this perspective offer?"
> Conservatives believe in human-nature; progressives believe in blank-slateism.
What I'm really getting at is malleability. it's overwhelmingly the progressives who tend to believe that we can all earn 6-figures, if only we just go to college and get STEM degrees and learn to code. To which conservatives (and Freddie Deboer) say "no, not every truckdriver/janitor/hotdog-vendor/etc is infinitely malleable".
> Conservatives believe in race-realism; progressives believe in racial-fungibility.
I'm exaggerating for rhetorical effect. No, not every conservative is openly turbo-racist. But consider, who's more likely to warn their daughters about wandering alone in bad neighborhoods: conservative parents or progressive parents.
> Conservatives believe in moral-realism; progressives believe in moral-relativism.
Moral realists believe in a single, objectively true morality. E.g. lots of people believe "murder is bad" is objectively true. Moral relativists believe morality is more subjective. E.g. your answer to the trolley problem is just, like, your opinion man.
There's a continuum. on one side, things are "real", "objective", "concrete", "tangible". On the other side, things are "ethereal", "subjective", "abstract", "intangible". Moral realism falls closer on the real side than the ethereal side.
you've never seen a soul. but you've also never seen an electron either. The Standard Model of Physics is just that: a model. and it is *extremely* abstract.
contrast this with souls. it may not be tangible or visible, but it's something people nonetheless "sense" directly with their sensory perceptions. E.g. a comment a few weeks or month ago (by Lv50 Lapras? I think?) described a creak, and realized that they probably would have ascribed it to a ghost if they'd lived in a different time period. People see faces in rocks all the time. Ascribing agency and intent to random aspects of their phenomonology is what humans just naturally do. Thus, it's actually quite low in the abstraction hierarchy.
> Conservatives believe in hard money; progressives believe in fiat.
Again, I'm exaggerating. And I very much feel it's conservatives who tend to lean more toward the "chronic-debt and chronic-inflation are bad, actually" side of the monetary-policy spectrum. The goal here is not to paint all conservatives as having extreme beliefs. The goal is to show that their dispositions naturally follow from a certain type of world-view.
Lumping question 1 with the rest is such a grave injustice to lady Mathematics, it's a question that could be answered by - quite literally - a bunch of sand, commonly called a "computer". A bunch of sand with not much sophistication at that, unlike all the others where the primary issue is drawing boundaries and an unhealthy amount of values clash in the mix.
> So I don't understand the level of confidence, or the associated meanness.
I'm not a conservative or rightwing in the most straightforward, US/UK-centric sense you mean, and whatever amount of sympathy or shared values I might have had with them is swiftly being burned to the ground as we speak by their overwhelmingly enthusiastic, uncannily aggressive and marvelously spineless cock sucking of Israel's criminal war, and I'm not a huge fan of the US left either. So I think I'm a good candidate for a moderately neutral opinion on the trans thing:
(1) The level of confidence can be easily explained by the fact (apparent fact? common sense? unexamined view?) that "Trans women are women" is a - in the most straightforward and face-value interpretation - quite wrong belief. You know what I mean by "Straightforward Interpretation", something along the lines of "Trans women are women in the exact same sense someone born with an XX chromosome is". An oft-repeated counterargument is "Eyes don't see chromosomes" or "People can't smell hormone levels", but that is irrelevant; A human-senses-perfect replica of a ten-million-dollar Da Vinci art piece would never be detected by a human either, but nobody will ever say about it "This replica is Da Vinci art". No it's not, it's a **replica** of Da Vinci art. The issue may seem philosophical, and it is, very much so, but it has very real consequences for art fraudsters.
"Trans women are women" can always be made correct with dozens of qualifiers and nuance, but any nuance added to a slogan makes it no longer a slogan, and people are confidently disagreeing with the slogan, not any essay-length elaboration you add to it. Simply put, if you want to change people's unexamined stance on Trans women, you somehow have to change the "folk philosophy" of copying every person unconsciously subscribes to, the philosophy of identity, what do they mean when they say things are "the same" or are "different". Intuitively, things are the same when they're the same "on every level", a naturalized immigrant is not quite a "True" American because there is some level of identity in which they're not American, namely the past identity (which survives in memory). That's what people usually mean when they say that Trans women are not women, there is some level at which a "true" woman and a trans women differ, but at which 2 "true" women never differ.
(2) As for the associated meanness, this is the combined resultant of 2 distinct forces: topic-independent meanness, and topic-dependent meanness. The topic-independent meanness is a measure of how much "unspicy" conversations (e.g. about Universal Grammar in Linguistics, or about String Theory in Physics), things that we intuitively expect to be calm and collected and dispassionate because no one's values are at stake, can still descend into unmitigated shit-flinging if enough people argue for enough time in enough words. People arguing about Star Wars insult each other viciously. People call up the actress who played the wife of a drug lord (Anna Gunn) in a popular TV series and harass her with death threats. So, if you think that **any** topic, any one whatsoever, is ever safe from descending into shit-flinging after enough people invest in it, you're severely wrong.
And then there is the topic-dependent meanness. Contrary to empty fashionable cliches that feminists like to repeat about how "Women's Pain is Invisible", women's pain and struggles are **quite** visible, and people get **quite** passionate about them. Throughout history, if you wanted to whip up people into a frenzy, there is pretty much nothing you could do better than convincing them that (a) $SOMEBODY is making fun of their god (b) $SOMEBODY is harassing, molesting, or otherwise making life difficult for their women, girls, and/or children. With industrialization and secularization, North America, Europe, and massive portions of East Asia have gradually mellowed out on (a), but (b) remain as universal and as passion-inducing as ever. The 2 sides of the trans debate both see the other side as attacking **their** women, and the facts occasionally come up to support either side. This is a second source of meanness, on top of the background-radiation source of topic-independent meanness.
I think I still don't understand #1. There are many other "to be" slogans that are seen as slightly cringe but not obviously wrong ("women's rights are human rights", "I am my brother's keeper"). Also "to be" verbs in English are extremely overloaded, so the fact that there isn't an isomorphism between trans women and women isn't very compelling to me (You can also say "black women are women," which I'm sure some racists will take issue with but I doubt is a particularly controversial position). Like clearly in the cases of those other slogans (and also in everyday usage) there are many times where "to be" is not meant as an identity claim. "I am 10 years old", "Obama is a man."
(Identity claims have to be symmetric. Nobody thinks the state of 10 year-oldness means a specific person, or that Man <=> Obama).
Re Da Vinci art fraudsters, the example seems like a stretch because fine art is famously this make-believe game where people care a lot about things like provenance, but most of the time we (depending on your perspective) either live in reality or at least a pretty different social game.
> the philosophy of identity, what do they mean when they say things are "the same" or are "different". Intuitively, things are the same when they're the same "on every level", a naturalized immigrant is not quite a "True" American because there is some level of identity in which they're not American, namely the past identity (which survives in memory).
Interesting. I think I like your analogy because I think it's a good crux. I disagree with both sides of it. I think I basically disagree that people need things to be the same "on every level" to deploy set membership. For example, saying platypuses are mammals isn't a particularly controversial claim, even though platypuses do not have many of the properties that we usually associate with mammals (eg we usually think of mammals as not laying eggs).
I also find the immigrant analogy interesting, because I expect "Immigrants are not True Americans" to not be a very popular message, to put it mildly. I think most people are smart enough to call BS on that, even though of course there isn't a "truth of the matter" to this particular question. And I agree your average immigrant is meaningfully different from your average native-born American, including on areas that seem fairly central to "Americanness" (e.g. much more likely to have an accent, much more likely to love America, etc).
Similarly, black women are not on average identical to the median American woman, or the median white woman (for example, most American women have paler skin). So I don't think people's current intuitive conception of set membership or "is"ness requires a complete identity relationship.
__
Re your arguments about meanness, I kinda see it but I mostly don't buy this. I do like your topic-independent meanness vs topic-dependent meanness comparison. It's a good thing to keep aware of.
People do seem way more mean about trans issues on a regular basis than most other issues, so the topic-dependent meanness is high. I can buy that some of the meanness is coming from a place of sacred values + fear, especially from female TERFs. But a lot of the meanness comes across as unusually gleeful and delighting in others' misery. E.g. making fun of suicides. I also follow a pro-gaming scene where the best trans female player (this is someone who presents female ~ as far as I can tell, and I think I'm above average for straight men at e.g. detecting things like makeup or having a gaydar.) regularly gets hounded in Youtube comments with people reminding them that she's trans and making sure to "correct" others when they call her by her gender rather than her birth sex. Frankly, these things just don't seem to come from a place of love, or of fear.
Re question 1: yes this was a mistake on my part, in retrospect I should've said "is 1 a prime number?" (which makes it clearer that this is a definitional dispute)
I felt the same way back in 2018 and left IT after 15 years for the trades. I had built my own home a few years earlier so I wasn't a complete stranger carpentry and I had an offer to work with some guys on finishing. It was a slight pay cut (I had previously taken a pay cut working for a non-profit) but my costs were higher due to more travel/eating out, and no benefits. Luckily I ended up working on mostly new higher end homes right away which was nice. What I observed was "Time is money" so being quick but accurate was highly important, there was less interpersonal drama but more "I've never missed a day of work in my life" kind of tough guy toxicity. I think I expected to feel more appreciated but it was about the same. Was also expecting to make more but I was just getting by.
I was laid off in 2020 due to Covid and started working for myself. This is both better and worse. I can set my rates and make a decent wage but I also need to line up work which I'm pretty terrible at. This has led me to be as broke as I've ever been (though not in debt outside a small mortgage). I've looked into going back but it's pretty difficult to get back into IT after 6 years away from it. I could stick with the trades but in many cases the pay working for someone else isn't going to give me any freedom. There's a balance and it's really a series of trade offs changing up your career. Neither is really better but change is often needed, I definitely needed it for my sanity at the t ime.
I thought the part of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony featuring blood spurting from windows, and severed heads, was startling and horrifying - I can't imagine any other country making re-enacted executions a feature of a ceremony about sport and unity. Do the French - e.g. in school curricula - address the violence of their revolutionary history - are there French members here who'd be able to confirm or disconfirm? Thanks for any thoughts.
I just saw something about an OceanGate scandal and assumed it was a scandal of some sort about the ocean, ala the usual -gate snowclone. I didn't realize that OceanGate is their actual name. Pretty ironic in hindsight.
I mean, McKinsey is the epitome of hyping every recent trend only to then pretend it never happened - here’s the new shiny thing, but I’d expect this AI cycle to play out similarly to the communication bubble of the late 90s. Sure Qwest went belly up, but we’re still using the fiber optic cables it laid down. Many current AI players will burn through piles of investor money, but the technology will yield some useful applications.
"California Gov. Gavin Newsom, buoyed by a recent US Supreme Court decision, issued an executive order Thursday calling on state officials to begin taking down homeless encampments.
The move to begin dismantling thousands of encampments throughout California comes after the high court ruled last month in favor of an Oregon city that ticketed homeless people for sleeping outside. The ruling rejected arguments that such “anti-camping” ordinances violated the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment...."
Yup: thanks to the Supreme Court overturning Martin v Boise, they can finally clear encampments again. I wouldn't be surprised if a year from now people find that the seemingly impossible to solve problem of homeless encampments taking over downtowns and parks was solvable all along, and it was just the 9th Circuit preventing it all these years.
But where are all those homeless going to end up moving to? Seems like a whack-a-mole scenario with human lives. (Not that I think anything else was working.)
The obvious answer is, new homeless camps in places with fewer tourists, reporters, and upper-middle-class homeowners, where nobody will bother them. Down side is, those locations may not have sufficient economic opportunities (e.g. panhandling) to support the homeless population.
I think people will mostly be disappointed. You can break up encampments and force people to move around often, but there will still be the same number of homeless people hanging around and all the other things people complain about, and that's a largely intractable problem for the reasons Scott recently explained.
The real solution is to legalize house building, but a) that takes many many years to make a dent in the problem and b) faces fanatical opposition from most voters.
My theory is that the problem is not nearly as intractable as people think, and has mostly been caused by the 9th Circuits decision in Martin v. Boise. So this is a great natural experiment to see if I’m right!
The homelessness problem was significantly less bad on the west coast, yes.
Check out the graph in this article: homelessness has always been unusually high in California, but note how it starts increasing rapidly starting 2018.
Biden's speech: the best American political speech since when?
I think better than Obama's 2004 DNC speech. Maybe up there with GW Bush's impromptu remarks about 9/11. Probably there are some things Reagan said about the Cold War that match it. But I'm not a political speech connoisseur, and my mentor for them is awful.
The first 20 minutes of Trumps RNC speech was pretty excellent. Shame he can't stop talking once he starts, with the whole thing turning into another of his rally speeches. Which is fine I guess, but 90 minutes is too long for anybody to sit through these days.
It was a good transcript but I'm not sure how much it reflects reality.
> And today, violent — the violent crime rate is at a 50-year low.
The FBI page I looked at only went back to 1985, but the lowest violent crime rate was around 2013. It shot up in 2020 (big surprise) and hasn't returned.
> Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office.
CBP stats show ~2.3 million illegal alien encounters from 2017-2020. This year alone has seen ~1.8 million, with 3 months left to go in the reporting period. So that's a blatant lie.
> I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term, but nothing — nothing — can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.
I would give Joe more credit for this one if he hadn't stepped aside at the last possible moment, after his entire party did everything short of invoking the 25th to get rid of him.
> In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies or — but as frien- — as fellow Americans. Can we do that? Does character in public life still matter?
Pretty rich coming from the same president who gave us the "Everyone who supported Trump is an extremist enemy of the state" speech (with marines on stage and comical red lighting, which would have led to months of "Fascist! Hitler!" coverage had Trump done it.)
You get the point, etc. It would have been a great speech, if Biden had actually lived up to its ideals.
> The FBI page I looked at only went back to 1985, but the lowest violent crime rate was around 2013. It shot up in 2020 (big surprise) and hasn't returned.
Generally speaking, if a non-Trump politician says something like that, they do at least have some sort of source for the claim.
This analysis shows that after correcting for methodological changes in the definition of rape, 2022 *was* the lowest in 50 years except for 2013 and 2019 being slightly lower. So that's already morally correct, even if it's technically not 100% correct. But as they point out, that's *2022*. Based on the trends, 2023 was very likely the lowest in 50 years outright. So as a present statement, it seems fair to say that violent crime *is* at a 50 year low now.
Looking at the events surrounding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, I am left with the impression that Kimberly Cheatle, the Director of the Secret Service, should not have been hounded into resigning her post.
To begin with, Trump is alive. While he was slightly injured by a grazing shot, he was well enough to be released from hospital the same day and continue campaigning two days later. That means the assassin failed. And if the assassin failed, then the Secret Service succeeded. To be sure, it was a result that left a lot to be desired -- two others were injured but survived, and one died -- but the Secret Service succeeded in its core mission of protecting the life of Donald Trump.
Also, we don't yet know why the shooter was able to get so close to the podium with a rifle and fire so many shots before being killed by a Secret Service sniper. It could have been a pure fluke. It could have been a specific misjudgement or a flaw in doctrine. Or it could have been some sort of systemic problem in the agency as a whole. Several investigations (by Congress, by the Dept of Homeland Security and by the Secret Service itself) are underway, and can be expected to provide answers.
Finally, it seems to me Ms. Cheatle's degree of responsibility depends very much on this question. She can't reasonably be held responsible for a specific misjudgement made by some low-level operative. At the other end, as Director she can certainly be held responsible for systemic problems in the agency as a whole. But until we know where on this continuum of error the actual problem occurred, we don't really know the degree of her culpability. And the government should therefore have delayed calling for her head until we all knew for certain who was responsible.
With rare events like this, it's really hard to see the signal, so you need to also look at near misses. Otherwise you're just setting yourself up for a bigger fail down the road.
This is why nothing works in this country. An assassin's bullet is an inch away from killing Trump, and the same assassin ends up killing bystanders anyway. And the takeaway is "the Secret Service succeeded".
DUDE THIS IS HER ONE JOB THAT SHE'S RESPONSIBLE FOR. WTF.
She is responsible full-stop - that's what it *means* to be responsible. That she needed to go through a congressional hearing (where BOTH parties were pissed at her) before resigning, instead of doing it day-of shows how far gone this idea is.
Questions of responsibility for the planning and preparation are legitimately debatable, and ideally would be supported by more information than we have. And I agree that she can't be responsible for the tactical decisions made in the field. But the *aftermath*, that's on her.
The bit where she said "We couldn't put our people on the roof because it's *sloped* and that would be *dangerous", when it was a 1:12 slope and the USSS countersniper team was on a roof with a much greater slope, makes her either a damn fool or a damn liar. Probably lying for no other reason than to absolve the local commander of responsibility and make her team look less inept, but a pathetic coverup of minor incompetence is still a coverup.
I got the impression she was poorly briefed for the questioning she faced from congress. But really, someone at her level should be able to make sure she is properly briefed, even if she has to yank her staff's chain to get it.
That all by itself is a good reason to push her out. This is literally the most important part of her job that she's being grilled about and blowing it off would be just the cherry on the sundae of incompetence.
Total dumb luck that in no way exonerates the USSS. They let a shooter put rounds on their charge. If he was a better shot or the wind was different or Trump doesn't turn his head, Trump dies. They completely failed in their core duty. And it wasn't something difficult to prevent either, like someone in the crowd nearby with a concealed pistol. A guy with a rifle climbed up on a roof within a few hundred yards, people saw him and notified law enforcement, and he still got to take his shot at Trump.
Cheatle's responses to the investigation were wholly unsatisfactory. She even stated in an interview that the "buck stops with her", she has the final responsibility for the actions of the USSS. This is a pretty common doctrine that the chief executive is ultimately responsible, even if their individual actions are not the issue. Frankly, the whole debacle is a huge embarrassment to the country and she should have resigned on the 13th.
I get the feeling that if something similar had happened in Britain and she were British she would have resigned as soon as practicable. The only reason not to would be that no one else could step into the position, which I find unlikely.
You may not have mentioned me by name. But having read Unsong, I know better than to believe in veridical coincidences. And fortunately, our favorite bugman hath graced us with a cornucopia of primary texts. Probably the most relevant bag of receipts is "Chapter 2: The American Rebellion" [0]. The primary texts include:
tbh, idk how people read stuff from this era without dying of boredom. The sentences just run on, and on, and on, and on. Always comma-spliced to the nth degree.
Incidentally, the specific term "terrorist" qua U.S. revolutionaries is something I actually picked up, not from the bugman, but from a Simon Whistler video. Unfortunately, I've not been able to find it. The topic might have been entirely tangential to the U.S. Revolutionary War. I'm near certain it was Simon Whistler though.
Nothing like going to contemporary sources: the record of speeches in the UK Parliament (both Commons and Lords) are pretty good for this period and they give a sense of the range of opinion (and the arguments given) across the period. A publication called the Parliamentary Register from the early 1800s is probably the best compilation.
Short version is that the war was contested all through the period (and therefore there are people attacking and defending it throughout, which is useful for the historian): the people opposed to it on principle were always a small minority, but as the war dragged on (and especially once it looked unwinnable) the trend of opinion joined them, and the government (who were kind of obliged to support it) were increasingly isolated. Complicating factor: British opinion later largely moved to focus on the war with France/Spain, where the government has more public support, America being conveniently more and more ignored.
I had an instructor in US history from Britain once upon a time, who suggested that the British public, after the visit by Franklin, saw the problem as an incompetent and ineffectual monarch who couldn't be bothered to even pretend to take the problems raised by the colonists seriously; the colonists were ungrateful and wrong but understandably peeved - and that after a small show of force everybody would agree to go back to the negotiating table and put all this nonsense behind them.
Mid-century, US culture seems to have conceived of the work of doctors and hospitals as Medicine (scientific/technological, mechanical, focused on knowledge and control of specific problems). Over the past few decades, we've seen an interesting shift toward instead conceptualizing it as Healthcare (emotional/ relational, holistic, focused on providing overall "support" and "care" for a patient's "well-being").
I can think of a bunch of possible causal factors, including power shifts away from individual doctors and toward systems; the rise of healthcare marketing/ advertising; gender shifts in the makeup of the workforce; and the broader trend toward more emotive rhetoric in the culture at large. But I'm interested in learning more. Does anyone know of good articles or posts digging into this phenomenon?
It might be a shift in emphasis from treatment to prevention. It's my understanding that people nowadays tend to die from things that are hard or impossible to treat but could have been prevented, or at least delayed, by a healthier lifestyle.
(I'm not judging here; I'm currently having a beer at 8:38 am.)
I think there was a very pro-science and tech attitude in general in the mid century. This was the time of Everything Will Be Atomic In The Future (and of course lots of new home conveniences, processed food, etc.)
True, but to my eye the broader culture is just as pro-tech today? Possibly even more so; for instance, normies have pretty well internalized pro-tech marketing memes like "that 5-year-old device is painfully outdated, I clearly need a new one" and "my new expensive tech makes me a cooler, smarter person." And we're notoriously still in the tail end of the "I f*cking love science" fandom era. What would account for the simultaneous shift toward vitalist medicine?
You may want to poke around the recent book-review-contest's entry [0] for "Sadly, Porn". The Big Idea (tm) under investigation is Narcissism. And a subcomponent of the Big Idea is the claim: over the past century, modern society's transfer of agency from individuals to bureaucracy has effected a vibeshift from materialism to therapy. The review also goes beyond "Sadly, Porn" to mention other texts within the "epidemic of narcissism" genre.
N.B. in this context, I'm defining "materialism" as "I want to advance my economic interests by making inventions and being industrious". Whereas "therapy" is being defined as "(no point trying to beat the rat-race, therefore) I need self-care, a renewed focus on mental health, etc".
The book review doesn't really focus much on the therapy angle, at least as I remember. (Though the review is also really fucking long. So maybe I'm misremembering.) I know the therapy angle is part of the genre though because I remember it being a more prominent theme in Christopher Lasch's book "Culture of Narcissism". But I still recommend starting with the "Sadly, Porn" book review, since the writing-style of everything else within the narcissism genre is inexplicably, infuriatingly obscurant. Also, I don't think "Culture of Narcissism" is available online, though the other texts are.
Medicine has to do with your own body, and body and mind are as entwined as it gets. A detached scientist doctor doesn't do much good when a good portion of what you're seeking is a bit of human reassurance.
Last week, I asked about glucose monitoring, as I was worried that I might have prediabetes. I ended up ordering a Freestyle Libre 3, which arrived last night. Unfortunately, now I have the opposite problem, that the CGM is showing implausibly *low* readings.
In particular, the app kept waking me up last night due to low glucose readings, which dipped as low as 53. However, as I'm not taking any medications and don't have any symptoms, it seems extremely implausible that I actually had hypoglycemia.
Now I'm not sure what to do, since it seems like I can't actually trust the CGM readings at all anyway.
One other annoying thing is that the historical graph shown in the app doesn't correspond to what the app actually showed at the time, and I have no idea why.
I'm surprised you went this route. I use this, too, and insurance makes it $20 for 14 days of readings. But that's almost $1.50 per day, and if you only want to take readings a couple times a day, the fingerpricks would be more cost effective in the long run (initial purchase of a meter for perhaps $20, and then a 100 pack of test strips for another $20).
Does insurance even cover this if you just want it for your own information?
It does have its faults, such as not being able to adjust the low glucose level, sound it makes when you reach it, or the volume, and only displaying 12 hours of readings instead of a whole day. Plus, it seems to crash a lot, probably due to a memory leak. Overall, though, I find it to be pretty accurate in my own readings.
I just paid out of pocket ($95). After all, the whole point is that I didn't know whether I had a problem or not and wanted to find out.
I've been thinking about trying to get a fingerprick test too in order to see whether the low blood sugar reported by the CGM is actually real or not. I actually went to CVS yesterday, but the reader said on the box that it required a control solution which is sold separately, and they don't actually have the control solution on sale, so I wasn't sure what to do and left empty handed.
It doesn't REQUIRE a control solution, really. The control solution ought to read a specific amount, probably about 110mg/dl, so if it doesn't, then something is wrong with the meter or test strips. They recommend using the control solution perhaps once a month, but I used it perhaps once a year, since I never had any reason to doubt my results.
I would still recommend getting the fingerprick test combination, as it's likely the results will be accurate (I estimate +/- 10% on readings, as I have gotten that kind of range on the same drop of blood). Ask a pharmacist what total supplies to get. I think you'll need a meter, compatible test strips, lancets (I recommend 32 gauge), a lancing device (which may even come with the meter), and something to clean the site like alcohol swabs. Maybe also a log book to record your readings, for your own information, as I find medical professionals never look at these records.
The pharmacist should be able to tell you which devices/test strips work together.
The sensors generally take a little time to settle in, though 24 hours is usually sufficient. It's also worth noting that the Libre family are intended for Type 1 diabetes so the bands and alerts are calibrated for someone without insulin production. My grandmother, who used the sensor to monitor her own prediabetes also reported quite low readings compared to what a Type 1 diabetic would report. If you're still concerned you could order some testing strips to get a second opinion.
Source: Helped develop (in a small way) the sensor :D
Being the best pizza chef in the world would be a significant accolade. Most, if not all, of the other jobs here would result in the same output from performance whether you are simply qualified for the job or "the best in the world". A piano tuner and "the best" (the quickest?) piano tuner are still going to tune a piano. Someone who can make pizza and the best pizza maker in the world are making two entirely different products.
"Hotel housekeeper" seems like it would also make you really good at regular housekeeping, and "shotput athlete" would come with some pretty good physical fitness buffs.
Also, "Geoguesser player" means you are really good at figuring out where photos were taken based on tiny background details, which is not really a day-to-day skill but lets you do cool tricks.
I grew up next to a sheep farm. Sheep shearer requires lots of wrestling. Sheep can kick painfully with their hooves, and (damn!) sheep can bite! And there's nothing more terrified and hysterical than dumb sheep, except maybe Donald Trump when trying to deal with the Biden-to-Harris campaign backflip.
Yeah, pizza chef doesn’t belong on this list. Way too popular and profitable. It would need to be “eggplant Parmesan chef” or something to fit with the others.
Well, being an awesome pizza chef doesn't make you a good business executive or entrepreneur.
I'm not sure offhand what to most lucrative placement for the world's best pizza chef would be. They could be the hands-on chef in a small renowned pizza restaurant. Or they could be the head chef in a large pizza restaurant, working in the kitchen mostly supervising the work of souschefs, probably producing work that is not quite up to the standards of their own hands-on work. Or they could step further back, and be the training/quality-control officer of a chain of pizzerias, producing good but not nearly as good work. There is definitely a tradeoff there.
You can argue over whether Tony Gemignani is literally the best pizza chef in the world, but he has more awards at major pizza competitions than anyone else (AFAIK), and also has a bunch of successful restaurants in California and Nevada and some other smaller ventures.
If you suck at the other aspects of the job, you get a partner to handle the business side. Though there's no reason, the way this was framed, that you HAVE to suck at everything in the world besides making pizza.
At minimum, you open a restaurant in a high-traffic area of a big city. That's a solid living.
The leap to establishing a big chain is much harder. Though you have much better odds with pizza than almost anything else! That's why I made the eggplant parm comment -- that maybe gets you one quirky little restaurant somewhere but you're not going to be opening locations in Peoria.
Out of curiosity, I Googled and quickly found this guy who did it in South Florida and is moving up the state, with 15 locations. Opened a "pizza school".
Well, the good news is, if you ask around who makes the best casseroles in the world, you'll find there's a consensus. Almost everyone gives the same answer.
It just doesn't seem odd enough to qualify. Baseball is a major league sport, and every team has shortstops. If you want more options, looks for something more oldfashioned or unusual.
How about crackerjack gandy dancer? I was actually a pretty good one at one time. Always the guy to say “we have time to build one more section of track” and all that.
I looked at it as a challenge. I was a skinny adolescent and the work seemed to build me up into a stronger healthier man. Circumstances ended that job before I was 30 though. Not sure how it would have played out long term.
My 60 year old track boss was still pretty lean and mean though. He could drive a spike home with the best of us.
The work was physically difficult but good technique made it a lot easier.
When are we talking about? To take one example, IBM 1400s might still be running in emulation inside some legacy systems, but devops for such systems is unlikely to be similar to the skills expected of IBM 1400 operators.
The time is right now. While a bunch of these options are distinctly oldfashioned, your skillset includes both traditional techniques and modern adaptations, if applicable.
Join us for our 69th OC ACXLW meetup, Part 2, where we'll continue exploring human sexuality by delving into Chapters 3 and 4 of "The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality." Our discussion will focus on understanding the factors that cause arousal and debunking common myths about what does not cause arousal.
Discussion Topics:
Chapter 3: Things That Cause Arousal
Chapter Three examines various factors that trigger arousal, breaking them into distinct categories and exploring each in detail. The chapter challenges traditional models of sexual orientation, proposing a more nuanced understanding of human arousal patterns.
Breeding Targets:
Primary and Secondary Sex Characteristics: Arousal is linked to characteristics indicating fertility and sexual differentiation, such as body parts and movements.
Arousal Indicators: Traits like musculature, broad shoulders, and deep voices in males, and breasts, hips, and certain body movements in females.
Sexuality Models: Traditional models like the Kinsey scale are critiqued, proposing that attraction can be to specific traits rather than a spectrum from straight to gay.
Inverse Systems:
Atypical Arousal: Arousal from stimuli generally found disgusting by others, such as fetishes involving bodily functions or insects.
Early Onset: These patterns often appear early in life and are not learned through socialization.
Gender Differences: More prevalent in males, possibly due to different evolutionary pressures.
Emotional States and Concepts:
Dominance and Submission: Significant portion of human arousal is linked to feelings of dominance and submission.
Conceptual Arousal: Emotions like betrayal, transformation, and being eaten can trigger arousal, as can power dynamics.
Neural Crosstalk: Crosstalk in the brain between areas responsible for social behavior and arousal might explain these patterns.
Emotional Connections to People:
Emotional Lowering Threshold: Emotional connections lower the threshold for arousal, making familiar and loved individuals more sexually appealing.
Trope Attraction:
Role-Playing and Stereotypes: Certain stereotypes or roles (nurse, goth, cheerleader) can enhance arousal due to their adherence to specific tropes.
Novelty:
New Experiences: New and unique stimuli can be more arousing due to their novelty.
Pain and Asphyxiation:
Pain and Pleasure: Some arousal patterns are enhanced by pain or oxygen deprivation.
Basic Instincts:
Autopilot Behaviors: Some mating behaviors are driven by deeper neurological systems that do not always generate traditional feelings of arousal.
Physical Stimuli:
Direct Physical Interaction: Physical actions like kissing or touching erogenous zones directly trigger arousal.
Conditioned Responses:
Learned Arousal: Some arousal patterns result from conditioning, such as fetishes for inanimate objects.
Chapter 4: Things That Do Not Cause Arousal
Chapter Four delves into common misconceptions about what causes arousal, debunking myths and clarifying what does not influence sexual arousal patterns.
Limited Impact of Socialization:
The chapter argues against the pervasive belief that socialization significantly shapes sexual preferences.
Evidence shows that societal ideals promoting thinness do not change underlying arousal patterns.
Body Weight Preferences:
Despite societal ideals promoting thinness, studies show men generally prefer women of healthy weights.
Cultural Myths:
Historical examples like the art of Peter Paul Rubens suggest personal preferences rather than societal standards.
Parental Influence and Childhood:
The study finds no significant correlation between childhood conditions and adult arousal patterns.
The myth of the "childhood abuse cycle" is debunked; most abusers were not abused as children, and most abused children do not become abusers.
Social Taboos and Rule Breaking:
The notion that breaking social taboos inherently causes arousal is challenged.
Kinks are often socially taboo, but this is because they are defined by their taboo nature.
Intelligence and Sapiosexuality:
Attraction to intelligence (sapiosexuality) might be influenced by socialization.
Intelligence is processed in higher-order brain functions, suggesting it may not be an innate arousal trigger but rather a socially informed one.
Summaries:
Chapter 3 Summary:
Chapter Three of "The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality" examines various factors that trigger arousal, breaking them into distinct categories and exploring each in detail. The chapter challenges traditional models of sexual orientation, proposing a more nuanced understanding of human arousal patterns.
Breeding Targets:
Primary and Secondary Sex Characteristics: Arousal is linked to characteristics indicating fertility and sexual differentiation, such as body parts and movements.
Arousal Indicators: Traits like musculature, broad shoulders, and deep voices in males, and breasts, hips, and certain body movements in females.
Sexuality Models: Traditional models like the Kinsey scale are critiqued, proposing that attraction can be to specific traits rather than a spectrum from straight to gay.
Inverse Systems:
Atypical Arousal: Arousal from stimuli generally found disgusting by others, such as fetishes involving bodily functions or insects.
Early Onset: These patterns often appear early in life and are not learned through socialization.
Gender Differences: More prevalent in males, possibly due to different evolutionary pressures.
Emotional States and Concepts:
Dominance and Submission: Significant portion of human arousal is linked to feelings of dominance and submission.
Conceptual Arousal: Emotions like betrayal, transformation, and being eaten can trigger arousal, as can power dynamics.
Neural Crosstalk: Crosstalk in the brain between areas responsible for social behavior and arousal might explain these patterns.
Emotional Connections to People:
Emotional Lowering Threshold: Emotional connections lower the threshold for arousal, making familiar and loved individuals more sexually appealing.
Trope Attraction:
Role-Playing and Stereotypes: Certain stereotypes or roles (nurse, goth, cheerleader) can enhance arousal due to their adherence to specific tropes.
Novelty:
New Experiences: New and unique stimuli can be more arousing due to their novelty.
Pain and Asphyxiation:
Pain and Pleasure: Some arousal patterns are enhanced by pain or oxygen deprivation.
Basic Instincts:
Autopilot Behaviors: Some mating behaviors are driven by deeper neurological systems that do not always generate traditional feelings of arousal.
Physical Stimuli:
Direct Physical Interaction: Physical actions like kissing or touching erogenous zones directly trigger arousal.
Conditioned Responses:
Learned Arousal: Some arousal patterns result from conditioning, such as fetishes for inanimate objects.
Chapter 4 Summary:
Chapter Four delves into common misconceptions about what causes arousal, debunking myths and clarifying what does not influence sexual arousal patterns.
Limited Impact of Socialization:
The chapter argues against the pervasive belief that socialization significantly shapes sexual preferences.
Evidence shows that societal ideals promoting thinness do not change underlying arousal patterns.
Body Weight Preferences:
Despite societal ideals promoting thinness, studies show men generally prefer women of healthy weights.
Cultural Myths:
Historical examples like the art of Peter Paul Rubens suggest personal preferences rather than societal standards.
Parental Influence and Childhood:
The study finds no significant correlation between childhood conditions and adult arousal patterns.
The myth of the "childhood abuse cycle" is debunked; most abusers were not abused as children, and most abused children do not become abusers.
Social Taboos and Rule Breaking:
The notion that breaking social taboos inherently causes arousal is challenged.
Kinks are often socially taboo, but this is because they are defined by their taboo nature.
Intelligence and Sapiosexuality:
Attraction to intelligence (sapiosexuality) might be influenced by socialization.
Intelligence is processed in higher-order brain functions, suggesting it may not be an innate arousal trigger but rather a socially informed one.
Questions for Discussion:
How do the ten distinct systems described in Chapter 3 contribute to a comprehensive understanding of human arousal?
What are the key misconceptions about arousal debunked in Chapter 4, and what evidence supports these clarifications?
How can the insights from these chapters be applied in educational, clinical, and personal contexts?
We look forward to seeing you all and engaging in a stimulating discussion. For any questions, please contact Michael Michalchik at michaelmichalchik@gmail.com.
A question about trading real money prediction markets for Americans. I've been afraid of trading them because they are technically illegal and I'm afraid of the IRS. If I trade foreign markets using a VPN and make a profit I will owe taxes on them. You can declare "gambling profits" with the IRS and pay that, but I'm afraid doing that will lead to suspicion that I'm doing something illegal, which I would be.
Is there some full-proof way for Americans to trade on prediction markets and pay taxes on the profits and have every step of it be legal?
You could move out of the States. Or you could try Manifold, which is currently trying to exploit a loophole to make some of their markets legally real-money.
Thanks. Supposed "loopholes" have gotten me in huge trouble in the past, which is why I want to be 100% above board with clear laws that everyone understands and agrees upon.
> Buddhism is an outgrowth of Hinduism in the same way that Christianity and Islam are outgrowths of Judaism; indeed, Buddhism is counted as one of the heterodox schools[1] of Hinduism (along with Jainism, the ultra-determinist Ajivika, the agnostic-nihilist Ajnana, and the vaguely LessWrongian Charvaka[2]).
> Hinduism in turn grew out of the Proto-Indo-European religion [3], with the Vedic pantheon having clear parallels in its Greek, Roman, Germanic, and Slavic homologues.
> Central to most Indo-European religions is the theme of //Chaoskampf// [4], a battle between a male god or demigod, usually associated with the sky and storms, and a monstrous dragon or serpent, associated with water and the underworld, thereby bringing order and safety to the world. Examples include Hittite (Tarhunt vs. Illuyanka), Greek (Zeus vs. Typhon and Apollo vs. Python), Norse (Thor vs. Jormungandr), and Hindu (Indra vs. Vritra). But even older examples are known from the Mesopotamian-Semitic world, including Babylonian (Marduk vs. Tiamat), Egyptian (Ra vs. Apep), Cananean (Baal Hadad vs. Lotan), and of course the Bible, which reminds us that Yahweh crushed the Leviathan [5] in the course of creation, and that all the ills of the world are to be blamed on a serpent.*
> By the principle that two cultures that share something sorta similar must be related, it is clear that one of Indo-European or Mesopotamian tradition has to be ancestral to the other. (“But that’s not how it–” Shut up.) The question is which.
> Now, the Yamnaya Culture [6], which is the current best guess for the last common ancestor of all Indo-European cultures and languages, existed in the Ponto-Caspian steppe around 3000 BCE; whereas Abraham is traditionally believed to have lived around 1800 BCE.
> HOWEVER: 1) //Answers in Genesis// ensures us [7] (and if you can’t trust the scholarship of Young Earth creationists, who can you trust?) that probably Abraham was in fact contemporary to the Early Dynastic period of Mesopotamia, so a thousand years older than usually supposed. 2) We have no writing from the Yamnaya culture: the Indo-European mythemes might very well have entered their cultures when the migrations were already in course. The first written traces of Indo-European religions are Hittite tablets dated at the 17th century at oldest; the //Rig Veda//, which tells us the story of Indra and Vritra, is about the same age.
> Since we know that Abraham might have defeated an early Hittite king in battle [8], it’s not out of the question that words of Abraham’s faith may have spread among the Hittites, who had not quite settled in Anatolia yet, and thence to their fellow migrating Indo-Europeans, who had not yet reached their eventual locations. In this way, garbled memories of Yahweh’s creation of the world found their way in early Greek, Norse, and Hindu mythology as well as in the rest of the Near East.
> Therefore, all major Indo-European religious traditions can be considered Abrahamic. Therefore, Hinduism is Abrahamic. Therefore, Buddhism is Abrahamic too.
> * = For some reason, the same motif is also in Japan (Susanoo vs. Yamata-no-Orochi); no idea how to fit that in.
There's an old speculation that the names Brahma and Abraham might have a common source. It does seem unlikely that two separate civilizations would randomly converge on basically the same weird sequence of phonemes for some of their most central religious figures.
On the Indian side, the name Brahma only appears in the post-vedic period, even though he gets retrospectively identified with the vedic Prajapati. So the word might be a later borrowing, not a correspondence at the source.
A related argument you may enjoy is that Jesus's maternal grandparents were bodhisattvas. The immaculate conception of Mary runs counter to the idea that all people are born with original sin. Why was she different? Potentially, because both of her parents attained enlightenment, and thus were able to create life without passing on burdens.
Unfortunately I don't remember all the supporting details, but the high school teacher who argued this claimed evidence for her being from further east, and for Buddhist influence in Christ's teachings.
Some Gnostic theology declared to be heresy by the early Christian church scans as Hindu/Buddhist influenced.
“Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. Look for him by taking yourself as a starting point. Learn who it is within you makes everything his own and says, My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body. Learn the sources of sorrow, joy, love, hate. Learn how it happens that one watches without willing, loves without willing. If you carefully investigate these matters, you will find him within yourself.”
The idea that Buddhism is an Abrahamic religion is absurd. Even if Ashoka is somehow descended from the mythical Heracles and the Spartans are really related to the Israelite, it doesn't follow that Buddhism is an Abrahamic religion. The Buddha was teaching around roughly same time (give or take a century) that the Jews were exiled in Babylon when the Jews began to regard Yahweh as a monotheistic god rather than a henotheistic god. So, it would be difficult to see how those two traditions influenced each other so early in their development. Likewise, the Buddha didn't care about god worship, and he was one of several Axial Age Indian religious movements that rejected the Vedantic traditions.
Although I no longer identify myself as Buddhist, this sort of speculation has a Eurocentric/ethnocentric tone that I find kind of offensive even not being a Buddhist.
Of course it's absurd, and everything you're saying is correct. I'm not under the impression that it's actually in any way reasonable to classify Buddhism as Abrahamic, nor was the original post. The point of the exercise is to take a deliberately absurd statement and seeing how apparently good an argument one can make for it. I tried to make it semi-explicit with the “But that’s not how it–” intermission, but I apologize if I failed to make it clearer.
That intermission as well as the note on YEC trustworthiness were absolutely clear about the intent of the post - a little too on the nose even, I would say.
YEC is an acronym for "Young Earth Creationist", used to be used online a lot back when creationism was the controversy de jure. Answers in Genesis is the preeminent young earth creationist organization.
Yeah, it seemed odd to me too. I was worried that he was very sick. Now my guess is that he was just being a stubborn fighter who let himself be talked into giving up, but didn't like it and still resents the people who pressured him.
Yeah, I don't recall there being anything in his resignation speech about being unfit or too old, just about "what's best for the country". So I'm guessing that that's the face-saving rationalization that he was presented with.
The story I saw was that what finally pushed him over the edge was being presented with internal campaign polling that showed him massively behind in all of the swing states.
It's clear there has been a coup. We don't know whether the POTUS is dead or alive. This constitutional crisis has been manufactured by the Deep State due to fear Trump will be reelected. It's the only way for them to maintain power. Don't expect there to be an election this November.
Strictly speaking, _I_ can't know for sure. The small scale version of the simulation hypothesis could suggest that I'm a Russian bot who just _thinks_ that they are a human in South Carolina. :-)
I don't understand why many right-wingers appear to a) have such strong distaste about claims like "trans women are women" and b) are so absolutely certain that their beliefs are objectively correct.
It's one thing to have object-level policy positions that are trans-exclusive, eg like thinking trans women shouldn't use women's bathrooms (I disagree), or that they shouldn't be in women's sports (I weakly agree), or that government funding shouldn't be used for gender affirming therapies (I strongly disagree).
It's another to have strong ontological beliefs (which afaict are wrong or at least confused) and then *assert those beliefs as fact without debate and people who disagree with you are laughably wrong*.
I'm not confused that conservatives are wrong about this issue. That's normal! Plenty of people are wrong about plenty of things, and I'm sure they think I'm wrong too. But I don't understand where the *confidence* is coming from. Ontology isn't an easy question and people tend to get them wrong all the time[1], even when there's a clear "truth of the matter."
And in this case most of the debate doesn't even have a "truth of the matter" to begin with. (eg it's hard for me to identify an empirical crux or prediction about object-level reality that'd cause the majority of proponents to predictably update if it turns out True/False). So I don't understand the level of confidence, or the associated meanness.
[1] some sample questions that are much much easier and yet people can reliably either disagree or get them wrong:
1. Is 2 a prime number
2. Is Pluto a planet
3. Are whales fishes
4. Is Confucianism a religion
5. Is property theft violence
6. Are hot dogs sandwiches
etc
I don't see a single argument in your post that would support your point of view. In fact, I can take your post, mirror it along the left-wing/right-wing axis, and it would make just as much (or as little) sense.
For example:
"I don't understand why many left-wingers appear to a) have such strong fondness of claims like "trans women are women" and b) are so absolutely certain that their beliefs are objectively correct. "
Or:
"It's one thing to have object-level policy positions that are trans-inclusive, eg like thinking trans women should use women's bathrooms (I disagree), or that they should be in women's sports (I weakly agree), or that government funding should be used for gender affirming therapies (I strongly disagree)."
Or:
"I'm not confused that liberals are wrong about this issue. That's normal! Plenty of people are wrong about plenty of things, and I'm sure they think I'm wrong too. But I don't understand where the *confidence* is coming from. Ontology isn't an easy question and people tend to get them wrong all the time[1], even when there's a clear 'truth of the matter.'"
My point isn't that you're wrong and they're right, or any similar gotcha. Rather, I want to show you that your beliefs aren't as objectively and obviously correct as you think they are. Dig deeper. *Why* do you believe what you believe, and why might conservatives believe what they believe?
"Rather, I want to show you that your beliefs aren't as objectively and obviously correct as you think they are" lolwut.
I feel like you're confused about my comment. I think you are treating it as if I was trying to advance my own position in a debate, whereas that was explicitly not what I was going for.
I think if left-wingers have extremely strong confidence that their subjective beliefs are objectively correct, that'd be a problem! And in fact I do try to criticize them when they act like their moral preferences have more "truth of the matter" than they actually do.
So I don't find your attempt at symmetry particularly convincing.
> I think if left-wingers have extremely strong confidence that their beliefs are objectively correct, that'd be a problem!
That is already the case. I don't see any indication that left-wingers have less strong confidence in their beliefs than right-wingers, insofar as such generalizations over large population groups make sense at all.
> So I don't find your attempt at symmetry particularly convincing.
Of course you don't. You've made up your mind that your outgroup's beliefs are more wrong than your ingroup's. Which is why the following statement:
"I'm not confused that conservatives are wrong about this issue. That's normal! Plenty of people are wrong about plenty of things, and I'm sure they think I'm wrong too. But I don't understand where the *confidence* is coming from."
sounds perfectly reasonable and self-evident to you, while the mirrored statement:
"I'm not confused that liberals are wrong about this issue. That's normal! Plenty of people are wrong about plenty of things, and I'm sure they think I'm wrong too. But I don't understand where the *confidence* is coming from."
sounds non-sensical and obviously wrong to you, even though they're objectively symmetrical in their reasoning.
Note that I'm *not* saying that all beliefs are equally right or wrong, far from it! It's just that any argument or claim you made in your original post works just as well (or as badly) for your position as it does for the opposite position.
I feel like you're still claiming that I'm making an argument/thought my comment was strong enough to be persusasive by itself, which was not my intent. Compare: "I believe Green is a better color than Blue, for XYZ reasons, and people who think otherwise are dumb" to "I happen to think Green is a better color than Blue, but I don't see why people who think Blue is objectively better than Green are so confident in their beliefs."
Sex-realism dovetails into a certain narrative.
-- Conservatives believe in human-nature; progressives believe in blank-slateism.
-- Conservatives believe in race-realism; progressives believe in racial-fungibility.
-- Conservatives believe in moral-realism; progressives believe in moral-relativism.
-- Conservatives believe fetuses have souls; progressives believe souls don't exist.
-- Conservatives believe in hard money; progressives believe in fiat.
Broadly, conservatives believe in concrete properties. Progressives believe in abstract theories. Conservatives say their beliefs are obvious and common sense, and that progressives engage in wishful-thinking. Progressives say their beliefs are righteous and just, and that conservatives are uncouth bigots.
On a deeper level [0], I think conservatives are pessimistic realists (e.g. doomsday prepping is conservative-coded), whereas progressives are optimistic idealists (utopianism is progressive-coded). In fact, I'd argue that optimism vs pessimism is what fundamentally differentiates conservatives from progressives. (N.B. I think the right-vs-left axis is a separate dimension altogether, which pits hierarchy vs egalitarianism.)
Now let's examine the trans question. Conservatives: "M/F (qua sex) is biologically-real, HRT doesn't erase facts such as big forearms". Progressives: "M/F (qua gender) is socially-constructed, my feelings are of prime importance".
You and I have both read Scott's writings about categories. But from a conservative perspective, can you now intuit how one might conclude that the progressives are trying to gaslight everyone else about aspects of reality that are "obvious" and "common sense"?
On top of that, progressives have really been feeling their wheaties lately. So I'm not super surprised about a proportional amount of kneejerking from the conservatives.
[0] https://fromthechair.substack.com/p/game-theory
Thanks for your hypotheses! I appreciate the explanation, sorry if my replies come across as rude and you absolutely should not feel an obligation to respond! :)
Firstly, I'm not that interested in "conservative vs progressive" as a an analytical lens on trans issues for this comment, I'm more interested in "conservative vs correct" on this issue[1].
("Broadly, conservatives believe in concrete properties. Progressives believe in abstract theories. Conservatives say their beliefs are obvious and common sense, and that progressives engage in wishful-thinking. Progressives say their beliefs are righteous and just, and that conservatives are uncouth bigots."), I think your generalities are too broad here. Let's go to the examples:
"Sex-realism dovetails into a certain narrative.
-- Conservatives believe in human-nature; progressives believe in blank-slateism. -> I think framing conservatives as "believing in human-nature" seems pretty loaded here. Most progressives will say that they believe in human nature as cruel (eg racism, sexism, whateverism, corporate greed etc) whereas conservatives are overly optimistic about people, especially their preferred groups. Now I think progressives are often wrong here (corporate greed isn't a good explanation for inflation, which is better modeled as very impersonal forces of supply and demand). But it certainly doesn't seem like conservatives have a monopoly on understanding human nature!
-- Conservatives believe in race-realism; progressives believe in racial-fungibility. -> Is so-called "race-realism" really the majority belief among *conservatives* writ large, rather than some weird internet randos?
-- Conservatives believe in moral-realism; progressives believe in moral-relativism. -> But morality is an extremely abstract thing! What does it even mean for morality to have concrete properties?
-- Conservatives believe fetuses have souls; progressives believe souls don't exist. -> Huh? Suppose you're explaining American culture to an alien. You tell him that humans have roughly two factions. one group believes in an immortal soul that can not be measured concretely in any discernible, whereas the other group are materialists. Which faction do you think the alien will guess are the more "concrete" vs "abstract" groups?
-- Conservatives believe in hard money; progressives believe in fiat." Again I think believing in "hard money" (what does that mean concretely, gold?) is more of a weird internet rando thing than a common belief among conservatives, even the libetarian party doesn't talk about ending the Fed anymore.
[1] I will separately be interested in debating "progressive vs correct" at a latter point though I think I understand the left's departures from reality more intuitively.
"one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens."
Here's an easier example. Consider abortion. Both conservatives and progressives agree in the abstract that "murder is wrong". But their modes of reasoning can nonetheless diverge. Because it's possible to reason that
A) killing babies is murder -> killing babies is bad
B) killing babies is murder
C) => killing babies is bad
but you can also reason
A) killing babies is murder -> killing babies is bad
B) killing babies is not bad
C) => killing babies is not murder
Which syllogism is "objectively correct"? Both! These are both valid syllogisms! And yet they're incompatible! Once you understand this on a deep level, you see this everywhere.
Homework assignment: how does this apply to the gun control debate?
My impression is that *most* of the gun control debate comes down to empirics. Leftists believe that outlawing guns will reduce gun violence, rightists believe that outlawing guns will increase gun violence ("if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns")
Unlike some of the other questions discussed, this is actually a fairly resolvable empirical question.
These are tactical considerations rather than strategic. I mean, do you honestly believe that "violence reduction" is the motivator behind the anti-gun-control faction?
"What's the best way to reduce violence in the world? . . . . . . . . . I know! by joining the NRA and lobbying for 2nd amendment rights! So many QALY's!" said no one ever.
Humans are not automatically strategic, or consequentialist. Leftists reduce racism via protests in the US, when it's almost certainly the case that the best way to reduce racism would be in places with a higher baseline level of racism, and less antiracist messaging. Prolifers spend almost all of their pro-fetus efforts on reducing abortion, rather than reducing other sources of fetal deaths like early miscarriages, or increasing contraception access and promoting homosexual relationships. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5443340/
> I'm not that interested in "conservative vs progressive" as a an analytical lens on trans issues for this comment, I'm more interested in "conservative vs correct" on this issue
"all models are wrong; some models are useful."
I wrote the game theory essay [0] and also this essay about classification [1] just for these occasions. Ontological statements (including about truth and falsehood) are only useful insofar as they streamline some decision-making algorithm.
Suppose you visit the store to buy bread. The cold and uncaring universe doesn't guarantee that any particular loaf is actually made of bread. It could be adulterated with sawdust, or sand, or asbestos. If you didn't know what went into your bread, you might be inclined to chemically test every single loaf so you don't get randomly poisoned and die like a Victorian. Fortunately, the FDA promises us that the labels that are assigned to the loaves accurately reflect the loaves (up to a certain extent). I.e. accurate categories help streamline our purchasing decisions.
You can also observe that categories are instrumentally subordinate to decisions by noticing that the resolution of name-space collisions depends on how you plan to use the labels. E.g. botanists categorize tomatoes as fruits because they care about anatomy. dieticians categorize tomatoes as vegetables because they care about nutrition. They have different categorization schemes because they plan to take different actions with different consequences.
So what im saying is, framing the trans question at the level of "correct vs incorrect" is a crude level of analysis. They should be thought of, not as ontological statements, but as implicit bundles of policies which help navigate an uncertain environment. I.e. you should be thinking "what pros and cons does this perspective offer?"
> Conservatives believe in human-nature; progressives believe in blank-slateism.
What I'm really getting at is malleability. it's overwhelmingly the progressives who tend to believe that we can all earn 6-figures, if only we just go to college and get STEM degrees and learn to code. To which conservatives (and Freddie Deboer) say "no, not every truckdriver/janitor/hotdog-vendor/etc is infinitely malleable".
> Conservatives believe in race-realism; progressives believe in racial-fungibility.
I'm exaggerating for rhetorical effect. No, not every conservative is openly turbo-racist. But consider, who's more likely to warn their daughters about wandering alone in bad neighborhoods: conservative parents or progressive parents.
> Conservatives believe in moral-realism; progressives believe in moral-relativism.
Moral realists believe in a single, objectively true morality. E.g. lots of people believe "murder is bad" is objectively true. Moral relativists believe morality is more subjective. E.g. your answer to the trolley problem is just, like, your opinion man.
There's a continuum. on one side, things are "real", "objective", "concrete", "tangible". On the other side, things are "ethereal", "subjective", "abstract", "intangible". Moral realism falls closer on the real side than the ethereal side.
> Conservatives believe fetuses have souls; progressives believe souls don't exist.
you've never seen a soul. but you've also never seen an electron either. The Standard Model of Physics is just that: a model. and it is *extremely* abstract.
contrast this with souls. it may not be tangible or visible, but it's something people nonetheless "sense" directly with their sensory perceptions. E.g. a comment a few weeks or month ago (by Lv50 Lapras? I think?) described a creak, and realized that they probably would have ascribed it to a ghost if they'd lived in a different time period. People see faces in rocks all the time. Ascribing agency and intent to random aspects of their phenomonology is what humans just naturally do. Thus, it's actually quite low in the abstraction hierarchy.
> Conservatives believe in hard money; progressives believe in fiat.
Again, I'm exaggerating. And I very much feel it's conservatives who tend to lean more toward the "chronic-debt and chronic-inflation are bad, actually" side of the monetary-policy spectrum. The goal here is not to paint all conservatives as having extreme beliefs. The goal is to show that their dispositions naturally follow from a certain type of world-view.
[0] https://fromthechair.substack.com/p/game-theory
[1] https://fromthechair.substack.com/p/magic-runes-and-sand-dunes-the-binary
Lumping question 1 with the rest is such a grave injustice to lady Mathematics, it's a question that could be answered by - quite literally - a bunch of sand, commonly called a "computer". A bunch of sand with not much sophistication at that, unlike all the others where the primary issue is drawing boundaries and an unhealthy amount of values clash in the mix.
> So I don't understand the level of confidence, or the associated meanness.
I'm not a conservative or rightwing in the most straightforward, US/UK-centric sense you mean, and whatever amount of sympathy or shared values I might have had with them is swiftly being burned to the ground as we speak by their overwhelmingly enthusiastic, uncannily aggressive and marvelously spineless cock sucking of Israel's criminal war, and I'm not a huge fan of the US left either. So I think I'm a good candidate for a moderately neutral opinion on the trans thing:
(1) The level of confidence can be easily explained by the fact (apparent fact? common sense? unexamined view?) that "Trans women are women" is a - in the most straightforward and face-value interpretation - quite wrong belief. You know what I mean by "Straightforward Interpretation", something along the lines of "Trans women are women in the exact same sense someone born with an XX chromosome is". An oft-repeated counterargument is "Eyes don't see chromosomes" or "People can't smell hormone levels", but that is irrelevant; A human-senses-perfect replica of a ten-million-dollar Da Vinci art piece would never be detected by a human either, but nobody will ever say about it "This replica is Da Vinci art". No it's not, it's a **replica** of Da Vinci art. The issue may seem philosophical, and it is, very much so, but it has very real consequences for art fraudsters.
"Trans women are women" can always be made correct with dozens of qualifiers and nuance, but any nuance added to a slogan makes it no longer a slogan, and people are confidently disagreeing with the slogan, not any essay-length elaboration you add to it. Simply put, if you want to change people's unexamined stance on Trans women, you somehow have to change the "folk philosophy" of copying every person unconsciously subscribes to, the philosophy of identity, what do they mean when they say things are "the same" or are "different". Intuitively, things are the same when they're the same "on every level", a naturalized immigrant is not quite a "True" American because there is some level of identity in which they're not American, namely the past identity (which survives in memory). That's what people usually mean when they say that Trans women are not women, there is some level at which a "true" woman and a trans women differ, but at which 2 "true" women never differ.
(2) As for the associated meanness, this is the combined resultant of 2 distinct forces: topic-independent meanness, and topic-dependent meanness. The topic-independent meanness is a measure of how much "unspicy" conversations (e.g. about Universal Grammar in Linguistics, or about String Theory in Physics), things that we intuitively expect to be calm and collected and dispassionate because no one's values are at stake, can still descend into unmitigated shit-flinging if enough people argue for enough time in enough words. People arguing about Star Wars insult each other viciously. People call up the actress who played the wife of a drug lord (Anna Gunn) in a popular TV series and harass her with death threats. So, if you think that **any** topic, any one whatsoever, is ever safe from descending into shit-flinging after enough people invest in it, you're severely wrong.
And then there is the topic-dependent meanness. Contrary to empty fashionable cliches that feminists like to repeat about how "Women's Pain is Invisible", women's pain and struggles are **quite** visible, and people get **quite** passionate about them. Throughout history, if you wanted to whip up people into a frenzy, there is pretty much nothing you could do better than convincing them that (a) $SOMEBODY is making fun of their god (b) $SOMEBODY is harassing, molesting, or otherwise making life difficult for their women, girls, and/or children. With industrialization and secularization, North America, Europe, and massive portions of East Asia have gradually mellowed out on (a), but (b) remain as universal and as passion-inducing as ever. The 2 sides of the trans debate both see the other side as attacking **their** women, and the facts occasionally come up to support either side. This is a second source of meanness, on top of the background-radiation source of topic-independent meanness.
I think I still don't understand #1. There are many other "to be" slogans that are seen as slightly cringe but not obviously wrong ("women's rights are human rights", "I am my brother's keeper"). Also "to be" verbs in English are extremely overloaded, so the fact that there isn't an isomorphism between trans women and women isn't very compelling to me (You can also say "black women are women," which I'm sure some racists will take issue with but I doubt is a particularly controversial position). Like clearly in the cases of those other slogans (and also in everyday usage) there are many times where "to be" is not meant as an identity claim. "I am 10 years old", "Obama is a man."
(Identity claims have to be symmetric. Nobody thinks the state of 10 year-oldness means a specific person, or that Man <=> Obama).
Re Da Vinci art fraudsters, the example seems like a stretch because fine art is famously this make-believe game where people care a lot about things like provenance, but most of the time we (depending on your perspective) either live in reality or at least a pretty different social game.
> the philosophy of identity, what do they mean when they say things are "the same" or are "different". Intuitively, things are the same when they're the same "on every level", a naturalized immigrant is not quite a "True" American because there is some level of identity in which they're not American, namely the past identity (which survives in memory).
Interesting. I think I like your analogy because I think it's a good crux. I disagree with both sides of it. I think I basically disagree that people need things to be the same "on every level" to deploy set membership. For example, saying platypuses are mammals isn't a particularly controversial claim, even though platypuses do not have many of the properties that we usually associate with mammals (eg we usually think of mammals as not laying eggs).
I also find the immigrant analogy interesting, because I expect "Immigrants are not True Americans" to not be a very popular message, to put it mildly. I think most people are smart enough to call BS on that, even though of course there isn't a "truth of the matter" to this particular question. And I agree your average immigrant is meaningfully different from your average native-born American, including on areas that seem fairly central to "Americanness" (e.g. much more likely to have an accent, much more likely to love America, etc).
Similarly, black women are not on average identical to the median American woman, or the median white woman (for example, most American women have paler skin). So I don't think people's current intuitive conception of set membership or "is"ness requires a complete identity relationship.
__
Re your arguments about meanness, I kinda see it but I mostly don't buy this. I do like your topic-independent meanness vs topic-dependent meanness comparison. It's a good thing to keep aware of.
People do seem way more mean about trans issues on a regular basis than most other issues, so the topic-dependent meanness is high. I can buy that some of the meanness is coming from a place of sacred values + fear, especially from female TERFs. But a lot of the meanness comes across as unusually gleeful and delighting in others' misery. E.g. making fun of suicides. I also follow a pro-gaming scene where the best trans female player (this is someone who presents female ~ as far as I can tell, and I think I'm above average for straight men at e.g. detecting things like makeup or having a gaydar.) regularly gets hounded in Youtube comments with people reminding them that she's trans and making sure to "correct" others when they call her by her gender rather than her birth sex. Frankly, these things just don't seem to come from a place of love, or of fear.
Re question 1: yes this was a mistake on my part, in retrospect I should've said "is 1 a prime number?" (which makes it clearer that this is a definitional dispute)
I felt the same way back in 2018 and left IT after 15 years for the trades. I had built my own home a few years earlier so I wasn't a complete stranger carpentry and I had an offer to work with some guys on finishing. It was a slight pay cut (I had previously taken a pay cut working for a non-profit) but my costs were higher due to more travel/eating out, and no benefits. Luckily I ended up working on mostly new higher end homes right away which was nice. What I observed was "Time is money" so being quick but accurate was highly important, there was less interpersonal drama but more "I've never missed a day of work in my life" kind of tough guy toxicity. I think I expected to feel more appreciated but it was about the same. Was also expecting to make more but I was just getting by.
I was laid off in 2020 due to Covid and started working for myself. This is both better and worse. I can set my rates and make a decent wage but I also need to line up work which I'm pretty terrible at. This has led me to be as broke as I've ever been (though not in debt outside a small mortgage). I've looked into going back but it's pretty difficult to get back into IT after 6 years away from it. I could stick with the trades but in many cases the pay working for someone else isn't going to give me any freedom. There's a balance and it's really a series of trade offs changing up your career. Neither is really better but change is often needed, I definitely needed it for my sanity at the t ime.
I thought the part of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony featuring blood spurting from windows, and severed heads, was startling and horrifying - I can't imagine any other country making re-enacted executions a feature of a ceremony about sport and unity. Do the French - e.g. in school curricula - address the violence of their revolutionary history - are there French members here who'd be able to confirm or disconfirm? Thanks for any thoughts.
I just saw something about an OceanGate scandal and assumed it was a scandal of some sort about the ocean, ala the usual -gate snowclone. I didn't realize that OceanGate is their actual name. Pretty ironic in hindsight.
Probably not the best thing to name your company that operates shoddily built custom submarines, no.
AFAIK it was author (futurist) Charlie Stross who called the AI bubble first. Seems like other people are starting to notice...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljztbcdzkeo
I mean, McKinsey is the epitome of hyping every recent trend only to then pretend it never happened - here’s the new shiny thing, but I’d expect this AI cycle to play out similarly to the communication bubble of the late 90s. Sure Qwest went belly up, but we’re still using the fiber optic cables it laid down. Many current AI players will burn through piles of investor money, but the technology will yield some useful applications.
Some news this morning related to a topic that Scott has recently written about:
Headline: "Gov. Gavin Newsom issues executive order for removal of homeless encampments in California"
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/us/gavin-newsom-executive-order-homeless-encampments/index.html
"California Gov. Gavin Newsom, buoyed by a recent US Supreme Court decision, issued an executive order Thursday calling on state officials to begin taking down homeless encampments.
The move to begin dismantling thousands of encampments throughout California comes after the high court ruled last month in favor of an Oregon city that ticketed homeless people for sleeping outside. The ruling rejected arguments that such “anti-camping” ordinances violated the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment...."
The executive order is posted here:
https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024-Encampments-EO-7-24.pdf
Yup: thanks to the Supreme Court overturning Martin v Boise, they can finally clear encampments again. I wouldn't be surprised if a year from now people find that the seemingly impossible to solve problem of homeless encampments taking over downtowns and parks was solvable all along, and it was just the 9th Circuit preventing it all these years.
But where are all those homeless going to end up moving to? Seems like a whack-a-mole scenario with human lives. (Not that I think anything else was working.)
The obvious answer is, new homeless camps in places with fewer tourists, reporters, and upper-middle-class homeowners, where nobody will bother them. Down side is, those locations may not have sufficient economic opportunities (e.g. panhandling) to support the homeless population.
I think people will mostly be disappointed. You can break up encampments and force people to move around often, but there will still be the same number of homeless people hanging around and all the other things people complain about, and that's a largely intractable problem for the reasons Scott recently explained.
The real solution is to legalize house building, but a) that takes many many years to make a dent in the problem and b) faces fanatical opposition from most voters.
My theory is that the problem is not nearly as intractable as people think, and has mostly been caused by the 9th Circuits decision in Martin v. Boise. So this is a great natural experiment to see if I’m right!
Martin v. Boise was in 2018. Do you think there was no homelessness problem before that?
The homelessness problem was significantly less bad on the west coast, yes.
Check out the graph in this article: homelessness has always been unusually high in California, but note how it starts increasing rapidly starting 2018.
https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/homelessness-california-causes-and-policy-considerations
Biden's speech: the best American political speech since when?
I think better than Obama's 2004 DNC speech. Maybe up there with GW Bush's impromptu remarks about 9/11. Probably there are some things Reagan said about the Cold War that match it. But I'm not a political speech connoisseur, and my mentor for them is awful.
The first 20 minutes of Trumps RNC speech was pretty excellent. Shame he can't stop talking once he starts, with the whole thing turning into another of his rally speeches. Which is fine I guess, but 90 minutes is too long for anybody to sit through these days.
It was a good transcript but I'm not sure how much it reflects reality.
> And today, violent — the violent crime rate is at a 50-year low.
The FBI page I looked at only went back to 1985, but the lowest violent crime rate was around 2013. It shot up in 2020 (big surprise) and hasn't returned.
> Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office.
CBP stats show ~2.3 million illegal alien encounters from 2017-2020. This year alone has seen ~1.8 million, with 3 months left to go in the reporting period. So that's a blatant lie.
> I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term, but nothing — nothing — can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.
I would give Joe more credit for this one if he hadn't stepped aside at the last possible moment, after his entire party did everything short of invoking the 25th to get rid of him.
> In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies or — but as frien- — as fellow Americans. Can we do that? Does character in public life still matter?
Pretty rich coming from the same president who gave us the "Everyone who supported Trump is an extremist enemy of the state" speech (with marines on stage and comical red lighting, which would have led to months of "Fascist! Hitler!" coverage had Trump done it.)
You get the point, etc. It would have been a great speech, if Biden had actually lived up to its ideals.
> The FBI page I looked at only went back to 1985, but the lowest violent crime rate was around 2013. It shot up in 2020 (big surprise) and hasn't returned.
Generally speaking, if a non-Trump politician says something like that, they do at least have some sort of source for the claim.
This analysis shows that after correcting for methodological changes in the definition of rape, 2022 *was* the lowest in 50 years except for 2013 and 2019 being slightly lower. So that's already morally correct, even if it's technically not 100% correct. But as they point out, that's *2022*. Based on the trends, 2023 was very likely the lowest in 50 years outright. So as a present statement, it seems fair to say that violent crime *is* at a 50 year low now.
https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2024/crime-rate-up-or-down-united-states/
Thanks for the implicit rec to read/watch it! I wasn't planning on doing so but it was time well-spent. :)
Looking at the events surrounding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, I am left with the impression that Kimberly Cheatle, the Director of the Secret Service, should not have been hounded into resigning her post.
To begin with, Trump is alive. While he was slightly injured by a grazing shot, he was well enough to be released from hospital the same day and continue campaigning two days later. That means the assassin failed. And if the assassin failed, then the Secret Service succeeded. To be sure, it was a result that left a lot to be desired -- two others were injured but survived, and one died -- but the Secret Service succeeded in its core mission of protecting the life of Donald Trump.
Also, we don't yet know why the shooter was able to get so close to the podium with a rifle and fire so many shots before being killed by a Secret Service sniper. It could have been a pure fluke. It could have been a specific misjudgement or a flaw in doctrine. Or it could have been some sort of systemic problem in the agency as a whole. Several investigations (by Congress, by the Dept of Homeland Security and by the Secret Service itself) are underway, and can be expected to provide answers.
Finally, it seems to me Ms. Cheatle's degree of responsibility depends very much on this question. She can't reasonably be held responsible for a specific misjudgement made by some low-level operative. At the other end, as Director she can certainly be held responsible for systemic problems in the agency as a whole. But until we know where on this continuum of error the actual problem occurred, we don't really know the degree of her culpability. And the government should therefore have delayed calling for her head until we all knew for certain who was responsible.
<quote> That means the assassin failed. And if the assassin failed, then the Secret Service succeeded.</quote>
If you hit on a 19 you are a poor blackjack player, even if a 2 happens to come up
With rare events like this, it's really hard to see the signal, so you need to also look at near misses. Otherwise you're just setting yourself up for a bigger fail down the road.
Um, is this comment meant to be satirical? I kind of hope so.
This is why nothing works in this country. An assassin's bullet is an inch away from killing Trump, and the same assassin ends up killing bystanders anyway. And the takeaway is "the Secret Service succeeded".
DUDE THIS IS HER ONE JOB THAT SHE'S RESPONSIBLE FOR. WTF.
She is responsible full-stop - that's what it *means* to be responsible. That she needed to go through a congressional hearing (where BOTH parties were pissed at her) before resigning, instead of doing it day-of shows how far gone this idea is.
Questions of responsibility for the planning and preparation are legitimately debatable, and ideally would be supported by more information than we have. And I agree that she can't be responsible for the tactical decisions made in the field. But the *aftermath*, that's on her.
The bit where she said "We couldn't put our people on the roof because it's *sloped* and that would be *dangerous", when it was a 1:12 slope and the USSS countersniper team was on a roof with a much greater slope, makes her either a damn fool or a damn liar. Probably lying for no other reason than to absolve the local commander of responsibility and make her team look less inept, but a pathetic coverup of minor incompetence is still a coverup.
I got the impression she was poorly briefed for the questioning she faced from congress. But really, someone at her level should be able to make sure she is properly briefed, even if she has to yank her staff's chain to get it.
That all by itself is a good reason to push her out. This is literally the most important part of her job that she's being grilled about and blowing it off would be just the cherry on the sundae of incompetence.
> Trump is alive.
Total dumb luck that in no way exonerates the USSS. They let a shooter put rounds on their charge. If he was a better shot or the wind was different or Trump doesn't turn his head, Trump dies. They completely failed in their core duty. And it wasn't something difficult to prevent either, like someone in the crowd nearby with a concealed pistol. A guy with a rifle climbed up on a roof within a few hundred yards, people saw him and notified law enforcement, and he still got to take his shot at Trump.
Cheatle's responses to the investigation were wholly unsatisfactory. She even stated in an interview that the "buck stops with her", she has the final responsibility for the actions of the USSS. This is a pretty common doctrine that the chief executive is ultimately responsible, even if their individual actions are not the issue. Frankly, the whole debacle is a huge embarrassment to the country and she should have resigned on the 13th.
I get the feeling that if something similar had happened in Britain and she were British she would have resigned as soon as practicable. The only reason not to would be that no one else could step into the position, which I find unlikely.
Part of the customary punishment for this sort of failure is to endure the public beating by Congess members before turning in your resignation.
Is there any good place to read about British opinion of the American Revolutionary War and how it changed over the course of the war?
You may not have mentioned me by name. But having read Unsong, I know better than to believe in veridical coincidences. And fortunately, our favorite bugman hath graced us with a cornucopia of primary texts. Probably the most relevant bag of receipts is "Chapter 2: The American Rebellion" [0]. The primary texts include:
-- "Strictures upon the Declaration of the Congress at Philadelphia" by Thomas Hutchinson (https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1776-hutchinson-strictures-upon-the-declaration-of-independence)
-- "Origin & Progress of the American Rebellion" by Peter Oliver (https://archive.org/details/originandprogres011156mbp/page/n17/mode/2up)
-- "History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War" (Volumes I and II) by Charles Stedman (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_History_of_the_Origin_Progress_and_T/bmQFAAAAQAAJ?hl=en) (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_History_of_the_Origin_Progress_and_T/h2QFAAAAQAAJ?hl=en)
tbh, idk how people read stuff from this era without dying of boredom. The sentences just run on, and on, and on, and on. Always comma-spliced to the nth degree.
Incidentally, the specific term "terrorist" qua U.S. revolutionaries is something I actually picked up, not from the bugman, but from a Simon Whistler video. Unfortunately, I've not been able to find it. The topic might have been entirely tangential to the U.S. Revolutionary War. I'm near certain it was Simon Whistler though.
[0] https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified_15/
Nothing like going to contemporary sources: the record of speeches in the UK Parliament (both Commons and Lords) are pretty good for this period and they give a sense of the range of opinion (and the arguments given) across the period. A publication called the Parliamentary Register from the early 1800s is probably the best compilation.
Short version is that the war was contested all through the period (and therefore there are people attacking and defending it throughout, which is useful for the historian): the people opposed to it on principle were always a small minority, but as the war dragged on (and especially once it looked unwinnable) the trend of opinion joined them, and the government (who were kind of obliged to support it) were increasingly isolated. Complicating factor: British opinion later largely moved to focus on the war with France/Spain, where the government has more public support, America being conveniently more and more ignored.
I had an instructor in US history from Britain once upon a time, who suggested that the British public, after the visit by Franklin, saw the problem as an incompetent and ineffectual monarch who couldn't be bothered to even pretend to take the problems raised by the colonists seriously; the colonists were ungrateful and wrong but understandably peeved - and that after a small show of force everybody would agree to go back to the negotiating table and put all this nonsense behind them.
Take that with a grain of salt, granted.
Mid-century, US culture seems to have conceived of the work of doctors and hospitals as Medicine (scientific/technological, mechanical, focused on knowledge and control of specific problems). Over the past few decades, we've seen an interesting shift toward instead conceptualizing it as Healthcare (emotional/ relational, holistic, focused on providing overall "support" and "care" for a patient's "well-being").
I can think of a bunch of possible causal factors, including power shifts away from individual doctors and toward systems; the rise of healthcare marketing/ advertising; gender shifts in the makeup of the workforce; and the broader trend toward more emotive rhetoric in the culture at large. But I'm interested in learning more. Does anyone know of good articles or posts digging into this phenomenon?
It might be a shift in emphasis from treatment to prevention. It's my understanding that people nowadays tend to die from things that are hard or impossible to treat but could have been prevented, or at least delayed, by a healthier lifestyle.
(I'm not judging here; I'm currently having a beer at 8:38 am.)
I think there was a very pro-science and tech attitude in general in the mid century. This was the time of Everything Will Be Atomic In The Future (and of course lots of new home conveniences, processed food, etc.)
True, but to my eye the broader culture is just as pro-tech today? Possibly even more so; for instance, normies have pretty well internalized pro-tech marketing memes like "that 5-year-old device is painfully outdated, I clearly need a new one" and "my new expensive tech makes me a cooler, smarter person." And we're notoriously still in the tail end of the "I f*cking love science" fandom era. What would account for the simultaneous shift toward vitalist medicine?
You may want to poke around the recent book-review-contest's entry [0] for "Sadly, Porn". The Big Idea (tm) under investigation is Narcissism. And a subcomponent of the Big Idea is the claim: over the past century, modern society's transfer of agency from individuals to bureaucracy has effected a vibeshift from materialism to therapy. The review also goes beyond "Sadly, Porn" to mention other texts within the "epidemic of narcissism" genre.
N.B. in this context, I'm defining "materialism" as "I want to advance my economic interests by making inventions and being industrious". Whereas "therapy" is being defined as "(no point trying to beat the rat-race, therefore) I need self-care, a renewed focus on mental health, etc".
The book review doesn't really focus much on the therapy angle, at least as I remember. (Though the review is also really fucking long. So maybe I'm misremembering.) I know the therapy angle is part of the genre though because I remember it being a more prominent theme in Christopher Lasch's book "Culture of Narcissism". But I still recommend starting with the "Sadly, Porn" book review, since the writing-style of everything else within the narcissism genre is inexplicably, infuriatingly obscurant. Also, I don't think "Culture of Narcissism" is available online, though the other texts are.
[0] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GYQw3pgvhi7hqOVR-Ql629Q_8thbyHe8sSRy5voyt30/edit#heading=h.cdezdtonc8cn
Medicine has to do with your own body, and body and mind are as entwined as it gets. A detached scientist doctor doesn't do much good when a good portion of what you're seeking is a bit of human reassurance.
Last week, I asked about glucose monitoring, as I was worried that I might have prediabetes. I ended up ordering a Freestyle Libre 3, which arrived last night. Unfortunately, now I have the opposite problem, that the CGM is showing implausibly *low* readings.
In particular, the app kept waking me up last night due to low glucose readings, which dipped as low as 53. However, as I'm not taking any medications and don't have any symptoms, it seems extremely implausible that I actually had hypoglycemia.
Now I'm not sure what to do, since it seems like I can't actually trust the CGM readings at all anyway.
One other annoying thing is that the historical graph shown in the app doesn't correspond to what the app actually showed at the time, and I have no idea why.
I'm surprised you went this route. I use this, too, and insurance makes it $20 for 14 days of readings. But that's almost $1.50 per day, and if you only want to take readings a couple times a day, the fingerpricks would be more cost effective in the long run (initial purchase of a meter for perhaps $20, and then a 100 pack of test strips for another $20).
Does insurance even cover this if you just want it for your own information?
It does have its faults, such as not being able to adjust the low glucose level, sound it makes when you reach it, or the volume, and only displaying 12 hours of readings instead of a whole day. Plus, it seems to crash a lot, probably due to a memory leak. Overall, though, I find it to be pretty accurate in my own readings.
I just paid out of pocket ($95). After all, the whole point is that I didn't know whether I had a problem or not and wanted to find out.
I've been thinking about trying to get a fingerprick test too in order to see whether the low blood sugar reported by the CGM is actually real or not. I actually went to CVS yesterday, but the reader said on the box that it required a control solution which is sold separately, and they don't actually have the control solution on sale, so I wasn't sure what to do and left empty handed.
It doesn't REQUIRE a control solution, really. The control solution ought to read a specific amount, probably about 110mg/dl, so if it doesn't, then something is wrong with the meter or test strips. They recommend using the control solution perhaps once a month, but I used it perhaps once a year, since I never had any reason to doubt my results.
I would still recommend getting the fingerprick test combination, as it's likely the results will be accurate (I estimate +/- 10% on readings, as I have gotten that kind of range on the same drop of blood). Ask a pharmacist what total supplies to get. I think you'll need a meter, compatible test strips, lancets (I recommend 32 gauge), a lancing device (which may even come with the meter), and something to clean the site like alcohol swabs. Maybe also a log book to record your readings, for your own information, as I find medical professionals never look at these records.
The pharmacist should be able to tell you which devices/test strips work together.
The sensors generally take a little time to settle in, though 24 hours is usually sufficient. It's also worth noting that the Libre family are intended for Type 1 diabetes so the bands and alerts are calibrated for someone without insulin production. My grandmother, who used the sensor to monitor her own prediabetes also reported quite low readings compared to what a Type 1 diabetic would report. If you're still concerned you could order some testing strips to get a second opinion.
Source: Helped develop (in a small way) the sensor :D
Would it be difficult or impractical to run this by a physician?
It's very inconvenient and time consuming to find and visit a doctor.
Your call, of course but at some point peace of mind might make it worth the hassle.
Peace of mind is why I ordered the CGM in the first place!
Hopefully this is just a matter of the sensor being inaccurate in the first 24 hours and it will even out over time.
You have a chance to become the best in the world at one of the following professions:
- hotel housekeeper
- electrical lineman
- military drill team member
- language scholar (Etruscan)
- pizza chef
- athlete (shotput)
- IBM 1400 computer operator
- forklift operator
- sheep shearer
- piano tuner
- GeoGuessr player
- debt collector
- foremast jack (tall-ship sailor)
- antique car driver/maintainer
Which one do you choose?
Language scholar (Etruscan) probably has the best chance of contributing value that lasts over 100 years. Plus I like linguistics.
Being the best pizza chef in the world would be a significant accolade. Most, if not all, of the other jobs here would result in the same output from performance whether you are simply qualified for the job or "the best in the world". A piano tuner and "the best" (the quickest?) piano tuner are still going to tune a piano. Someone who can make pizza and the best pizza maker in the world are making two entirely different products.
lineman for the cool wide-brimmed hard hat
I'll have to go with debt collector. There must be $trillions in non-performing debt, and the best collector will get very rich. Put Crassus to shame.
Second choice: shotput. I went to school with our state champion. It would be cool to be that strong.
"Hotel housekeeper" seems like it would also make you really good at regular housekeeping, and "shotput athlete" would come with some pretty good physical fitness buffs.
Also, "Geoguesser player" means you are really good at figuring out where photos were taken based on tiny background details, which is not really a day-to-day skill but lets you do cool tricks.
language scholar.
I grew up next to a sheep farm. Sheep shearer requires lots of wrestling. Sheep can kick painfully with their hooves, and (damn!) sheep can bite! And there's nothing more terrified and hysterical than dumb sheep, except maybe Donald Trump when trying to deal with the Biden-to-Harris campaign backflip.
What madman would choose anything but Pizza Chef? Turn that skill into a franchise, and all the competitors fall like Dominoes.
Yeah, pizza chef doesn’t belong on this list. Way too popular and profitable. It would need to be “eggplant Parmesan chef” or something to fit with the others.
Well, being an awesome pizza chef doesn't make you a good business executive or entrepreneur.
I'm not sure offhand what to most lucrative placement for the world's best pizza chef would be. They could be the hands-on chef in a small renowned pizza restaurant. Or they could be the head chef in a large pizza restaurant, working in the kitchen mostly supervising the work of souschefs, probably producing work that is not quite up to the standards of their own hands-on work. Or they could step further back, and be the training/quality-control officer of a chain of pizzerias, producing good but not nearly as good work. There is definitely a tradeoff there.
You can argue over whether Tony Gemignani is literally the best pizza chef in the world, but he has more awards at major pizza competitions than anyone else (AFAIK), and also has a bunch of successful restaurants in California and Nevada and some other smaller ventures.
If you suck at the other aspects of the job, you get a partner to handle the business side. Though there's no reason, the way this was framed, that you HAVE to suck at everything in the world besides making pizza.
At minimum, you open a restaurant in a high-traffic area of a big city. That's a solid living.
The leap to establishing a big chain is much harder. Though you have much better odds with pizza than almost anything else! That's why I made the eggplant parm comment -- that maybe gets you one quirky little restaurant somewhere but you're not going to be opening locations in Peoria.
Out of curiosity, I Googled and quickly found this guy who did it in South Florida and is moving up the state, with 15 locations. Opened a "pizza school".
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/restaurants/how-mister-o1-became-miamis-pizza-phenomenon-19242806
I'm struck by sudden urges to locate the number one practitioner of the midwestern casserole, and build a specialty restaurant around them. :)
Around Lake Woebegone we call it ‘hot dish’.
Well, the good news is, if you ask around who makes the best casseroles in the world, you'll find there's a consensus. Almost everyone gives the same answer.
The bad news is that answer is "My grandma."
Can we add baseball shortstop to the list? I mean the shot put thing is kind of cool but pretty boring.
It just doesn't seem odd enough to qualify. Baseball is a major league sport, and every team has shortstops. If you want more options, looks for something more oldfashioned or unusual.
How about crackerjack gandy dancer? I was actually a pretty good one at one time. Always the guy to say “we have time to build one more section of track” and all that.
Sure. Laying railroad track by hand sounds like brutal work, though.
I looked at it as a challenge. I was a skinny adolescent and the work seemed to build me up into a stronger healthier man. Circumstances ended that job before I was 30 though. Not sure how it would have played out long term.
My 60 year old track boss was still pretty lean and mean though. He could drive a spike home with the best of us.
The work was physically difficult but good technique made it a lot easier.
When are we talking about? To take one example, IBM 1400s might still be running in emulation inside some legacy systems, but devops for such systems is unlikely to be similar to the skills expected of IBM 1400 operators.
The time is right now. While a bunch of these options are distinctly oldfashioned, your skillset includes both traditional techniques and modern adaptations, if applicable.
OC ACXLW Meetup: Understanding Arousal - Chapters 3 and 4 Pragmatists Guide to sexuality - July 27, 2024
OC ACXLW Meetup: Understanding Arousal - Chapters 3 and 4 Pragmatists Guide to sexuality - July 27, 2024
Date: Saturday, July 27, 2024
Time: 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Location: 1970 Port Laurent Place, Newport Beach, 92660
Host: Michael Michalchik
Email: michaelmichalchik@gmail.com
Hello Enthusiasts,
Join us for our 69th OC ACXLW meetup, Part 2, where we'll continue exploring human sexuality by delving into Chapters 3 and 4 of "The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality." Our discussion will focus on understanding the factors that cause arousal and debunking common myths about what does not cause arousal.
Discussion Topics:
Chapter 3: Things That Cause Arousal
Chapter Three examines various factors that trigger arousal, breaking them into distinct categories and exploring each in detail. The chapter challenges traditional models of sexual orientation, proposing a more nuanced understanding of human arousal patterns.
Breeding Targets:
Primary and Secondary Sex Characteristics: Arousal is linked to characteristics indicating fertility and sexual differentiation, such as body parts and movements.
Arousal Indicators: Traits like musculature, broad shoulders, and deep voices in males, and breasts, hips, and certain body movements in females.
Sexuality Models: Traditional models like the Kinsey scale are critiqued, proposing that attraction can be to specific traits rather than a spectrum from straight to gay.
Inverse Systems:
Atypical Arousal: Arousal from stimuli generally found disgusting by others, such as fetishes involving bodily functions or insects.
Early Onset: These patterns often appear early in life and are not learned through socialization.
Gender Differences: More prevalent in males, possibly due to different evolutionary pressures.
Emotional States and Concepts:
Dominance and Submission: Significant portion of human arousal is linked to feelings of dominance and submission.
Conceptual Arousal: Emotions like betrayal, transformation, and being eaten can trigger arousal, as can power dynamics.
Neural Crosstalk: Crosstalk in the brain between areas responsible for social behavior and arousal might explain these patterns.
Emotional Connections to People:
Emotional Lowering Threshold: Emotional connections lower the threshold for arousal, making familiar and loved individuals more sexually appealing.
Trope Attraction:
Role-Playing and Stereotypes: Certain stereotypes or roles (nurse, goth, cheerleader) can enhance arousal due to their adherence to specific tropes.
Novelty:
New Experiences: New and unique stimuli can be more arousing due to their novelty.
Pain and Asphyxiation:
Pain and Pleasure: Some arousal patterns are enhanced by pain or oxygen deprivation.
Basic Instincts:
Autopilot Behaviors: Some mating behaviors are driven by deeper neurological systems that do not always generate traditional feelings of arousal.
Physical Stimuli:
Direct Physical Interaction: Physical actions like kissing or touching erogenous zones directly trigger arousal.
Conditioned Responses:
Learned Arousal: Some arousal patterns result from conditioning, such as fetishes for inanimate objects.
Chapter 4: Things That Do Not Cause Arousal
Chapter Four delves into common misconceptions about what causes arousal, debunking myths and clarifying what does not influence sexual arousal patterns.
Limited Impact of Socialization:
The chapter argues against the pervasive belief that socialization significantly shapes sexual preferences.
Evidence shows that societal ideals promoting thinness do not change underlying arousal patterns.
Body Weight Preferences:
Despite societal ideals promoting thinness, studies show men generally prefer women of healthy weights.
Cultural Myths:
Historical examples like the art of Peter Paul Rubens suggest personal preferences rather than societal standards.
Parental Influence and Childhood:
The study finds no significant correlation between childhood conditions and adult arousal patterns.
The myth of the "childhood abuse cycle" is debunked; most abusers were not abused as children, and most abused children do not become abusers.
Social Taboos and Rule Breaking:
The notion that breaking social taboos inherently causes arousal is challenged.
Kinks are often socially taboo, but this is because they are defined by their taboo nature.
Intelligence and Sapiosexuality:
Attraction to intelligence (sapiosexuality) might be influenced by socialization.
Intelligence is processed in higher-order brain functions, suggesting it may not be an innate arousal trigger but rather a socially informed one.
Summaries:
Chapter 3 Summary:
Chapter Three of "The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality" examines various factors that trigger arousal, breaking them into distinct categories and exploring each in detail. The chapter challenges traditional models of sexual orientation, proposing a more nuanced understanding of human arousal patterns.
Breeding Targets:
Primary and Secondary Sex Characteristics: Arousal is linked to characteristics indicating fertility and sexual differentiation, such as body parts and movements.
Arousal Indicators: Traits like musculature, broad shoulders, and deep voices in males, and breasts, hips, and certain body movements in females.
Sexuality Models: Traditional models like the Kinsey scale are critiqued, proposing that attraction can be to specific traits rather than a spectrum from straight to gay.
Inverse Systems:
Atypical Arousal: Arousal from stimuli generally found disgusting by others, such as fetishes involving bodily functions or insects.
Early Onset: These patterns often appear early in life and are not learned through socialization.
Gender Differences: More prevalent in males, possibly due to different evolutionary pressures.
Emotional States and Concepts:
Dominance and Submission: Significant portion of human arousal is linked to feelings of dominance and submission.
Conceptual Arousal: Emotions like betrayal, transformation, and being eaten can trigger arousal, as can power dynamics.
Neural Crosstalk: Crosstalk in the brain between areas responsible for social behavior and arousal might explain these patterns.
Emotional Connections to People:
Emotional Lowering Threshold: Emotional connections lower the threshold for arousal, making familiar and loved individuals more sexually appealing.
Trope Attraction:
Role-Playing and Stereotypes: Certain stereotypes or roles (nurse, goth, cheerleader) can enhance arousal due to their adherence to specific tropes.
Novelty:
New Experiences: New and unique stimuli can be more arousing due to their novelty.
Pain and Asphyxiation:
Pain and Pleasure: Some arousal patterns are enhanced by pain or oxygen deprivation.
Basic Instincts:
Autopilot Behaviors: Some mating behaviors are driven by deeper neurological systems that do not always generate traditional feelings of arousal.
Physical Stimuli:
Direct Physical Interaction: Physical actions like kissing or touching erogenous zones directly trigger arousal.
Conditioned Responses:
Learned Arousal: Some arousal patterns result from conditioning, such as fetishes for inanimate objects.
Chapter 4 Summary:
Chapter Four delves into common misconceptions about what causes arousal, debunking myths and clarifying what does not influence sexual arousal patterns.
Limited Impact of Socialization:
The chapter argues against the pervasive belief that socialization significantly shapes sexual preferences.
Evidence shows that societal ideals promoting thinness do not change underlying arousal patterns.
Body Weight Preferences:
Despite societal ideals promoting thinness, studies show men generally prefer women of healthy weights.
Cultural Myths:
Historical examples like the art of Peter Paul Rubens suggest personal preferences rather than societal standards.
Parental Influence and Childhood:
The study finds no significant correlation between childhood conditions and adult arousal patterns.
The myth of the "childhood abuse cycle" is debunked; most abusers were not abused as children, and most abused children do not become abusers.
Social Taboos and Rule Breaking:
The notion that breaking social taboos inherently causes arousal is challenged.
Kinks are often socially taboo, but this is because they are defined by their taboo nature.
Intelligence and Sapiosexuality:
Attraction to intelligence (sapiosexuality) might be influenced by socialization.
Intelligence is processed in higher-order brain functions, suggesting it may not be an innate arousal trigger but rather a socially informed one.
Questions for Discussion:
How do the ten distinct systems described in Chapter 3 contribute to a comprehensive understanding of human arousal?
What are the key misconceptions about arousal debunked in Chapter 4, and what evidence supports these clarifications?
How can the insights from these chapters be applied in educational, clinical, and personal contexts?
We look forward to seeing you all and engaging in a stimulating discussion. For any questions, please contact Michael Michalchik at michaelmichalchik@gmail.com.
Links:
Chapter 3: Google Doc
URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GxUYb9SLfBsxfGUOUJfpuR7R6c3BXD2zXWiu6pRRXCc/edit?usp=sharing
Chapter 4: Google Doc
URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1er0lDZzdYNC8FkPfthg--iojTUxUi56NEWF1zgfMWQs/edit?usp=sharing
A question about trading real money prediction markets for Americans. I've been afraid of trading them because they are technically illegal and I'm afraid of the IRS. If I trade foreign markets using a VPN and make a profit I will owe taxes on them. You can declare "gambling profits" with the IRS and pay that, but I'm afraid doing that will lead to suspicion that I'm doing something illegal, which I would be.
Is there some full-proof way for Americans to trade on prediction markets and pay taxes on the profits and have every step of it be legal?
Aren't Kalshi and PredictIt legal in the US?
Incidentally, you *are* allowed to report illegal income to IRS. Not that that's necessarily a wise move.
I do read most of Scott's posts but it seems like the news is always bad for prediction markets, so I didn't realize that Kalshi is alive and kicking.
You could move out of the States. Or you could try Manifold, which is currently trying to exploit a loophole to make some of their markets legally real-money.
Thanks. Supposed "loopholes" have gotten me in huge trouble in the past, which is why I want to be 100% above board with clear laws that everyone understands and agrees upon.
If you want to avoid grey areas, probably best to stick to Kalshi then.
Thanks
Today I've come across an old post on Scott's Kabbalistic tumblr (https://aaronsmithtumbler.tumblr.com/post/180028129540) arguing that Buddhism is an Abrahamic religion on grounds of emperor Ashoka being descended by Abraham and Hercules. I've responded with a different line of arguing toward the same conclusion (https://o-craven-canto.tumblr.com/post/756801523678314496/), as follows:
> Buddhism is an outgrowth of Hinduism in the same way that Christianity and Islam are outgrowths of Judaism; indeed, Buddhism is counted as one of the heterodox schools[1] of Hinduism (along with Jainism, the ultra-determinist Ajivika, the agnostic-nihilist Ajnana, and the vaguely LessWrongian Charvaka[2]).
> Hinduism in turn grew out of the Proto-Indo-European religion [3], with the Vedic pantheon having clear parallels in its Greek, Roman, Germanic, and Slavic homologues.
> Central to most Indo-European religions is the theme of //Chaoskampf// [4], a battle between a male god or demigod, usually associated with the sky and storms, and a monstrous dragon or serpent, associated with water and the underworld, thereby bringing order and safety to the world. Examples include Hittite (Tarhunt vs. Illuyanka), Greek (Zeus vs. Typhon and Apollo vs. Python), Norse (Thor vs. Jormungandr), and Hindu (Indra vs. Vritra). But even older examples are known from the Mesopotamian-Semitic world, including Babylonian (Marduk vs. Tiamat), Egyptian (Ra vs. Apep), Cananean (Baal Hadad vs. Lotan), and of course the Bible, which reminds us that Yahweh crushed the Leviathan [5] in the course of creation, and that all the ills of the world are to be blamed on a serpent.*
> By the principle that two cultures that share something sorta similar must be related, it is clear that one of Indo-European or Mesopotamian tradition has to be ancestral to the other. (“But that’s not how it–” Shut up.) The question is which.
> Now, the Yamnaya Culture [6], which is the current best guess for the last common ancestor of all Indo-European cultures and languages, existed in the Ponto-Caspian steppe around 3000 BCE; whereas Abraham is traditionally believed to have lived around 1800 BCE.
> HOWEVER: 1) //Answers in Genesis// ensures us [7] (and if you can’t trust the scholarship of Young Earth creationists, who can you trust?) that probably Abraham was in fact contemporary to the Early Dynastic period of Mesopotamia, so a thousand years older than usually supposed. 2) We have no writing from the Yamnaya culture: the Indo-European mythemes might very well have entered their cultures when the migrations were already in course. The first written traces of Indo-European religions are Hittite tablets dated at the 17th century at oldest; the //Rig Veda//, which tells us the story of Indra and Vritra, is about the same age.
> Since we know that Abraham might have defeated an early Hittite king in battle [8], it’s not out of the question that words of Abraham’s faith may have spread among the Hittites, who had not quite settled in Anatolia yet, and thence to their fellow migrating Indo-Europeans, who had not yet reached their eventual locations. In this way, garbled memories of Yahweh’s creation of the world found their way in early Greek, Norse, and Hindu mythology as well as in the rest of the Near East.
> Therefore, all major Indo-European religious traditions can be considered Abrahamic. Therefore, Hinduism is Abrahamic. Therefore, Buddhism is Abrahamic too.
> * = For some reason, the same motif is also in Japan (Susanoo vs. Yamata-no-Orochi); no idea how to fit that in.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80stika_and_n%C4%81stika#N%C4%81stika
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka#Philosophy
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_mythology
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony)#Chaoskampf
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_74
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamnaya_culture
[7] https://web.archive.org/web/20130624005755/www.answersingenesis.org/contents/379/arj/v5/Abraham_chronology_ancient_Mesopotamia.pdf
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Siddim#Tidal
There's an old speculation that the names Brahma and Abraham might have a common source. It does seem unlikely that two separate civilizations would randomly converge on basically the same weird sequence of phonemes for some of their most central religious figures.
On the Indian side, the name Brahma only appears in the post-vedic period, even though he gets retrospectively identified with the vedic Prajapati. So the word might be a later borrowing, not a correspondence at the source.
A related argument you may enjoy is that Jesus's maternal grandparents were bodhisattvas. The immaculate conception of Mary runs counter to the idea that all people are born with original sin. Why was she different? Potentially, because both of her parents attained enlightenment, and thus were able to create life without passing on burdens.
Unfortunately I don't remember all the supporting details, but the high school teacher who argued this claimed evidence for her being from further east, and for Buddhist influence in Christ's teachings.
Some Gnostic theology declared to be heresy by the early Christian church scans as Hindu/Buddhist influenced.
“Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. Look for him by taking yourself as a starting point. Learn who it is within you makes everything his own and says, My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body. Learn the sources of sorrow, joy, love, hate. Learn how it happens that one watches without willing, loves without willing. If you carefully investigate these matters, you will find him within yourself.”
That sounds just like the Hindu-ish practice of self-enquiry. Score one for the perennial philosophy I guess!
The idea that Buddhism is an Abrahamic religion is absurd. Even if Ashoka is somehow descended from the mythical Heracles and the Spartans are really related to the Israelite, it doesn't follow that Buddhism is an Abrahamic religion. The Buddha was teaching around roughly same time (give or take a century) that the Jews were exiled in Babylon when the Jews began to regard Yahweh as a monotheistic god rather than a henotheistic god. So, it would be difficult to see how those two traditions influenced each other so early in their development. Likewise, the Buddha didn't care about god worship, and he was one of several Axial Age Indian religious movements that rejected the Vedantic traditions.
Although I no longer identify myself as Buddhist, this sort of speculation has a Eurocentric/ethnocentric tone that I find kind of offensive even not being a Buddhist.
Of course it's absurd, and everything you're saying is correct. I'm not under the impression that it's actually in any way reasonable to classify Buddhism as Abrahamic, nor was the original post. The point of the exercise is to take a deliberately absurd statement and seeing how apparently good an argument one can make for it. I tried to make it semi-explicit with the “But that’s not how it–” intermission, but I apologize if I failed to make it clearer.
That intermission as well as the note on YEC trustworthiness were absolutely clear about the intent of the post - a little too on the nose even, I would say.
What do you mean by YEC? And what do you mean by intermission?
YEC is an acronym for "Young Earth Creationist", used to be used online a lot back when creationism was the controversy de jure. Answers in Genesis is the preeminent young earth creationist organization.
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/more-reflections-on-the-kamala-koup
Biden hasn't been seen in public since July 17th. Anyone else ready to admit things are a *tad* odd rn?
Yeah, it seemed odd to me too. I was worried that he was very sick. Now my guess is that he was just being a stubborn fighter who let himself be talked into giving up, but didn't like it and still resents the people who pressured him.
How have you updated after his speech?
I still think it wasn't exactly "his decision" per se but he's now realized there's no point left in fighting it and so is starting to cooperate.
Yeah, I don't recall there being anything in his resignation speech about being unfit or too old, just about "what's best for the country". So I'm guessing that that's the face-saving rationalization that he was presented with.
The story I saw was that what finally pushed him over the edge was being presented with internal campaign polling that showed him massively behind in all of the swing states.
Neither has Trump. Where's Trump.
But Biden is back at the WH...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLk8yRf0ooQ
It's clear there has been a coup. We don't know whether the POTUS is dead or alive. This constitutional crisis has been manufactured by the Deep State due to fear Trump will be reelected. It's the only way for them to maintain power. Don't expect there to be an election this November.
Queue news footage of Biden returning to the white house. LoL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLk8yRf0ooQ
Yes, the Illuminati have imprisoned him while he gets over his case COVID.
Don’t expect someone who takes Yarvin at face value to recognize irony.
The above linked Moldbug post may be the dumbest one I've read since he proved "by logical deduction" that Barack Obama was born overseas.
He turned up on video this morning.
And the 2024 take on this is - How do we know it isn't a deepfake? :-)
Because that would require competence. Have you observed any competence lately?
Well, the electric grid still works, but competence in politics - not so much... :-)
How do we know you're not a Russian bot? ;-)
You can never be quite sure... :-)
Some Things are Not Meant for Man to Know. :-)
Strictly speaking, _I_ can't know for sure. The small scale version of the simulation hypothesis could suggest that I'm a Russian bot who just _thinks_ that they are a human in South Carolina. :-)
Biden has COVID.
He sounded really good when he called into Kamala's campaign event (best he's sounded in a awhile, IMO)
Can our President not so much as indulge us with a Zoom call? (Masked up, ofc)