14 year non-rule-breaking user of Reddit, now a shadow banned refugee, with my subreddits banned, and my comments manipulated by Administrators (this is wide spread!) by SoCo in Introductions

[–]Alan_Crowe 16 insightful - 4 fun16 insightful - 3 fun17 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Congratulations on escaping Reddit.

How about that. by rubberbiscuit in SuperStraight

[–]Alan_Crowe 12 insightful - 2 fun12 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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

Welcome Goats by [deleted] in memes

[–]Alan_Crowe 8 insightful - 5 fun8 insightful - 4 fun9 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Intelligence difference among the races are going to grow even bigger due to differing rates of dygenics by casparvoneverec in debatealtright

[–]Alan_Crowe 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

I'm tired of broken transgenders by [deleted] in Rant

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 5 fun5 insightful - 4 fun6 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

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?

What are the simpler things you enjoy in life? by Jesus-Christ in AskSaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months | Society books | The Guardian by Sw0rdofDam0cles in books

[–]Alan_Crowe 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The year after William Golding published Lord of the Flies, the science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein published Tunnel in the sky. Heinlein's alternative take on ship-wrecked children had them behave well.

Which fiction author was right about human nature? The article make me think Heinlein was right.

To what extent should govt meddle in the free market? by la_cues in debatealtright

[–]Alan_Crowe 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Why would gay people support Ts when the entire ideology contradicts homosexuality? by jacques1102 in TumblrInAction

[–]Alan_Crowe 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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

"I think it (Roe v. Wade) went too far. I don't think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body." -- Joe Biden by Chipit in quotes

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Meat should have warning labels like cigarette packets, say scientists by [deleted] in NotTheOnion

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

TIL Steve Jobs died of an easily treatable form of pancreatic cancer because he though eating a fruit only diet would cure him by yabbit in TIL

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

"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 :-(

Common Core by Tarrock in politics

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

This was posted on mainstream Reddit 15 years ago and got >500 upvotes. How times have changed... by Orangutan in politics

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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.

“If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”- Victoria Nuland on January 27th, 2022. by zyxzevn in quotes

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Why the "insightful" and "fun" votes? I am new and I immediately dislike them. by [deleted] in SaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The front page has tabs for hot, new, insightful, fun, top,...

Go try them; they don't do what I want. I want

hot - recent ranked on a weighted sum of insightful and fun

insightful - recent ranked on insightful

fun - recent ranked on fun

That way, I can choose according to my mood, serious or frivolous. But insightful and fun are long term, showing me posts from a year ago :-(

Young man with clean bill of health left 'hours from death' in hospital after catching Covid by jet199 in NotTheOnion

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That is a frightening story. I really must try harder to lose weight.

I'm tired of broken transgenders by [deleted] in Rant

[–]Alan_Crowe 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

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.

The Pope is arrested. Is this true? by discountmeat in conspiracy

[–]Alan_Crowe 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The Pope has his own website

With today's Papal activity. Which contains a video showing the Pope giving a talk from the Vatican library.

If the Pope had been arrested, the video would show an outraged Cardinal, complaining.

Is this just disingenuous virtue signaling, or does she actually believe the ideology she preaches? by CleverFoolOfEarth in SocialJusticeInAction

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

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 :-)

“The simple and terrifying reality, forbidden from discussion in America, was that despite spending $600 billion a year on the military... they were getting their asses kicked by illiterate peasants who made bombs out of manure and wood.” Michael Hastings by EndlessSunflowers in quotes

[–]Alan_Crowe 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

... 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.

"I think it (Roe v. Wade) went too far. I don't think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body." -- Joe Biden by Chipit in quotes

[–]Alan_Crowe 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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".

If there is a Marek's disease scenario due to the leaky vaccine being promoted, that will mean every human will need a shot or will die by magnora7 in whatever

[–]Alan_Crowe 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

What is preventing you from switching to one of the thousands of versions of Linux? by [deleted] in SaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I'm happy with FreeBSD.

Question: What do you hate the most about modern society? by Mcheetah in AskSaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Oregon House Bill for insurance coverage of transitioning but deliberately excludes detransitioning by weavilsatemyface in GenderCritical

[–]Alan_Crowe 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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?

Is there anything interesting to do on the internet anymore? by sneako in AskSaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

This is so stupid. I love it. by CleverFoolOfEarth in memes

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

The British Broadcasting Corporation showing news about Big Black Cock.

a question for people that like to read books a lot. by humancorpse in whatever

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

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

Toll Paid by Tarrock in wholesome

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

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.

No Taliban by Tarrock in politics

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Germany Refuses to Use Voting Machines Like US Over Fears of Fraud, Will Only Use Paper Ballots by carn0ld03 in Europe

[–]Alan_Crowe 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not an American, so I might be misunderstanding the situation over there, but there seems to be an interesting twist to the story.

Why did Americans accept electronic voting machines at all? It seems that American's weren't stupid, but insisted on paper ballots and a paper audit trail, so that the electronic tallies could in theory be checked by hand. So they were reassured by the possibility of auditing the results and went ahead with using electronic voting machines. But it turns out to be mysteriously difficult to actually get the results checked by hand.

So I'm thing that there is a broader lesson. You get talked into doing something, based on assurances that there is a backup system in case things go wrong. Then things go wrong and the backup system doesn't work. You shouldn't be surprised by this.

Perhaps one approach is to insist that backup systems only provide confidence if they were routinely tested. Imagine if 5% precincts got hand counted, every election, just to check, even when there was no suspicion of fraud. That still does the money saving/quick results thing, but now the systems for hand counting are in working order and are available if needed.

Space exploration as a unifying purpose for a reawakened West by Bagarmoossen in debatealtright

[–]Alan_Crowe 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Xeno-Archeology

It is possible that planetary civilizations seldom last for long. It may be that the galaxy contains many planets that have had a sapient species and a civilization for a few hundred thousand years, but with hundreds of millions of years in question, civilizations that are close in space may fail to overlap in time. The concept of Xeno-archeology could mean either of two things:

First space aliens turn up. Say a million years in the future. Too late! Human civilization has collapsed. Does evolution have a sense of direction? The absolute question: zero versus non-zero is hard to answer. But if evolution has a sense of direction, it is weak and statistical. After human civilization collapses, humans likely evolve back into animals.

So the aliens have turned up. Their ground penetrating radar shows interesting anomalies. Their away-teams land and dig, excavating the ruins of human cities. What became of the humans? Which of the various chimpanzee and gorilla like species are the degenerated descendants of the builders of the cities? What cultural flaws let it all go horribly wrong? How solid is the culture of the space aliens? They may think that the fate of the humans is an urgent question, because their own culture has cities much like the human cities once were, and culture wars much like the humans experienced. Xeno archeology is a poor source of knowledge about what active measures to take, but it contains time proven knowledge of what one should avoid doing.

Well, that is a bleak vision. Let us turn to the second meaning of xeno archeology. Humans leave Earth and travel to planets orbiting near by stars. An actual encounter with a living alien civilization seems to much to hope for, but it could be us inspecting the planet from space, noticing anomalies, landing and excavating. What do we find in the ruins of ancient civilizations? What knowledge of philosophy and the meaning of life? What did they do right? What did they do wrong? Why did they die out?

When it comes to xeno archeology we want it to be humans wielding trowels on distant planets, not aliens wielding trowels on Earth. That is a double edged aspiration. We aspire to leave Earth and explore the galaxy. We aspire to guess or intuit the vital knowledge of the civilization ending mistakes that we need to avoid. We don't need to guess exactly right, but we need to be close enough to survive. Then we get out there and our ability to survive gets boosted by exploring the ruins of other's earlier civilizations.

Much that is mysterious about the morality and the meaning of life will come into focus once we get out into the galaxy and excavate morality plays, played out to the final conclusion.

Health care is a human right! by TitsAndWhiskey in politics

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

European financial regulators are fuming at "incompetent" US counterparts over SVB. For 15 years they attended "long and boring meetings" where everyone promised to do exactly the opposite of what the US just did when crisis struck. by Chipit in WorldNews

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

"America can't collapse. We're as powerful, as ancient Rome." -Homer Simpson by BISH in funny

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

A truly Byzantine cope!

Alternative to reddit? by TimothyMcFuck in AskSaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Gun control for dummies by [deleted] in politics

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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

Recommendation: Learn statistics by [deleted] in conspiracy

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Without calculus, can we prove sin x = x - x³/3! + x⁵/5! -...? by Alan_Crowe in Mathematics

[–]Alan_Crowe[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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

Thought about why the US is encouraging the massive border crossings by hfxB0oyA in conspiracy

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Know the warning signs of white supremacy by Chipit in memes

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Missing the key warning signs of dangerously extreme white supremacy

  1. Thinking Clarence Thomas is the best Supreme Court Justice

  2. Preferring Thomas Sowell to Paul Krugman

i don't fucking get these shootings bro by theendofhope in RealIncels

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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.

The term "Transwoman", do you use it? by Kai_Decadence in GenderCritical

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Judge blocked prosecutors from keeping pedophile behind bars until his sentencing hearing. He then killed his ex-girlfriend and police shot him down in a hail of bullets after a car chase. by Chipit in news

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Blakney was charged last year with second-degree sexual assault of a child for allegedly having sex with a 13-year-old. He pled guilty to the charge last month and was freed on bail by Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge David Borowski who denied prosecutors motion to keep him in jail.

I thought "bail" was strictly about pre-trial detention, yet the accused had already plead guilty. There is no problem with post-trial detention of the guilty. That is what the trial is supposed to lead up to.

Putting aside emotions, why should we reject the possibility of spirits wholesale? by [deleted] in conspiracy

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I disagree with the disparagement of shamans. Take a look at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUJmKl7QfDU

The weight bobs up and down on the spring. Then a ghost comes in from the left and pushes it to the side. The point of the video is to talk about a mechanistic, materialist explanation of this: it is an example of auto parametric resonance. But the video doesn't actually go through the mathematics. I cannot fill in the mathematical details myself. I doubt that you can do so either. So we just take it on trust that the stuff about a ghost coming in and pushing it sideways is not actually correct.

Notice that scientific knowledge is often hard won and so difficult to understand that only a few people know for themselves that it actually makes sense. Believing in a spirit world makes a lot of sense. More so in the past than the present. One might even claim that the time for believing in the spirit world has passed. But it always represented a reasonable attempt to understand the world.

Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment (Stephen Kotkin) • The Worthy House by Chipit in books

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I enjoyed this opinionated book review. The reviewers thesis is that the author, in telling us how it went down in Eastern Europe in 1989, is accidentally telling us about our near future.

The book being reviewed draws a contrast between East Germany and Romania, on the one hand, and Poland on the other. In East Germany and Romania, there was no covert, alternative power structure. The regimes fell, all by themselves, through internal exhaustion. Poland was different; the Solidarity Trade Union and the Catholic Church offered some push back against the regime.

The review envisages a collapse in the style of East Germany or Romania. But I think he is calling it thirty years too soon. The left in the USA isn't disillusioned with Leftism yet. It will take a generation of economic failure for that to happen.

Non-violent resistance only works if the empire has already decided to leave by [deleted] in whatever

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There is an uncomfortable question about whether any of the colonies were ever "profitable".

On first glance the calculation seems to be: (money extracted) - (cost of occupation). If that is positive, then the colony is "profitable".

But back in 1816 Ricardo that trade was more profitable than previously believed. Even if Brits were better than Indians at everything, there is still scope for mutually beneficial trade, based on comparative advantage. So there is no need for occupying a colony at all. Just split the gains from trade fairly and the other folk will trade voluntarily, just to get their share of the gains from trade.

So the criterion for a colony being profitable is actually

(money extracted) - (cost of occupation) > (fair share of profit from free trade)

That is not an easy test to pass. Once you start trying to extract more money, to meet the test, the natives rebel and the cost of occupation soars.

100 Years of Turbulence: how the Wright brother's patents held back aviation in the USA by Alan_Crowe in technology

[–]Alan_Crowe[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Patent thickets are a current problem for technology innovators. This article looks back; patent laws have always had an ambiguous effect on technology.

The truth about Thunberg by CleverFoolOfEarth in funny

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Me too. I'm old and not keeping up, so I thought that Jimmy Savile and the BBC was a one-off. I didn't make the CNN/under-18 connection at first.

Less masculine men who are uncomfortable with their absence of manly qualities are on average more likely to commit physical assault, inflict injuries on others, and drive drunk (I was wondering what some radfem allies think of this). by SexualityCritical in GenderCriticalGuys

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They therefore analysed the responses of 600 US men in 2012 to an online survey about their perceptions of male gender and how their own self-image fitted in with this, and risky behaviours.

Did 4chan hear about the online survey? How did they protect the quality of their data?

There was no association between discrepancy stress and average daily use of alcohol or drugs, but men who felt less masculine, and who weren't worried about it were the least likely to report violence or driving while under the influence.

Sounds like data dredging. How many components go to make up "discrepancy stress"? How many combinations did they test in order to obtain a statistically significant result.

I doubt this will replicate.

Judith Butler: ‘We need to rethink the category of woman to centre men' by Chunkeeguy in GenderCritical

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

She starts off with soft bromides

The category of woman can and does change, and we need it to be that way.

and we nod along, because we know what she means. After menopause women turn invisible. We want to "change" the category of women to "incude" them. And when we oppose violence against women, we sometimes need to remind men that opposing violence against women includes protecting girls from their step-fathers; which stretches "women" to include "girls".

Then Butler hits us with

So we should not be surprised or opposed when the category of women expands to include cricket bats.

Whoops! I've misquoted her; but with a purpose. Sometimes we play games with language. We might say "the category of women includes cricket bats." and we are making a Dadaist joke. Probably with a didactic purpose. We want to jolt people awake. We want to make them realize that you cannot add just anything to the category of woman.

What Butler actually wrote was

So we should not be surprised or opposed when the category of women expands to include trans women.

She wants to add men to the category of women. Now I conceded earlier that one might want to make adjustments at the edge of the category woman, but the problem with the category of women is not that it excludes men; excluding men is the point! What next? Is seven to be the new even number?

Notice the pattern. She talks abstractly about the category women, without common sense examples, then hits us with an absurd expansion of the category. In psychiatry, that pattern, is called overinclusion and is an aspect of Formal Thought Disorder.

See http://frontierpsychiatrist.co.uk/formal-thought-disorder/

Overinclusion refers to a widening of the boundaries of concepts such that things are grouped together that are not often closely connected.

An 88-year-old professor in Georgia resigned in the middle of class because a student refused to wear a mask over her nose: "That's it. I'm retired." by [deleted] in Coronavirus

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

He is old enough that he might actually die from COVID, so I sympathize with him requesting the tiny protection that masks might offer.

Did ‘gender studies’ lose Afghanistan? How Ivy League diplomats sought to remake Afghanistan in Harvard’s image. $787 million was spent on gender programs, but that substantially understates the actual total, since gender goals were folded into practically every undertaking made in the country. by Chipit in WorldNews

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

My favourite factoid

Under the US’s guidance, Afghanistan’s 2004 constitution set a 27 per cent quota for women in the lower house — higher than the actual figure in America!

The article builds a good case.

This is an Euler's Disk by Brewdabier in whatever

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Now available as an athletic discipline. Yes, really! Watch until the Euler Disk move at 1'15".

Why Putin’s Pipeline Is Welcome in Germany. We object to a pivotal NATO ally increasing its dependency for energy on the very nation against which the United States has defended that ally for 70 years. Why are you buying Russian gas when we are protecting you from them, the Americans ask. by Chipit in WorldPolitics

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I understood the Cold War as an ideological conflict. The Warsaw Pact was set to invade Western Europe because it was the right thing to do. Communism wasn't just a historical inevitability, it was a moral imperative. And if you took an other view, you had to be ready to defend yourself. So we made NATO and prepared to defend ourselves.

Then Communism collapsed and the Berlin wall came down and it was all over. Maybe there was a case for not shutting down NATO immediately; what had so suddenly collapsed might unexpectedly revive.

Thirty years on from the fall of the Berlin wall, and the defeated ideology is dead and forgotten in Russia. We can stop worrying and convert our swords into ploughshares.

Strangely the US wants to keep fighting the Cold War, even though it won. This is making me re-examine my life. Was my side also bad guys; out to conquer, and not just concerned with self-defense?

Washington Supreme Court Rules That Bar Exam No Longer A Requirement To Practice Law, Cites Impact On “Marginalized Groups” by xoenix in news

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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

Inconceivable! by Musky in memes

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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!

Elephants' giant, hot testicles could stop them getting cancer by [deleted] in TIL

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

I want this t-shirt! by BISH in whatever

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

You can still get it in the Scunthorpe Walmart.

The Awful Truth: Paul Pelosi Was Drunk Again, And In a Dispute With a Male Prostitute Early Friday Morning. by [deleted] in politics

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

How many friends do you think yelgy and yabbit have, combined? by [deleted] in AskSaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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

  • provided they are different people.

The Pyramid of Capitalism by chottohen in offbeat

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Are You Worried About AI? by hennaojichan in whatever

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Marble Machine X - A Lesson in Dumb Design (37:37) ~ Wintergatan by JasonCarswell in Organizing

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Straight men don't want to date men no matter what their makeup, haircut or clothes, get over it. by jet199 in SuperStraight

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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?

The Leftist Commune by Tarrock in politics

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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.

SHould we re-legalize slavery? by alexstein in AskSaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We already did

13th abolished it.

16th brought it back.

Drunk raccoons with taste for ale are breaking into homes on the p*ss across UK by [deleted] in news

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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...

Why the Russo-Ukraine War gives me hope for the future (long post) by Islamofascist in debatealtright

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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.

Grandfather Of Teen Killed During Burglary Says AR-15 Made Fight ‘Unfair by Antonnyy8 in Entertainment

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Good catch!

"We met on Reddit! These are our engagement photos." by neolib in MeanwhileOnReddit

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I like the bear with the tartan paws.

Any Idea why? by Oyveygoyim in funny

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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

Where do you think the use of Artificial Intelligence will lead us? by Zapped in AskSaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

People like to talk about an AI recursively improving itself.

Here is an example of the idea: you write an optimizing compiler for the C computer programming language. You write it in C. Then you compile it with an existing C compiler, such as gcc. Now you have an executable for C. You recompile some of your application programs, and they run faster. That is nice, but your optimizing compiler is slow. So you get it to compile itself. Now it runs faster :-)

The usual ideas about how to write an optimizing compiler are such that if you repeat the process you get no further gains. One alternative idea is that the optimizing compiler searches for optimizations, and it does it the same way that a chess playing program does, with one eye on the clock, so that it abandons the search if it is taking too long. If you follow up this idea, there is a chance that after the first round of self application, the search runs faster, and gets deeper into the search tree, finding new optimizations. Using the compiler to recompile the compiler gives you several rounds of improvement.

This works mysteriously badly. You get tiny improvements that peter out. In 2022 we have no idea how to get recursive self-improvement to take off. Today it is limited to being technobabble for science fiction. But I don't think that we even know where to look for ideas about how to get recursive self-improvement to take off; I don't think that anything will have changed in twenty years time.

I don't have any feel for the far future. I just think that we are heading for a rough patch, where AI's cause disaster by being stupid in surprising new ways. More accurately: humans cause disaster by over-estimating AI and thinking that their is intelligence is more general and more able to cope with the unexpected than it really is.

The latest excitement is doing statistical learning on a large corpus. That is a great way to get excellent results on the central examples in the training data, (the commuter is basically copying humans). But we gravitate towards seeing this as the computer thinking its way through the problem, rather than it having "seen it before" in the sense that it is interpolating the training data. We set ourselves up to to believe that the computer can extrapolate from the training data to overcome new challenges. We know from playing with polynomials that the usual story is that interpolation works just fine, and extrapolation is a disaster. But we ignore that and over estimate the computer.

One further pattern in human behavior is that we love to talk in absolutes: this is possible, that is impossible. John McCarthy noticed that we turn this into an implicit belief that if something is possible, then it should be reasonably easy. I think that doesn't apply to artificial intelligence. We are heading towards a situation in which creating artificial intelligence proves to be too hard for humans in the next say one hundred years, but we cope by pretending and lying and believing our own lies. We put stupid AI's in charge of important things and suffer for because of it. And the underlying error is about dividing into two teams, team NO says AI is impossible, team YES says we've managed to create it. But that division, into YES or NO erases NOT-YET. We forget to guard against AI that looks clever to us, but is actually faking it and is doomed to screw up big time.

Where do you think the use of Artificial Intelligence will lead us? by Zapped in AskSaidIt

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There's a lot of people in love with AI. They see more intelligence than is actually there. There is a long history of this, starting with people being taken in by Weizenbaum's Eliza.

The danger I see, looking twenty years out, is that AI will be given serious responsibilities that it is not ready for, with tragic consequences.

I think this is baked into our approach. We eyeball the output and tinker. Did the AI convince us, humans in 2022, that it was intelligent? Not entirely. So we tinker some more, optimizing AI for convincing humans that it is intelligent. Is it really intelligent? That is a tough question.

We can see a pattern in human behavior. Here are two examples.

We gravitate towards having the computer write poetry. We know that we look for meaning in obscure poems and congratulate ourselves for finding it. So we know that we are setting ourselves up to find meaning in a computer's poems that isn't there. But we do it anyway, and think that the computer is a poet.

We create a computer psychotherapist and gravitate towards having the computer do non-directive therapy. We know that this involves encouraging the patient to find their own solutions. So we know that we are setting ourselves up to credit the computer with a solution provided by a human. But we do it anyway, and think that people being fooled by Eliza is a computer passing the Turing test.

The most urgent project in "AI safety" is accepting that humans exhibit this weird behavior and developing methods to avoid tricking ourselves into believing in the intelligence of stupid computers.

"The more silent you get, the more you hear." (unknown) by [deleted] in quotes

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ask awkward questions. Listen to the awkward silence.

This happened 53 years ago today by [deleted] in whatever

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't think that Apollo 1 went as well as you remember.

Trans men living the stunning and brave life by jet199 in neovaginadisasters

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The female to male operation is enormously complicated. I remember a case when the woman suffered damage to her legs. How did that happen? Well, the operation took six hours, and that means that you have to be careful about loss of circulation and tissue damage, just from being anesthetized for that long. It is such a super-major surgery that problems are inevitable.

Michael Moore Calls for Full Repeal of Second Amendment -- 'You Don’t Need a Gun' by StillLessons in politics

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Once gun rights go, they are not coming back. So Michael Moore needs to be arguing "You don't need a gun, your children don't need a gun, your grandchildren don't need a gun,..." re-iterating his basic claim into an uncertain future.

Do governments go bad and massacre their citizens? Since governments never give gun rights back, you need to be confident about your government far into the future, not just today.

Why I left the left : The egalitarian, pro-worker left is gone and it’s not coming back. by question-the-garlic in whatever

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This made me go back to 2013 and reread Exiting the vampire castle, the controversial lament by Mark Fisher.

The older piece turned out to be very British, with a lengthy section on how the left disliked Russel Brand because he was working class. The way it is supposed to work in Britbongistan is that upper class socialists rescue working class oiks from their false consciousness, in a class version of the Mighty Whitey trope.

The older piece has a recurring theme

We need to learn, or re-learn, how to build comradeship and solidarity instead of doing capital’s work for it by condemning and abusing each other.

as though capitalists had somehow managed to contrive wokeness as a defense of capitalism.

Megan Murphy has a different take

Meetings were often held hostage by narcissists who wished to make everything about their various afflictions and ‘trauma’, and who were willing to tear the group apart, seemingly just to test their power.

that the left are doing this to themselves.

I like to eavesdrop on alt-right websites. I think that the vibe evoked by the sight of the left eating itself is a kind of terrified astonishment. There is a little bit of delight at the misfortunes of ideological enemies, but with an undercurrent of fear. What if this is what humans are really like? We are human too, perhaps it will be our turn next.

Vaccine Fanaticism Fuels Vaccine Skepticism ⋆ Kulldorf, Battarchaya by Jackalope in politics

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A good article, but it left me with a melancholy feeling that reminded me of Andrew Gelman's famous article https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2016/09/21/what-has-happened-down-here-is-the-winds-have-changed/

Gelman is talking about the replication crisis in psychology. It happened slowly at first, then suddenly. Some were left behind when the metaphorical wind changed.

Something of the same slowly at first, then suddenly, has happened with, err, what exactly? The article has its own take on the problem

With a life-saving vaccine during a major pandemic, one would expect more vaccine enthusiasm, but instead, it collapsed. What happened?

My take is that medicine has been getting more and more corrupt. Slowly at first, then suddenly, with aducanumab and then messenger RNA vaccines. The new messenger RNA vaccines have fallen well short of traditional standards of safety and efficiency. But there is money to be made, so they were first approved, and then mandated.

The authors, Jayanta Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, have found themselves left behind in the old world, where public health was the domain of boring policy wonks. Don't pay much, but it is honest work. So they end on an uncynical note, untainted by Public Choice Theory

Trust in vaccines can only be regained through honest, open dialogue, science-based policies, public education, long-term thinking, a strengthened vaccine safety monitoring system, and voluntary vaccinations. That is, it should return to the traditional principles of public health.

What happened to the incentives? If the incentives favour further deviations from the traditional principles of public health, then that is what we will get. Which is distinct from what we should get. I claim that my cynical take on how the world really works is more realistic.

"Clitorises are small penises and penises are large clitorises"? by [deleted] in GenderCritical

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The biological jargon is that the structures are homologous. Which is about embryology, not adults.

Enraged monkeys kill 250 DOGS by dragging them to the top of buildings and dropping them off 'out of revenge' after pups killed one of their infants in Indian village by Chipit in WorldNews

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Searching Times of India dogs monkeys gets me a different story

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hubballi/karnataka-100-stray-dogs-poisoned-buried-in-shivamogga/articleshow/86054821.cms

By: Udaya Kumar

SHIVAMOGGA: More than 100 stray dogs were allegedly poisoned and buried in a village off Bhadravati taluk in Shivamogga

district, and police have booked a case against jurisdictional gram panchayat officers in the case.

The incident comes barely weeks after 150 monkeys were killed and abandoned in a village in Hassan district, drawing attention of the Karnataka high court which sought action against the miscreants.

The latest incident involving dogs took place in Ranganathapura of Kambadalalu-Hosur grama panchayat in Bhadravati taluk, about 270km from Bengaluru, on Monday.

Acting on a tipoff from villagers who sensed something amiss, members of Shivamogga Animal Rescue Club visited the place on Tuesday evening and removed the carcasses with help from veterinarians and cops.

etc.

Enraged monkeys kill 250 DOGS by dragging them to the top of buildings and dropping them off 'out of revenge' after pups killed one of their infants in Indian village by Chipit in WorldNews

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I might get interested if Times of India is reporting it. Daily Mail reporting on somewhere far away from their readers? Zero credibility.