upinsmoke1980

4 ms·

1.
by upinsmoke1980 4y ago
I use Fastmail and recommend them. I'm never going back to Gmail.
2.
I survived eight days on a desert island(blackshaw.substack.com)
2 points by upinsmoke1980 4y ago|0 comments
3.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
I learned from the documentary 13th (which I HIGHLY recommend) that something like 97% of people incarcerated in the US have never had a trial, because they're persuaded, manipulated or otherwise cajoled into making plea bargains. 97
4.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
What if the truth is somewhere in the middle? The US has enormous problems, there are many downsides to American life, especially if you're poor, black, or both, and there are many ways in which the US lags behind comparable Western co
5.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
In practice, executing a prisoner in the US is far more expensive than imprisoning him (and it's usually a "him") for life. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/costs
6.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
> In fact I think that personally, given the choice I would choose death. I, too, am not sure that I'd prefer life in prison over death, but in practice it takes decades to execute a convicted prisoner in the US, and since you'
7.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
I can't, and I also find it hard to justify life sentences for all but the most horrific of crimes (and for those who pose too much of a danger to be allowed back into society.) Norway doesn't even have a statutory penalty of &quo
8.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
Who would have guessed?
9.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
Do you have another link? From here in the UK, your link just redirects to http://eu.dispatch.com .
10.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
> At even 2.5% annual population growth rate a population recovers from a 90% population drop in under 100 years. Then the population growth was obviously lower than 2.5%. That was partly due to European oppression of course, although th
11.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
Yes, Europeans had some general idea that disease was contagious, but that doesn't contradict anything I said. Smallpox blankets were used at least once and this was obviously terrible and should be condemened, as should the Aztecs&#x2
12.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
> why is it okay to inflict pain and suffering only on the less intelligent animals? I don't think anyone argues that it's okay to inflict pain and suffering on animals. We do inflict pain and suffering on factory-farmed anim
13.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
> I also have a suspicion that orca intelligence possibly matches that of humans. I thought similar things after watching the documentary Blackfish (which is excellent.) Some of the orca behaviour documented in that film - in captivity
14.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
Europeans hardly acted like saints, but it's still true that orders of magnitude more natives - perhaps as many as 90% - were killed by disease than by direct action of the colonists. I highly recommend the book 1491 by Charles Mann wh
15.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
I've wondered if I have synesthesia. When I play music I don't literally "see" colours anywhere except in my mind's eye, but I definitely associate certain notes with certain colours. It's not something I think
16.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
Are there any Twitter subcultures that aren't cesspools?
17.
by upinsmoke1980 6y ago
You know, I've long struggled to articulate what it is about LinkedIn that I find so grating, and you just nailed it perfectly, thanks. A significant percentage of my LinkedIn contacts are friends, ex-classmates, social acquaintances,