petsfed

16 ms·

121.
by petsfed 2y ago
I just read the article, and I can conclusively say that no, he does not explain how big a problem racism actually is, he claims that its all humanities professors and students (my experience as a physics and engineering student prior to 20
122.
by petsfed 2y ago
My charitable reading is that he believes the concept of wokeness is a bigger problem than racism. I feel that's wrong on its face, but an actual point-by-point (indeed, line-by-line ) retort to this essay would be exhausting and ulti
123.
by petsfed 2y ago
PG says >Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one. What he does not explain is how big a problem of scale this is, but based on the way the rest of the essay
124.
by petsfed 2y ago
Certain kinds of leftist are anti-immigration. But anarchists and those in favor of international communism are aggressively (sometimes militantly) opposed to the concept of national borders or any meaningful restrictions on the movements o
125.
by petsfed 2y ago
I think this is a bit reductive. Trump came to power on the back of a populist anger at the wealthy elite and the consequences of neo-liberal economics (which is pretty fucking far from e.g. Marx. Regardless of the entirety of his meaning,
126.
by petsfed 2y ago
> Yea maybe that's the start of free speech going back to the left, but for the past few years, it's been clearly a right wing thing. I just don't buy this. The main way that the left has "suppressed" free speech
127.
by petsfed 2y ago
I think its a bit reductive to describe them as "arbitrary". But I think more importantly, a lot of this jockeying is exactly what's described in the article. Leftists oppose globalism for good reasons based in their ideology
128.
by petsfed 2y ago
Sartre said some things about how the opinions expressed externally by antisemites need not be internally consistent. I'm inclined to believe it applies to all fascists more broadly. I think something that people fail to realize is tha
129.
by petsfed 2y ago
I'd actually argue its worse if their guiding principles guide them to bad behavior, because they have a ready made defense and social insulation around their bad behavior. That's really at the heart of the evil of the Holocaust.
130.
by petsfed 2y ago
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/rite-on It seems like a related phenomenon to "there's an XKCD about that"
131.
by petsfed 2y ago
I think, in a technical sense, you're right. But the difference between ancestor veneration (especially semi-legendary ancestor veneration) and veneration of a pantheon of lower-tier dieties is practically nonexistent. Its a distinctio
132.
by petsfed 2y ago
I'm more ok with "hidden" taxes, because the business is supposed to just hand that over. If they're putting something on the receipt that says "tax" and its not associated with an actual government-applied tax
133.
by petsfed 2y ago
I think its less "digital everything", and more "digital everything at the expense of analog somethings". Just about every in-person social structure is experiencing falling numbers. For a lot of these (church, especia
134.
by petsfed 2y ago
I'll also say that there's a huge difference between IT specialist in the military and Tier 1 Special Forces Operator. One may facilitate killing, but its not a core competency, and you can spend an entire enlistment term doing ab
135.
by petsfed 2y ago
I think there's a lot of daylight between "made a text editor that in turn was used to make software, and that software in turn enabled killing machines" and "the core functionality of this software is to facilitate the
136.
by petsfed 2y ago
For one, he specifically gave financial and logistical support to Wolfgang Halbig so that he could harass the families of the victims.
137.
by petsfed 2y ago
And its not simply that he accused some parents of faking their children's deaths. He also specifically instructed his listeners to rise up and "find out the truth". And he did so repeatedly to an audience he knew to be h
138.
by petsfed 2y ago
I've never made up my mind: Were Peter Thiel et al ignorant of the ethical complexity around the Palantirs, that a sufficiently powerful user could control and distort what other users saw? Or was that part of the sales pitch?
139.
by petsfed 2y ago
I think this is the wrong way to think about it. I have no idea how much it costs to run a Russian or Chinese disinformation group, but let's suppose its 360k Euros. That's like the annual salary of 20 higher-income Romanians. If
140.
by petsfed 2y ago
But if you insist... The real prelude to McCarthyism (aka the second Red Scare) is at the very least the first Red Scare immediately following 1917's October Revolution in Russia. See for instance the Sacco and Vanzetti trials. We
141.
by petsfed 2y ago
See for instance feedforward's sibling comment to mine. The parent is a good example of a Gish Gallop, where there is so much false and misleading information in a short period of time that a good faith debater gets bogged down expla
142.
by petsfed 2y ago
I want to be super clear here, I actually have no special objections to e.g. recruiting in high schools for college ROTC programs. As you say, the goal is to produce an effective officer at the other end of years of development, but also
143.
by petsfed 2y ago
To summarize the article, and paraphrase and editorialize, I've heard a lot of criticisms of the US Navy culture ("boat feudalism" is one of my favorites), but I don't think anyone has ever seriously accused the US Navy
144.
by petsfed 2y ago
I get that. There are two distinctions between "any other job" and military service, which I think matter, and I'll get to. But, you're also not wrong. If I say you're not old enough to sign up for the service, I&#x
145.
by petsfed 2y ago
I think its more complicated than that. There is certainly a lingering, and I don't think unjustified, perception that recruiters prefer the desperate and the easily swayed, even if the leadership does not. This dates back to the Vietn
146.
by petsfed 2y ago
I'm reminded of a passage from Neal Stephenson's The Confusion : "Jack's chief source of discomfort, then, was a feeling well known to soldiers of low rank, to doctors' patients, and to people getting their hair cu
147.
by petsfed 2y ago
I think its because the difference between "hacked together on top of an Arduino" and "hacked together on top of an Arduino with ESD protection and connectors " is basically nill. The market for that in-between species
148.
by petsfed 2y ago
There's also this really weird fear in that industry of open-source anything. A while back, I was investigating security options for PLCs (in the light of e.g. stuxnet), and while Siemens and Rockwell do ultimately feature such things,
149.
by petsfed 2y ago
I’ve never been a competitive speed climber, but I do understand that part of the process of precision is having cues for e.g. body position. So the fact that it’s never actually touched is not necessarily the red herring it seems to be.
150.
by petsfed 2y ago
I mean, most commercial and industrial buildings are approximately flat on top. There's some pitch, but its pretty minor. Its basically a solved problem, and a qualified building inspector would know how to inspect for the requirements

More ›