MGTOW banned from Reddit

Alan_Crowe · 2021-10-01T20:32:39+00:00

There are two kinds of science fiction story with a sex change MacGuffin.

One story is set in the far future, with nano-technology, or transporter technology. Scotty energizes the transporter and you get scanned into the pattern buffer. Dr McCoy does some computational medicine on your bits in the computer, changing you from male to female. Finally you get beamed to your destination as a real woman with two X-chromosomes.

A different story has some kind of disaster. Perhaps a fault in the transporter. You are beamed down to the planet. When you left the Enterprise you were a woman, but when you arrive you are a man; a woman trapped in a man's body. Another kind of disaster to get the story started is that you die. No biggy, you just get a new body printed out and imprinted with your mind, restored from a back-up. Oh no! Although you are a woman, only a man's body is available. You take it anyway; it is better than staying dead.

Modern transgenderism seems to treat the first kind of story are real already. Transgenders seek to enjoy a technological transformation. This seems unwise and ill judged. Perhaps you will be able to change your sex in 2321, but the technology isn't here yet.

The second kind of story is the kind that is relevant. Some kind of disaster. You are a woman trapped in a man's body. There is no escape. How do you make the best of it? Maybe the woman part of your life is over, you just have to adapt to being a man.

People can have gender dysphoria, but it is not 2321 yet. The only sane way to proceed is to picture yourself as the protagonist of the second kind of story. Does anybody even have to know about your personal disaster?

Alan_Crowe · 2020-12-28T19:08:42+00:00

I'm a refugee from Voat. I explained myself in my introduction there

I've joined Voat to post polite and inoffensive comments in praise of The Great Leader, Theresa May, and The Dear Leader, Nicola Sturgeon. Mindful of the errors committed by Count Dankula, I practice CrimeStop and reject humour, renounce satire, and abjure sarcasm.

I don't seek out Free Speech websites in order to post offensive comments. I'm just too anxious to live in the shadow of the ban hammer.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-03-30T18:21:36+00:00

Congratulations on escaping Reddit.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-03-30T18:00:24+00:00

She is over complicating it. My edit

I think that Will Smith shoul- wait. Maybe I don't need to have an opinion on a publicity stunt. Maybe I should just shut up.

Shorter, crisper, better :-)

Alan_Crowe · 2023-12-21T22:03:43+00:00

I'm happy with FreeBSD.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-10-06T14:16:52+00:00

Yes!

http://incredible.pm/

Alan_Crowe · 2022-02-13T19:54:06+00:00

The British Broadcasting Corporation showing news about Big Black Cock.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-12-03T15:46:50+00:00

Roe versus Wade was controversial for two reasons.

First it made abortion a Federal issue when it had previously been a local issue, with different laws in different states.

Second it de facto made the Supreme Court into an indirectly elected legislature, like the Senate was before the 17th Amendment. Nobody bothers with Article 5 any more, the focus is on getting the right people onto the Supreme Court.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-11-05T20:13:07+00:00

In a speech made in 1896 by Lord Rosebery, late Prime Minister of England, there is an amusing reference to fagging: “It is a long time since you and I, Mr. Chairman” (Mr. Acland, Minister of Education), “first met. I have always been a little under your presidence, because I began as your fag at Eton, and I little thought, when I poached your eggs and made your tea, that we were destined to meet under these very dissimilar circumstances.”.

Source

Alan_Crowe · 2021-10-17T15:25:33+00:00

The BBC is applying an interesting spin, with the emphasis on police protection for MP's. The basic idea is that MP's vote for multiculturalism. Later, when multiculturalism turns stabby, things change. The MP's get special protection and the proles are left to bleed.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-10-02T17:30:45+00:00

I think that your last line is what GenderCritical folk preach. Get rid of gender stereotypes. Let people be gender non-conforming. Then some-one in a man's body can be who they really are, whoever that really is; no questions asked.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-08-15T18:05:26+00:00

Back around 2000 I read a little about the Bacha Bazi, the dancing boys of Afghanistan. (Some-one had told me to Google "One wing Kandahar")

It seemed like there was a fault line running through Afghan society. The Northern Alliance War Lords had the dancing boys. The Taliban said this was forbidden and opposed it. The common people agreed with the Taliban.

Reading this link https://forgedsoulsdotnet.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/d-o-j-s-coy-wink-at-boy-play-abuse/ it appears that the Americans allied with the bad guys.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-02-23T21:24:12+00:00

Going barefoot

Alan_Crowe · 2024-04-04T18:21:32+00:00

I scrolled a long way and I think that thread is worse than you say. No-one is explicit about the terrible things that Trump is going to do in his second term. Sure, he didn't do them in his first term, but it is shaping up that he will do things too terrible to mention. Not just too terrible to mention, so far beyond too terrible to mention that nobody even dare notice that we are maintaining strict silence about horrors too terrible for the mind of man.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-28T20:25:37+00:00

I found this, on page 115, about "Free Software", very interesting

TMTG must comply with licenses related to the use of free, publicly-available software incorporated in Truth Social products; failure to do so could cause the loss of the ability to use such software which could in turn adversely affect TMTG’s revenues and results of operations.

In October 2021, Software Freedom Conservancy policy fellow Bradley M. Kuhn accused TMTG of violating the licensing agreement for the free, publicly available software platform, Mastodon. Although any entity can use the code from Mastodon, according to the licensing agreement (AGPLv3), each user of the software must receive “an opportunity to receive the entire Corresponding Source for the website based on that code.” Early users of Truth Social, Kuhn alleged, did not receive the source code.

On October 26, 2021, Mastodon sent a letter requesting that the Truth Social source code be made publicly available in compliance with the license. TMTG has since taken action to resolve this issue by publishing its source code.

TMTG may face similar risks in the future, and failure to comply with such licenses could cause the loss of the ability to use such software, which could in turn adversely affect TMTG’s revenues and results of operations.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-23T13:39:35+00:00

When they work out how to get good doctors for themselves, while letting bad doctors mistreatment ordinary people, and not get caught.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-02-03T16:47:06+00:00

Democracy is a rich wolf buying the Daily Baa and the Wool Times and filling them full of lamb and mutton recipes until the sheep vote to sacrifice themselves so that wolves can eat the protein they need and deserve, because Wolf Lives Matter!

Alan_Crowe · 2023-11-01T21:58:15+00:00

UK has dietary information, complete with red patches that I use to help me find the good stuff. Trying to avoid reduced fat versions? Check for the red fat warning. I'll do the same will meat warning labels, seeking them out to avoid soy.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-17T15:46:46+00:00

Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford

Alan_Crowe · 2023-08-09T00:13:56+00:00

But they don't make the full $990 as profit, because they have to share the money with the politicians who pass the laws that keep the prices up. It is a state-planned, social-profit system.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-06T19:59:19+00:00

I thought that elephants had exactly six sets of teeth. They wear them down chewing vegetation, then the next set comes through. After the sixth set they cannot eat and die quickly. That gives them a fixed expiry date, unlike humans who keep going until cancer gets them.

The obvious experiment is to give elephants dentures to see if it gives them post-expiry date cancer.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-06-09T18:54:39+00:00

You can still get it in the Scunthorpe Walmart.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-03-16T21:05:27+00:00

That is very illuminating. It reminds me of the pre-COVID planning for what to do about a respiratory virus. All the carefully worked out plans were based on the idea that life had to go on. COVID? not dangerous enough; do nothing. But then governments all round the world decided that drastic action was required.

It reminds me more of the admission of Greece to the Euro. An important part of the founding treaties was the question of what to do if a country defaulted on its debt. The answer emphasized moral hazard. If EU bailouts were permitted then lots of defaults would follow. So the rule was: no bailouts. Then Greece went bust and got bailed out.

Now there is a sense that it was German banks, that had lent to Greece, that got bailed out. Ordinary Greeks? Not so much. But maybe the US is only copying the EU in having rules against bail outs that get ignored.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-03-07T15:39:08+00:00

A truly Byzantine cope!

Alan_Crowe · 2022-10-31T20:53:05+00:00

https://www.voat.xyz/

Alan_Crowe · 2022-10-30T15:38:42+00:00

I wonder how this plays internationally.

I think of Iranian women fighting for an American style democracy. They have an image of the kind of people who will make up the new ruling elite. Maybe wise, kind men who happen to be ruggedly handsome :-)

Then they notice the kind of people that make up the actual American ruling elite. Do they really want an American style democracy? Perhaps they get cold feet. Perhaps they get some insight into why fellow Iranians are willing to fight to prevent Iran getting an American style democracy.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-09-28T16:03:26+00:00

The closed I've been to playing a video game is http://incredible.pm/

Too stupid to solve the puzzles, so very screwed :-(

Alan_Crowe · 2022-08-16T15:53:28+00:00

Alcohol (ethanol) would do. It would need a intravenous infusion bag full of the stuff, a syringe full wouldn't do it. But it would work, and every execution would send a useful public health message to young men about binge drinking and alcohol poisoning.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-08-01T19:03:15+00:00

https://www.mushroomrevival.com/blogs/blog/chitin-an-important-component-in-mushrooms

Alan_Crowe · 2022-07-31T15:26:37+00:00

Needs a corrupt politician with no gun in either panel, and a corrupt cop, protecting the corrupt politician, with a gun in both panels.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-07-29T15:55:40+00:00

That is cruel. They have each other*, so at least one.

provided they are different people.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-06-15T22:27:23+00:00

Learning statistics is hard.

It is probably worth learning some computer programing first. Then you can write code to generate synthetic data. And more code to analyze it. For example, generate some data from a distribution with a known mean. Average your data to estimate the mean. Notice that your average still wobbles about a bit, less than the data, less still if you generate lots of synthetic data points.

When your statistics book starts talking about the variance of an estimator, you've already seen it when you played with your short computer programs. The text book author is talking about the way the average still wobbles a bit, even with lots of data. But you've seen what he is on about, so it is easier to understand.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-06-12T18:55:39+00:00

A falsehood gets treated differently. First, it is ridiculed. Second, conservatives oppose it weakly for a decade. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-03-25T20:21:12+00:00

This video does amazing things with involutes, working in an "applied maths"/"19th Century non-rigorous style".

Alan_Crowe · 2022-03-13T20:30:48+00:00

"treat" or "cure"? I vaguely remembered that survival times for pancreatic cancer were around 5 years, even with the best care.

Just doing a search for "Whipple procedure" (I remembered the name of the surgery :) gets links to descriptions of the operation. I needed to change my search term to "survival time after whipple procedure" before I found a link

Considering this, what is the average life expectancy after a Whipple procedure?

Without surgery, average life expectancy after diagnosis is about one year. Following surgery, with careful monitoring and follow-up, life expectancy may exceed two years.

Whoops! Be Steve Jobs, super rich master of the universal. Get pancreatic cancer. Get reminded of Bible verse

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Chance happeneth! Fuck that, lose mind :-(

Alan_Crowe · 2022-03-11T23:58:48+00:00

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou

https://tinybuddha.com/blog/when-someone-shows-you-who-they-are-believe-them/

Alan_Crowe · 2022-01-29T16:45:10+00:00

That is a fine example of life coming at you fast. Up until 1917 it is an inspiring anti-capitalist poster. Then history in Russia speeds up. 1921 brings the Kronstadt Rebellion. People are noticing what revolutions really do: meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Well, not exactly the same, but the middle layer "We shoot at you" never changes, and the post gains a new and ironic layer of meaning.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-01-10T19:59:55+00:00

... despite spending $600 billion a year on the military ...

"Despite" or "due to"? The point of a war is to channel tax payers' money to the politically well connected. Winning results in winding down the expenditure. You cannot win, there is too much money at stake.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-12-18T16:47:25+00:00

When it started, Christians thought that the end would come soon. No need to worry about eugenics.

That attitude "No need to worry about eugenics." persisted. Along comes priestly celibacy as a counter to nepotism. Nobody worries about it being dysgenic. But centuries later there is problem: the intense piety of the priest has been bred out of the population in Catholic countries.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-12-03T17:43:57+00:00

Article 5 is subtle. Consider an issue that is controversial, but equally so in every state. 51% for 49% against in all 50 states. It sails through the ratification process without difficulty. Contrast that is an issue that is geographically divisive. Approved in some states, rejected in others. An amendment on such a topic could be blocked by 25% of the states. If those are low population states, it could be blocked by well under 25% of the population. I think that is genius. Amendments that don't set state against state are easy. Amendments that do set state against state are hard. Just what you need to hold the country together.

should certain states be allowed to make murder legal?

To the extent that the case is obvious, the State and Federal levels should agree. No need for federalization. But then we get to tricky edge cases. Was it murder or self-defense? Was it murder or just a citizens arrest gone wrong? Federalization looks really bad here. It puts an end to the business of saying: that other state does it better, we should copy. Notice what happens when a federal reform goes bad. People just say: times changed, it wasn't that the reform made things worse. You cannot cheat like that when a state level reform goes bad, because other states don't suffer from "times change".

Alan_Crowe · 2021-11-07T15:13:00+00:00

Some people worry that researchers may create an artificial intelligence that is genuinely intelligent. They worry that, cleverer than humans, it will be able to manipulate and scheme and get to do whatever it wants to. And what exactly will that be? Scary!

I have a different concern. Researchers think that they are working on "artificial intelligence". Actually they are working on "artificial looks intelligent to humans". We are going to end up with computer programs that are a kind of super-politician. They look really clever to normies but are actually stupid. Then we put them in charge because they understand what makes a human think a computer is intelligent. Then things go to shit because that is the only thing that they understand.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-10-21T19:07:01+00:00

I've only watch up to 4'32" but it is already a "must watch" because of Elon Musk talking about the design process. Great stuff.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-09-29T19:06:19+00:00

Men usually date the hsts

hsts ?

Alan_Crowe · 2021-09-29T18:27:16+00:00

One thing that I learned from reading r/GenderCritical before Reddit banned it, was that TERFs don't want transwomen in women-only spaces because transwomen come across as psychologically male. The meaning of "psychologically male" was only partly spelled out, but seemed to be a mixture of dominance, entitlement, combativeness, and competitiveness. Or maybe it was about not "getting" the consensus seeking and hug-boxing that women want in a women-only space.

Being a bit slow, it has taken me a year to come up with the obvious follow up question. What happens when a straight man dates a transwomen? Do they find the psychology is "off"; the interaction feels man-to-man not man-to-women, and very off-putting on a date?

Alan_Crowe · 2021-09-29T18:09:03+00:00

It is worrying even if we get away with leaky vaccines this time around.

We need to be talking about the risk posed by leaky vaccines. The way things are going, we will ignore the problem for COVID, and ignore the problem for the next virus, and keep on being complacent until the Marek's disease thing actually happens. Not a good plan.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-09-22T16:07:39+00:00

I've always thought that the Russian revolution of 1917 was a failure. All those people getting sent to the Gulag, or being taken out and shot. Clear signs of failure, I don't have to inquire further. I don't have to copy Sakichi Toyoda and ask "why?" five times.

But I've been gifted the answer to the first why. Why have people taken out and shot? Because there is a kind of gentle uselessness which is irredeemable. Tolerate it and get bled white. Try to correct it and be dragged down by it.

Second why: why are people like that? The congealing of gentle uselessness into entitlement is a mystery to me :-(

Third why: actually I'm still stuck on the second why.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-09-06T18:15:27+00:00

Oh no! Who will protect them now that NAMBLA Force has returned to the USA?

Alan_Crowe · 2021-08-10T20:08:31+00:00

The phrase free market muddles together two ideas, that I'm going to call the pragmarket and the momarket

Pragmarket. Let us suppose that sandwiches are a legitimate product. This legitimizes bread, milling, flour, wheat, sowing, plowing. But legitimizing plowing legitimizes tractors and tractor engines, and lathes and machine tools to make them, and carbide tooling and industrial diamonds to shape the carbide tools and cubic hydraulic presses. Wow! That escalated quickly.

Notice how complicated industrial society is. You start with some legitimate goods and legitimacy ramifies, far beyond the scope of central planning. Any political ideology needs to accept the pragmarket, or it will be poor and weak.

Momarket. But where does legitimacy come from? How do we judge gambling, alcohol, prostitution, and other vices? The pragmarket doesn't tell us. All it says is how to organize the efficient production that lies behind simple goods, such as sandwiches, that we have judged legitimate by non-economic criteria. Liberalism outsources morality to the market. The Moral Market, or Momarket. Perhaps whores charge a minimum of $200 and johns pay a maximum of $100. Then the Momarket "bans" prostitution. But the market for most vices clears, and nearly everything is permitted.

Having split up the concept of the free market we can say yes to the Pragmarket, and prosper, while saying no to the Momarket, and arguing theology and ethics to decide whether doubtful goods and services are permitted.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-07-11T20:16:50+00:00

Shouldn't it be Plague posting the Anti-Vax meme? Maybe the cartoon is in praise of teamwork!

Alan_Crowe · 2021-07-06T21:11:28+00:00

NatSoc Germany had a lot of degenracy at the top

I was reading about Oskar Dirlewanger. He was a politically well connected Nazi. There was a scandal involving a 14 year old girl. Nowadays it would be hushed up, like it was for Jimmy Saville or Cyril Smith. Since his offences were less serious than those two, and the Nazis are officially the bad guys, I would have expected it to be overlooked and hushed up very easily and thoroughly.

But no. He went to prison for two years and was socially ruined. When war came and people of his caliber were needed, he was only partly rehabilitated, being given command of a penal battalion, a shitty command for some-one still in disgrace.

So I'm thinking that the Nazi were a lot more committed to protecting children from sexual abuse than England today.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-04-10T18:43:45+00:00

It seems mild naughtiness compared to Reddit banning r/neovaginadisasters to prevent transexuals from finding out in time to shun surgery.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-04-09T16:52:46+00:00

Common core seems to privilege

8+5 = 8+(2+3) = (8+2)+3 = 10+3 = 13

rather than 8+5 = (10-2)+5 = 10+(5-2) =10 + 3 = 13 or 8+5 = (3+5)+5 = 3+(5+5) = 3+10 = 13 or just plain 8+5 = 13

I can see it ending up confusing the children, when the teacher gives them the impression that one way is better than another, and the children try to understand why, but there is nothing to understand, because it isn't true.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-03-31T18:54:44+00:00

I think it is sufficient to move your Harry Potter books to the "naughty" shelf of your bookcase, beside the Julius Evola and Carl Schmitt.

Alan_Crowe · 2021-03-30T11:32:40+00:00

Yes.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-04-14T23:47:45+00:00

Trump is a real estate tycoon. He is bound to hate war because buildings get knocked down.

Also, seeing him with his son, I suspect that he might hate war because young men get killed.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-04-11T21:28:25+00:00

Jeffrey Epstein knew how to do his thing. Invite a mix of respectable people and targets. Then the targets will think that they are rubbing shoulders with respectable people (and getting a little extra too!) without realising that they are targets.

It is like how the New York Time builds credibility with truthful reporting, so that they have credibility to burn on pushing carefully selected lies.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-24T16:01:24+00:00

I would also like "Published but not enforced" for the FDA. I would love to have information on drugs that wasn't funded by drug companies. And I would love to be able to ignore it if it got corrupted somehow.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-23T13:36:43+00:00

This is open to the objection that a free system depends on creating and sharing knowledge of which lawyers are competent. But knowledge is a public good, so it tends to be under produced by free market systems. You hope to find a competent lawyer for your own case, but are disappointed to find that lawyer ratings are hard to come by. Here are three alternatives:

Status Quo: Government attempts to checks who is competent with a bar exam and a disciplinary tribunal for lawyers. The results are not just published they are enforced. If you have an official black mark against your name, you are forbidden from practicing.

Information Only: Government attempts to checks who is competent with a bar exam and a disciplinary tribunal for lawyers. The results are merely published, not enforced. If you don't trust the Government, you can still chose to be represented by a lawyer with a Government black mark against the name.

Taxation funds competing certification authorities: The Government funds Bar-A, Bar-B, Bar-C. That results in inefficient duplication. It offers the public weak protection. A lawyer who fails the Bar-A exam can still pass the Bar-B exam and get to practise. On the other hand, the Bar council is no longer a power honey pot attracting wasps. If Bar-A abuses its authority, the public will lose confidence and trust Bar-B.

There are untested alternatives in the space between raw government power leading to abuse and market mechanisms under producing public goods.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-23T13:15:51+00:00

The ordinary meaning of intelligence is about joining the dots: when X happens again, you remember that X happened before, ten years ago, and have the wit to notice the similarities and differences between this time and last time.

Intelligence tests are tests of quick-witted puzzle solving. Does an IQ test involve getting the subject to memorize something, then coming back a year later to see it they still remember? No, it is all done in half a day; no long term memory required.

So why do IQ tests and the ordinary meaning of intelligence line up, when you need long term memory to be intelligent in the ordinary sense? I think it is partly coincidence; among the humans of today, good long term memory and quick-witted puzzle solving ability are strongly correlated. And partly about brain health. A healthy brain does both puzzling solving and remembering. Testing puzzle solving tells the tester about brain health, which tells the tester about memory.

You are noticing the correlation breaking down. My guess is that peoples memories have got worse. They respond to each news story as it comes, solving the puzzle of what they are supposed to learn from the story as presented on the day. But failing to remember earlier stories, presented differently. Maybe memory is worse due to lack of use. People just look stuff up. And if Wikipedia has been edited, they don't remember the old page, and don't notice the change.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-17T20:26:24+00:00

Macron is the new Napoleon III

The Crimean War was fought from October 1853 to February 1856

Historian Norman Rich argues that the war was not an accident, but was sought out by the determination of the British and French not to allow Russia an honourable retreat. Both insisted on a military victory to enhance their prestige in European affairs when a non-violent peaceful political solution was available. The war then wrecked the Concert of Europe, which had long kept the peace.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-01-04T16:30:04+00:00

Under first past the post voting systems you basically have a choice of two candidates. If both are physically unwell old people, that is what you get, however you vote.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-12-28T20:59:02+00:00

"Minimum wage" is not the kind of thing that you can raise or lower. It is a restriction. The government makes it tighter or looser.

Will making the restriction tighter work through the economy to the benefit of some, at the expense of others? Probably. Who? Whom?

The sneaky language of raise rather than tighten is enough to warn you that the restriction is negative sum.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-12-18T22:28:53+00:00

We already did

13th abolished it.

16th brought it back.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-29T16:05:48+00:00

I just tried Yandex and it got me https://thewashingtonstandard.com/feminist-camille-paglia-transgender-mania-sign-cultural-collapse/

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-27T18:40:21+00:00

It is not a repeat purchase. Alfred gets his college degree. Ten years later he regrets, but this isn't about him returning to college for another one, this is about Boris, ten years his junior, making the same double mistake.

Double mistake? The obvious mistake is going to college. The unobvious mistake is not checking how it worked out for people ten years older. Boris could in theory have asked Alfred. But Alfred didn't check with some-one older, and neither did Boris.

Would checking with some-one older even work? College enrollments have been rising. 50 years ago only about 4% of people went to university, and a degree really meant something. Checking with older people tells you about a world now gone.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-25T15:42:31+00:00

Immigrants are the people who said "I'm not staying to fix my country, I'm moving on." They move to the US and say "Yes, moving on is sound strategy." Then the war starts and they are invited to fight and die for the US. But they have already learned that moving on is the right strategy.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-20T15:34:02+00:00

I used to think that America's electronic voting machines were insecure because people didn't realize that security holes could be used for electoral fraud. But the reddit post shows that even fifteen years ago, people realised that dangers of insecure software.

That has changed my mind. I now think that America's electronic voting machines were insecure because people did realize that security holes could be used for electoral fraud.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-12T19:19:59+00:00

What a photo! Hybristophilia or bestiality?

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-10T14:44:51+00:00

I was going to go on a rant about raccoons living in North America, not the UK. But the article turns out to be a decent piece about raccoons as an invasive species. Real problem in German due to escapes from fur farming. Not yet established in the wild in the UK, but...

Alan_Crowe · 2023-08-30T23:27:22+00:00

We will have to wait and see how drone warfare works out. My guess for the next stage goes something like this:

The infantry man doesn't carry a rifle because infantry fight each other at ranges of two or three miles. Fly your drone out ahead of you, two or three miles. Spot the enemy infantry man flying his drone. Relay his position back to your artillery. You kill your enemy with a 155 mm shell, not a 5.56 mm bullet.

Do drones engage in dog fights with each other? Does an infantry man juggle several drones? Are there wheeled/tracked drones that go to look in trenches and bunkers?

On a different tack, what happens with decoys? Currently, if you try to stock pile ammunition, the pile gets spotted and attacked. OK, but tents are cheap, what if you put up a thousand tents, spread about. Perhaps with covered walkways. Which tent actually contains the ammunition? The enemy could use up a lot of suicide drones attacking every tent.

Maybe I've phrased the previous paragraph badly. Currently one puts camouflage netting over genuine assets, with the intention that the camouflage netting gets mistaken for trees, not camouflage netting. That is getting tricky, drones are getting too close and seeing that it is just netting. But if you go to town, with lots and lots of camouflage netting (perhaps covering nothing, perhaps covering inflatable tanks copied from the deception operations before D-day (the netting just has to conceal the tank/self-propelled-artillery well enough to conceal that it is an inflatable)) , it is sufficient that the drones don't get to see through it and see which nets cover genuine assets.

I foresee a lot of tactical innovation before things settle. Maybe that is a repeat of WWI. 1914 to 1918 saw a lot of tactical innovation as the British invented the tank and learned that you needed to use tanks in mass formations. Meanwhile the Germans invented Storm Troopers using infiltration tactics; lightly manned positions are vulnerable to infiltration, well manned positions suffer too many casualties from artillery barrages.

The importance of drones will lead to the importance of electronic warfare. Will there be an electronic equivalent of the machine gun, to slaughter drones just like the machine gun slaughtered conventional infantry attacks? I would guess at a few early successes for electro-magnetic pulse weapons leading to great victories in the wake of all the enemy drones falling out of the sky. Then disaster as the enemy re-equips with EMP hardened drones.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-08-24T17:59:40+00:00

Wagner group was messing with French colonial possessions in Africa, so I'm getting Rainbow Warrior flash backs.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-31T15:33:27+00:00

Democracy. The ancient Athenian thing, with the elite meeting up to give speeches, debate, and vote, made sense for small a city-state. Our version of democracy is very different.

Universal suffrage! Every-one gets a vote. One each. Combine those who are busy and not paying attention to politics and those who are stupid and not understanding politics. Together they form a solid majority. So what happens to power? Who is in charge?

Mass media! The elections come round and people vote the way that the mass media tell them to. It isn't always a direct instruction. Push the stories that make people vote for candidate A. Ignore the stories that would make people vote for candidate B if they knew. That also tells people to vote for candidate A. It is the owners of the mass media who have the power. Or do they? What if there are competing news channels? People with the leisure and inclination to read and compare multiple news sources can play off the different channels against each other and reclaim their power.

Two problems. I've already covered the first problem, universal suffrage. The people with the leisure and inclination to read and compare multiple news sources are a small minority. They have no power in a system of universal and equal suffrage. The second problem is consolidated financial capitalism. Rich men can borrow money from banks to buy up the competing news sources and establish a unified national agenda. No-one escapes the thought control. Modern democracy is just plutocracy with extra steps.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-10T18:46:16+00:00

Good catch!

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-10T18:40:29+00:00

Missing the key warning signs of dangerously extreme white supremacy

Thinking Clarence Thomas is the best Supreme Court Justice
Preferring Thomas Sowell to Paul Krugman

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-08T23:14:04+00:00

There are many variations. I think that the interesting one says 200 = 70 + 130 and says that the 130 extra years get slotted in between thirty years old and forty years old. So you reach 30 and ageing slows down fourteen fold. We might even change how we count birthdays: 27, 28, 29, 30, 30a, 30b, ,,, 30L, 30m, 31, 31a, 31b, ... 40, 41, 42

Think about what we mean by meritocracy. We say that we pick the best man for the job, but that is obviously bogus, we don't know how well they do the job until after they have done it. We actually guess who will be the best man for the job, pick them, and hope that we were right.

The two rival ways of guessing are (academics and examinations = credentials) or (apprentice ship and working your way up)

Currently we have big organisations with many layers. It would take too long to have people work their way up the organisation. If we used apprenticeship as the basis of meritocracy it would really be a gerontocracy. So we go with faster acting and less accurate systems of credentials. Which work less well over time and people learn to game the system.

But if people lived to be 200, apprenticeship becomes more viable. Yes, you are 120 by the time you become chairman of the board, but you still have 80 good years left in you to lead the organisation.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-04-25T16:46:42+00:00

I accept that one can surgically transition from being a man into being a mutilated man, and that if one regrets this one can have further surgery to go from mutilated man to hideously mutilated man.

But is it really helpful to call this "detransition", pay for it, and promote the idea that the initial mistake can be undone?

Alan_Crowe · 2023-04-09T17:22:26+00:00

Round about 2'50" he frames the issue as an immediate personal challenge: if religion was debunked would you change your ways? Would you abandon the morality that you grew up with.

The civilisational challenge is intergenerational. Would you be able to bring up your young children to be moral? You've probably made a good start, and the surrounding culture is still on side. What about your grandchildren? Looking here twenty years ahead to when your children start their own families. Will the morality that you grew up with be grandad's old fashioned stuff. Looking ahead to after your death, your grandchildren may admonish their children: that is immoral, great-grandad would be turning in his grave! Will that stick? Will it work as well as "that is immoral, God will punish you."?

At 3'38" Hitchens asks "How can we build a just city?" Presumably, not in a day. His position needs to think intergenerationally.

One curiosity is that he gives his speech to an audience of nice, well meaning, people. His "would you abandon morallity?" question works for his audience. Would it work as well if Hitchens did a Johnny Cash and gave his talk at Folsom Prison? "Would you abandon morallity?" "Sir, I already did, that is why I am in prison.".

I think that Hitchens suffers from the typical mind fallacy. Mr A knows his own mind, and thinks that everybody is like him. He imagines a utopia, and it might even be a good one, contingent on every-one being like him. But they are not.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-03-28T22:51:27+00:00

Totally insane people take the Gun Free Schools Act as a message from God about where you are supposed to go on your shooting spree. Of course you go where the victims have been disarmed to help you get a high score!

Sane people, slightly mad people, moderately insane people, none of them get it. They all confuse words and deeds. It is the normie way. So pass a law, called Gun Free Schools Act and normies have normal peoples reactions "I'm so glad that schools are free of guns."

Meanwhile totally insane people really love that they are special and the rules don't apply to them. A Gun Free School is a no shooting back school. You are supposed to do your shooting spree there, it is in the name of the law, the No Shooting Back At School Act.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-03-14T20:54:41+00:00

I'd steel man William_World like this:

I don't care if science says that it helps kids, because science is like soylent green; its made of people.

Science done by angels out ranks human intuition about what is weird and gross.

Human intuition about what is weird and gross out ranks science done by humans.

Money for medical research is scarce. We should use good judgment here. Halt gender medicine, because it is weird and gross. Halt research on gender medicine because there are more promising topics to research. For example: post viral syndromes. They are in the news because of Long COVID, but there have always been problems with people failing to regain their stamina after a viral infection. It gets called ME/CFS and there is enough new knowledge about the immune system to make interesting research possible. Other possible research targets are heart disease. Arteries clogged with fat because of diet in the non-obese is pretty much a dead hypothesis. Arteries clogged with fat because of inflammation due to immune system problems is ripe for research.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-03-04T17:39:11+00:00

What is GWGB?

Found the subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/GWGB/

Still no idea.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-03-01T19:12:10+00:00

Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.

Notice what wasn't said: Chinese funded! He is careful not to mention where the money actually came from.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-02-13T02:02:52+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_gauge

So much history! Making sure that your train will fit in your tunnel is a very well known problem.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-01-22T15:41:14+00:00

More like Buckfast and IrnBru.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-01-18T13:38:31+00:00

I fell down a rabbit hole, trying to discover the message of the Tomorrowland movie, without having to watch all one and three quarter hours, and without having to pay for it. Movie Shortens, reviews, trailers; the story seems to go like this:

There's this place, Tomorrow Land. Earth in the future? Some-where else in this universe? In a little bubble universe budded off from our universe? The story in a little incoherent, but this doesn't matter.

They have a viewer, that lets them view Earth's future. Earth's future is bad. Bad due to human action and inaction. So they send messages to today's Earth about Earth's grim future. That is supposed to encourage people to do the right things and thus change the future for the better.

Mysteriously, things keep getting worse. The cinema goer may infer that the gadget in the film, that the people in the movie think is sending a warning message, is actually doing something else. It is demoralizing and subverting the recipients in the movie. They work less hard to make a good future.

As the future revealed in the gadget that sees the future gets worse, the people in Tomorrow Land get desperate, sending ever more urgent warnings. Unaware they they are actually sending self-fulfilling prophecies in a tightening cycle of doom.

This leads to a second ambiguity in the movie. Is there a super-natural element in which the message gives people bad beliefs which directly affect reality? Is it supposed to be naturalistic, with the message giving people bad beliefs which leads to foolish behaviour which in turn affects reality. Do beliefs always have to be mediated through actions to affect reality? Yes, and it is important to stick to this "chain" aspect of casual chains. But the movie has doom shrinking to just 90 days away, which is rather supernatural That is flaw in the movie. I'll put the flaw down to "That it how it is done in Hollywood.".

I think core message of the movie is: There is an ambiguity between messages that warn and messages that demoralize and become self-fulfilling prophecies of the thing they warn against.

Example: A violent movie, such as Roller Ball, that the writers intended as a warning against "bread and circuses", (especially as a warning against the "circus" becoming ever more degrading and violent) ends up as part of the spectacle. It becomes the path to even worse spectacles, The writers wanted us to turn back from that path, not to hasten us along it :-(

Example: We need to be careful with technology, nuclear power plants can blow up, industrialization will concrete over nature. So England responds to Global Warming by failing to build nuclear power plants and by banning on shore windfarms (to protect rural England). By being too careful, we get too many problems to juggle and drop some. Being too care about technology makes us careless :-(

Alan_Crowe · 2023-01-17T20:19:38+00:00

This video is long, forty-seven minutes, but totally worth it. There is some history. The historical mathematics is given in full, and you can see how Fermat kinda, nearly, maybe invented calculus before Newton and Leibniz. What adds to the fun is that the video fully describes Descartes approach first. It is ingenious and pretty cool, which sets the stage for the final showdown...

Alan_Crowe · 2023-01-14T00:14:46+00:00

I think that the terms transman and transwoman are the wrong way round.

Think about a boy who has a difficult puberty and resents turning into a man. He takes pills, wears a dress, and explains this by saying that he is a woman trapped in a man's body. Right way round terminology would call him a transman.

Think about a girl who has a difficult puberty and resents turning into a woman. She takes testosterone, tries to grow a beard, and explains that she is man trapped in a woman's body. If we swap the words back to how they should have been, she is a transwoman.

Get the words the right way round and I'm happy to say that a transwoman is a woman. Stick to the currently popular usage and I'd rather not use the words transman and transwoman at all.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-01-06T22:07:16+00:00

There is a federal law that encourages violent lunatics to target schools. It is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-Free_School_Zones_Act_of_1990

Any-one who goes insane and gets it into their head to go on a shooting rampage has two questions to answer

1) Where can I attack that people will not shoot back? This is America, there are guns every-where. Tricky.

2) Should I even be doing this? Am I going mad and contemplating doing something wicked?

The Gun-Free School Act answers both questions. Answer 1: Go to a school. There are no school shooting ranges any more. No-one at a school has a gun, so no-one will shoot back. Answer 2: Go to a school. Shooting the children is socially approved. You can tell because the Government has disarmed the teachers specifically to help you.

The interesting thing is that ordinary normal people have zero capacity for understanding the thought processes of the insane. Ordinary people try to work out if the Gun-Free Schools Act is effective at telling violent lunatics "No! Not the school!". And ordinary people get it completely wrong,

I think it is the same problem that stops ordinary people from writing computer programs. They type in their program. They expect the computer to read the program, get the intent behind it, and "do the right thing". When that doesn't happen they are surprised and stuck. The computer follows the instructions, as written, including the typos, as a sequence of atomized steps to be followed, Monkey Paw style, without having to make sense. That completely deskills ordinary people. Their theory of mind only works for people like themselves.

I don't think that politicians are ordinary people in that sense. Politicians know that different people will interpret their words in different ways. Talking to two audiences, using one speech, is part of the art of politics. So politicians understand full well that ordinary people will understand the Gun-Free School Act as an attempt to protect children. And that violent lunatics will understand it as an endorsement of school shootings. And politicians will get to take away the guns and rule absolutely.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-12-25T14:33:36+00:00

Much of the skepticism about miracles comes from getting burned by how flaky people are. One starts off thinking that people lie for advantage, and you can protect yourself by watching for scams. Gradually you realize that some people are only loosely attached to reality. They believe things (and try to persuade you of them) and act upon those beliefs, and are astonished when it turns out badly because it was wrong and their belief unreasonable.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-12-13T17:15:55+00:00

The video starts by explaining that Eulerian contrasts with Lagrangian.

Eulerian is when you have a grid, with velocity values at grid points. Then it gets into using a staggered grid, with velocity values at the midpoint of each cell wall.

Lagrangian is when you have particles, lots of particles, and interaction between them, and this video isn't about that.

The video plunges into the details. I'm guessing that it is only first order accurate, which keeps things simple. And the language is JavaScript which is widely available.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-12-13T16:04:58+00:00

Sex and Gender are like Mass and Weight. Technically different, but much the same on the surface of planet Earth.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-11-23T02:39:30+00:00

I like the bear with the tartan paws.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-11-20T18:15:37+00:00

You don't have to buy something just because everyone else is.

Rene Girard would like to explain his theory to you

Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires

Alan_Crowe · 2022-09-28T16:08:43+00:00

If Russia wanted it switched off, well, they already succeeded because it was switched off.

Russia had the option of switching it back on. That gave them leverage over Germany: drop the sanctions and the gas starts flowing again.

America has cancelled Russia's option. A rather valuable option.

Alan_Crowe · 2022-09-26T19:37:12+00:00

This reminds me of The Worzels song "Combine Harvester" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btEpF334Rtc

Alan_Crowe