3 ms·
As stopped clock is mostly right - within less than an hour of the truth - ~17% of the time. If you're requiring five nines-level precision, he is right precis
by vkou 2y ago
As stopped clock is mostly right - within less than an hour of the truth - ~17% of the time.
If you're requiring five nines-level precision, he is right precisely zero percent of the time.
> but it's still often enough that universally assuming the opposite of anything he says isn't a valid heuristic.
He doesn't have the magic power where the truth is always the opposite of what he says. It's just that what he says is white noise. Its Shannon entropy is near-zero.
The response to that isn't to assume the opposite is correct. It's to just assume it's hallucinatory bullshit that's not worth listening to, or repeating, except to inform yourself on what he is going to do. His speech teaches us a lot about him, and nothing about anyone else.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoStopped clocks have more problems than precision. Their Shannon entropy is literally zero, because when you already know what time they say it is, the result will never change. Whereas if Trump is talking about DEI stuff, regardless of the details, you can deduce that he's soliciting support for a policy change there, which means it's time to have the debate about that policy and see if we should support it or not. You can't distinguish the things he says he's going to do from the things he says are happening, because the reason he says the latter is in support of the former.
- jibal 2y ago> Whereas if Trump is talking about DEI stuff, regardless of the details, you can deduce that ... ... it's consistent with his lifelong racism, as well as the racism that permeates Project 2025. On day one he rescinded LBJ's executive order from 1964 barring federal contractors from discriminating.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoAccusations of racism have been bandied about with such reckless abandon that they've lost all meaning without specifics and hard evidence of context. Employers are prohibited from discriminating by statute which can't be amended by executive order. The executive order in question was regarding the use of affirmative action.
- vkou 2y agoIf a little Sieg Heil at the inauguration didn't convince you that this administration is pretty down with racism, I don't believe there's any evidence on Earth that will. Specific, hard evidence, all in context, the man who gave it got an ovation and an office built in the White House, and a free hand in the agencies that are supposed to be regulating him.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoYou're referring to the thing the Anti-Defamation League called "not a Nazi salute" and the prime minister of Israel said he "is being falsely smeared". It's exactly what I mean by reckless abandon. It's a desperation to find something regardless of whether it's actually there. It seems like we've gotten to the point that actual racists are so uncommon that people have forgotten what they look like: > "We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator" -Jefferson Davis (referring to black people) > "Anyone who has traveled in the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results." -FDR > "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race." -Strom Thurmond These quotes are not ambiguous or taken out of context. If you had asked these people if they were being misconstrued, they would have reiterated their positions, because they were actually racists who thought that other races were inferior and openly favored slavery or internment or segregation. And it's sad that we're losing the ability to distinguish these things because of all the crying wolf.
- vkou 2y agoI'm referring to the thing that anyone with eyes can see is a Nazi salute. There's a beautiful side by side video clip of Elon actually throwing his heart out to the audience, and you'd have to be blind to think it's the same thing. Who should I believe? My lying eyes? Or what the prime minister of a country that's courting US support in an internationally unpopular war says to curry favor? https://www.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/1i8ajx0/video_of_musk_making_an_actual_my_heart_goes_out/ https://www.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/1i8ajx0/video_of_... https://video.ploud.fr/w/9mao3sy1hTRcmionRpryX8 https://video.ploud.fr/w/9mao3sy1hTRcmionRpryX8 The man's grandparents were registered Nazis, the man's rubbing elbows with the AFD, he's throwing out the 'roman salute' to thunderous applause at a political rally, and you're twisting yourself into a pretzel to explain how no, no, this is all a smear job against an innocent man. How can you not see it? It's hard to tell if you're cynically taking the piss out of me, or if you can actually look at clip, and see something else.