GoatOnPony's recent activity
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Comment on Minute Cryptic in ~hobbies
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Comment on Minute Cryptic in ~hobbies
GoatOnPony LinkI've been enjoying parseword which has a nice UI to help explore the options by clicking on the words so you can see what operations they perform. I think it's a bit easier and approachable than...I've been enjoying parseword which has a nice UI to help explore the options by clicking on the words so you can see what operations they perform. I think it's a bit easier and approachable than other cryptid options but you do only get one a day.
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Comment on How funerals keep Africa poor in ~life
GoatOnPony Link ParentThanks for the reply. I don't think I particularly disagree with your comment except that we have different views of the intent and thesis of the article. As I said, an article with limited aims...Thanks for the reply. I don't think I particularly disagree with your comment except that we have different views of the intent and thesis of the article. As I said, an article with limited aims of presenting the specific exorbitant funeral costs as a predatory practice and a piece of general interest, totally fine to skip over the larger picture. Examining how a particular practice might produce ills in the society at large is good and can be done with less context. My claim is that that's not the article before us and that it's thesis and argument are not contained to the narrow scope of pricy funerals. It's making a significantly broader claim where other systemic factors are germane and relevant. If you don't think it's making those broader claims then I can see how my comments come across as superfluous.
And again, I've never said that you can't critique social practices or apply universal moral standards. I'm not a moral relativist. Post an article specifically about genital mutilation and I'll condemn the practice. Post an article that genital mutilation is the cause of infant mortality where it also vaguely implies that trans people shouldn't exist and I'll condemn the article though.
This article is the latter and not the former. It's particular critique is flawed in as such that it's used to argue a broader condemnation of kinship societies or posit either as the (not just any, but the) primary agent of poverty and vaguely imply that we should all just shut up about western societies being too individualistic. My critique of the article is limited to it taking that angle. If you don't see that angle being the primary one then I fear we can only ever talk past each other
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Comment on How funerals keep Africa poor in ~life
GoatOnPony Link ParentIt's not as explicit as it once was, but the continent is still to some extent exploited. Multinational corporations still own and extract much of Africa's mineral wealth. Industries reliant on...It's not as explicit as it once was, but the continent is still to some extent exploited. Multinational corporations still own and extract much of Africa's mineral wealth. Industries reliant on African cash crops share very little wealth back to the continent despite large profits in their home countries. Loans from the IMF come with requirements for privatization and austerity. Unequal trade agreements protect western industrial imports.
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Comment on How funerals keep Africa poor in ~life
GoatOnPony Link ParentThe article has a heading titled "Kinship societies are wealth-destroying societies" and says "Economic development is extraordinarily difficult in intensive kinship culture" and also remarks how...The article has a heading titled "Kinship societies are wealth-destroying societies" and says "Economic development is extraordinarily difficult in intensive kinship culture" and also remarks how "suffocating that social world is, how parasitical it is on its most productive members, and how poisonous it is for any prospect of economic development". There's a lot like that in the article. It's pretty explicit in its hypothesis.
I didn't talk about the funeral rights in particular, but I will say that all societies indulge in many many rituals and activities that don't go into infrastructure, healthcare, or anything that's productive or a better use of capital. That's just called living life, no? We might readily agree that perhaps the amount of expenditure on funerals is too much relative to other priorities, but I'd hope it's an issue with the amount spent rather than with the activity itself. People need fulfillment beyond the base tiers of Maslow's heirarchy even if those base tiers aren't being consistently met. Economists, and likely the article's author, can call this an irrational wastage of potential but it doesn't make it wrong or bad.
In my original post I already said I'm not trying to take a moral relativist stance, there are practices that should be shunned or condemned. Costly funerals are not on that list for me though.
Finally, I don't think every discussion of issues needs caveating with 'Colonialism' but I think it's extremely telling that this author makes no mention of it and makes the claims they're making. I'll just be blunt: I think this article is a thinly veiled trojan horse of an ideology attempting to assuage western guilt at the consequences of our imperialist and colonialist past by pointing only at the idea that poverty is really just a choice that 'some specific groups of people' are making. It states that kinship groups are performing the role of the welfare state and then paints all recipients as mooches. It calls warm familial bonds wistful thinking and roundly reduces human life to a measure of productive output. It ignores any possible responsibility that we in the west may have towards addressing poverty and paints the kinship group as an active, malevolent adversary to a nebulously defined idea of progress. I'd usually give the benefit of the doubt and just allow this to be a 'oh look at that interesting societal quirk' type of article where broader systemic issues can be elided, but this article has some agenda beyond that so I feel it's relevant to bring up that missing context.
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Comment on How funerals keep Africa poor in ~life
GoatOnPony Link ParentI think I'd still probe a bit on whether kinship networks are an obstacle to economic growth, there's a number of assumptions that the article makes which I think deserve a closer look, eg: that...I think I'd still probe a bit on whether kinship networks are an obstacle to economic growth, there's a number of assumptions that the article makes which I think deserve a closer look, eg:
- that kinship networks are at conflict with rule of law and contractual obligations
- that ritual removal of wealth cannot be repurposed into social benefit (eg. if wealth was given away to motivate some lasting communal improvement)
- that capital allocation must be done at an individual's discretion in order to be effective (family and communally owned businesses exist after all)
- that individual capital accumulation is necessary to alleviate poverty in particular (ie. why individuals instead of at the state, society, or family group level might not be better positioned to intercede to help those in need)
- that these wealth burning rituals are not producing beneficial externalties worth preserving in at least some form (many cultures include extravagent events)
I agree with some of those assumptions (at least in a weakened form), but there's still too much missing for me to agree to the conclusion that kinship networks are an important obstacle.
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Comment on How funerals keep Africa poor in ~life
GoatOnPony Link ParentDo we see split economic results based on strong kinship? A split rigorous enough to show cause and effect? The article doesn't present evidence showing that afaict, nor does it do any comparisons...Do we see split economic results based on strong kinship? A split rigorous enough to show cause and effect? The article doesn't present evidence showing that afaict, nor does it do any comparisons to look at other countries. Even if it did, there's a long way to go before establishing that strong kinship is not just a contributing factor but supposedly /the/ contributing factor. Perhaps there is something there, but the article is not presenting the kind of analysis I'd need to really entertain it when instead we could, eg. investigate mineral wealth exploitation or work to reconstitute USAID. It's not good to keep asking 'why' when there's an opportunity cost to not pursuing the immediate and obvious issues.
An analysis which says that a broad material issue is due specifically to culture, especially a culture that the author is not from, needs to meet an incredibly high bar because it's a suggestion that is ripe for abuse. Many imperialist projects were started under the stated aim of reshaping an indigenous culture 'for their own material betterment' up to and including the present day. Again, this isn't to say that cultures are impervious to critique in some absolute moral relatist way, but it's not critiques we should levee lightly.
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Comment on How funerals keep Africa poor in ~life
GoatOnPony LinkI found the article thought provoking, but rubbed me the wrong way. It makes a bold claim - that kinship societies are incapable of 'economic development' and by implication that the only path for...- Exemplary
I found the article thought provoking, but rubbed me the wrong way. It makes a bold claim - that kinship societies are incapable of 'economic development' and by implication that the only path for poverty reduction is through a social revolution to specifically make the people conform to Western individualist (rational, egoist, dependent on state over other structures) standards. This gets applied to an entire continent with a variety of cultures, history, and economic conditions. I don't want to just 'noble savage' and say kinship societies are perfect and propagate no social ills, they most certainly do. But to put everything on a linearized scale of kinship vs individualism and say that one is the source of impoverishment seems reductivist and like the author has a particular agenda. The whole thing is written as though this person's family went and stole their house.
I'm also shocked that any discussion positing a single reason for Africa's poverty can ignore the international and historical systems of oppression that have been, and continue to be levied against the continent. A framing of the issue as 'African kinship societies are just fundamentally bad at getting themselves out of poverty' really looks like an attempt to absolve any obligations Western countries have towards developmental aid, except of course to promote our 'superior' values of individualist capital accumulation (which of course should not be maligned here at home either lest we too slide into impoverishment). That's an uncharitable take perhaps, but I don't think the author's take was particularly charitable either.
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Comment on Searching for neighbours on the indie web in ~tech
GoatOnPony (edited )LinkHopefully I'm not too late, but I just created a simple 88x31 button png for my website stack of goats! Currently my website has mostly progress updates on projects and TTRPG content that I've...Hopefully I'm not too late, but I just created a simple 88x31 button png for my website stack of goats! Currently my website has mostly progress updates on projects and TTRPG content that I've been putting up for free. I don't yet have any buttons but I do have a webring and also a wander console. I'll try to get a home for buttons and add folks sites to the wander console as soon as I can!
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
GoatOnPony LinkAbout two months ago I started on a TTRPG blog series where I roll a random wikipedia article and turn it into game content, eg. if I get an article for a politician I might create an NPC or a...About two months ago I started on a TTRPG blog series where I roll a random wikipedia article and turn it into game content, eg. if I get an article for a politician I might create an NPC or a faction or a way to run elections in a session. It's been a great way so far to flex creativity muscles! I'm up to 17 posts and the latest went up yesterday. It adapts the idea of a news anchor to a fantasy setting. I also drew an illustration to go with it which I quite like how how it turned out.
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Comment on The dead economy theory in ~society
GoatOnPony Link ParentThat logic feels equally applicable to capitalist systems. Most people want stuff and inequality denies it from them, necessitating force to protect said assets. And that is on a more ongoing...That logic feels equally applicable to capitalist systems. Most people want stuff and inequality denies it from them, necessitating force to protect said assets. And that is on a more ongoing basis. America has the fifth highest per capital incarceration rate after all.
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Comment on Do we want to stop all crime? in ~society
GoatOnPony LinkThere's a variety of pragmatic reasons why the thought experiment isn't applicable to the real world: no universal agreement on criminal activity and suitable punishment, no powerful system is...There's a variety of pragmatic reasons why the thought experiment isn't applicable to the real world: no universal agreement on criminal activity and suitable punishment, no powerful system is instantaneous and perfect and impossible to abuse, and figuring out the right proportionality of punishment is just truly unknowable except by some omniscient entity capable of understanding our inner thoughts (hence why it's a popular invention).
But I do want to try and engage in the thought experiment on its more philosophical grounds and propose that even if those practical issues were solved we wouldn't like it. Humans aren't perfectly rational, perfectly computing machines ourselves - we want some slack to be lazy and selfish and getting an unfair leg up even if we don't perceive our behavior as such. We spend the vast majority of our lives as amoral entities in that we don't even think to apply moral reasoning to every thing we do. Trying to coerce people into behaving morally every moment would be exhausting and consume all our mental energy even if there was some outside system which handled enforcement for us.
Separately, if your thought experiment fleshed out into a pretty good anime intrigues you, go watch psycho pass where the police are given a means to determine someone's crime coefficient.
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Comment on 'The report's so stupid': The DNC 2024 autopsy is roiling US Democrats in ~society
GoatOnPony Link ParentI think a self reported single axis poll is misleading tbh. If you poll people on individual policies that are associated with the left (healthcare, gun control, immigration reform, drug...I think a self reported single axis poll is misleading tbh. If you poll people on individual policies that are associated with the left (healthcare, gun control, immigration reform, drug legalization, etc) there's often majority support. On other issues I think there's often underlying values aligned stymied by bad communication. There's not a neat dichotomy or smooth continuum where a moderate is equidistant between left and right. People want principled parties arguing for their interests not politicians who slide around based on poll data.
There's also this notion that Democrats should move to the right, but Republicans get a free pass on their continued movement right. Perhaps chasing their movement and allowing them to control the overton window just results in ceding policy ground rather than capturing any new electorate.
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Comment on The old world of tech is dying and the new cannot be born in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link ParentAI can be a productivity boost while simultaneously being a tool of hegemonic control and coercion. The US isn't going out and holding a gun to people's heads telling them to use AI, but it...AI can be a productivity boost while simultaneously being a tool of hegemonic control and coercion. The US isn't going out and holding a gun to people's heads telling them to use AI, but it certainly can use protectionist economic policy (control over who gets access to graphics cards being a prime example), try to pass inane legislation that prevents states from regulating AI separately to give them an incredibly lax regulatory environment, and in general allow tech CEOs deep deep access to government agencies and lobbying (see all of the tech CEOs standing behind Trump at inauguration). There's a symbiosis here between big tech companies and US power. Tech companies get a lax tax + regulatory environment, government contracts for compute, and the knowledge that the US will back up their foreign prospects just like it has for any other major US economic sector. In return the US government gets huge amounts of data access (FISA, five eyes, etc) and biasing of information flows towards pro American/pro Western viewpoints.
The US is not over as a global superpower and it probably never will be, but it could be very similar to how Russia or England remain as global powers. It's certainly not the monopolar juggernaught of the 90's and 2000s anymore though. It's over indexed on technological overmatch in a way that isn't likely to matter in most conflicts it fights in while absolutely ballooning the budget and leaving itself unable to operate a long term conflict. If the requirement for global superpower is ability to pinpoint first strike a target anywhere in the world, that capability will probably always be retained. At the very least the US will maintain a potent nuclear capability. If the requirement is to enact regime change to promote pro western or at least pro western business interests then the US is not doing so great in the last two decades. Instead of Iraq and Afghanistan (Iraq a costly wash and Afghanistan a costly failure) I'd point to Venezuela as the prime example of the US military retaining superpower status.
I also think saying that the US expanded a small part of its military power against Iran is a mild understatement or at least not clear cut, the US has thrown a lot of assets at the region and expended much of them in an unsustainable way. Missile and interceptor stockpiles are way down and the gaps in the US navy's ship capacity are visible (not enough minesweepers or destroyers to really do an effective job). It's too early to tell the actual cost but the government asking for an extra $500B for defense is not a good sign. The US can ride on the investments it made in previous eras for only so long before more huge expenditures will be needed to modernize. So far the US has failed in various efforts to modernize military hardware (primarily with several classes of ships but the f35 was a costly success and current efforts to update rifles is... dubious) when a key advantage has been huge technological overmatch.
I don't have a particular view on the EU, I'm an American who just goes to visit sometimes, but the idea that it "reduced their peoples' wellbeing" I don't agree with. If your measure is GDP per capita sure, US is doing better on that metric (which I think is a pretty terrible metric), but in terms of actual wellbeing? The EU seems to be doing just fine on that front, IMO better than the US by a wide margin.
Regarding the petrodollar, the US is not a neutral actor just standing on the sidelines - it's involved itself via sanctions (I think sanctions is probably the biggest one, weaponizing the US economy against those who don't want to play ball), military and economic alliances with Middle Eastern countries, and direct military action to help ensure that countries want to buy in dollars and not another currency. It's not the only factor, perhaps not the dominant factor, but it is certainly a tool that the US has an interest in keeping and does so.
I think my main point is not that the article is right, but more that it's not entirely wrong either. The US government and oligarchic elites are not neutral actors who operate in some open marketplace, they want the scales tilted towards them and take action to do so. The effectiveness of that is tied to the relative strength of the US on the world stage and that relative advantage is sliding, I'd argue sliding fast. The US has spent 250 years working to accumulate leverage in ways small and large across the entire world, unwinding that won't be fast! The last year though has dramatically quickened the pace and made the slide much more obvious.
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Comment on Is British English actually better than American English? in ~humanities.languages
GoatOnPony Link ParentNot a linguist, but languages do have some objective differences but not in measures we'd reliably agree on as having a better direction. For example, spoken languages convey information at...Not a linguist, but languages do have some objective differences but not in measures we'd reliably agree on as having a better direction. For example, spoken languages convey information at roughly the same rate regardless of how quickly it sounds like it's being spoken. Some languages require different pieces of information to be considered, eg. there's languages which encode how reliable a piece of information is (first or second hand) or have more or less tenses or gendered pronouns, but saying any of those features are objectively better is extremely hard. It seems like everyone is capable of conveying or inferring from context all the necessary bits even if their language doesn't require or explicitly encode for it. Some languages maybe make slightly different tradeoffs about what gets priortized.
Also interesting to look at constructed languages which explore a bunch of different features and ideas of languages, but no constructed language has ever really taken off.
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Comment on Spirit Airlines shutting down after rescue talks collapse in ~transport
GoatOnPony Link ParentA working antitrust ecosystem will have more, smaller companies. That will be a more volatile ecosystem with new entrants coming and various ones failing as the margins for companies will be...A working antitrust ecosystem will have more, smaller companies. That will be a more volatile ecosystem with new entrants coming and various ones failing as the margins for companies will be thinner and their ability to absorb significant shocks reduced. If nothing else, more companies existing in a market just means a higher number of companies going under if every company has some chance of failure. In theory, this volatility is good (at least for markets which aren't necessary goods) as new ideas enter and weaker companies fall out. Whether or not the airlines market is working in that theoretical mode I'm not knowledgeable enough to say, so this is more just a comment that more companies failing kinda should be expected under an antitrust regime.
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Comment on San Diego now has so much water that it's selling it in ~enviro
GoatOnPony Link ParentLawns are roughly half of all residential water use, they haven't gone away and are still the largest single source of residential water use, this isn't a matter of 'start installing'. We've spent...Lawns are roughly half of all residential water use, they haven't gone away and are still the largest single source of residential water use, this isn't a matter of 'start installing'. We've spent years nagging people about lawns and it seems to be basically just treading water (pun intended). If you care about lawns insist on apartment buildings and density which will probably have more impact on lawn usage. I also doubt that the years of nagging people about lawns has made them suddenly pro water conservation.
More importantly, the drought crisis(es) in California is not caused by residential lawns. They're about 4-5% of statewide water usage, which is not nothing, but still not enough to make or break the state's water budget in isolation. If we magically snapped our fingers and removed all lawns it wouldn't be enough to cover the shortfall in drought years. I'd love to see lawns reduced, golf courses torn out, and more efficient park landscaping, but I do genuinely worry that it's been made an outsized point of contention relative to the impact it has.
This is more like antibiotics resistance rather than vaccines. With vaccines regular people are the total group of recipients and everyone really does need to do their part. With antibiotics, the vast majority of usage is on farm animals, so pestering people about responsible usage of antibiotics is a drop in the bucket compared to what we need to be tackling which is farm animal welfare. I don't want to completely minimize self responsibility, but some battles are more about the systemic factors than any individual action can meaningfully make.
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Comment on San Diego now has so much water that it's selling it in ~enviro
GoatOnPony (edited )Link ParentI think there's a distinction worth drawing between a few overlapping elements around water conservation: cultural water use practices to maintain and improve efficient usage of water building...I think there's a distinction worth drawing between a few overlapping elements around water conservation:
- cultural water use practices to maintain and improve efficient usage of water
- building political will to fix structural issues
- shaping the narrative about what the issue is
Instilling discipline in people about the first doesn't necessarily help the latter two. Much of the time focusing on the individual water practices actually hinders those goals by having people focus on individual footprint instead of the industrial/agricultural footprint, similar to discussion about carbon footprints. Discussion about where water is sourced is an element to building the political structure in as much as we can get people to care about the majesty and ecosystem importance of waterways, but that's not usually the messaging I hear.
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Comment on San Diego now has so much water that it's selling it in ~enviro
GoatOnPony Link ParentThe crazy thing to me is that overall (total, not per capita!) residential water usage has gone down/stayed constant in California despite the population doubling. Urban water use is also a tiny...The crazy thing to me is that overall (total, not per capita!) residential water usage has gone down/stayed constant in California despite the population doubling. Urban water use is also a tiny portion of water usage in the state relative to agricultural use. Southern california is a little different in that residential use is higher and there's less agriculture, but still the trend AFAIK is a lot of population growth without much change in water usage.
This is part of why I'm always annoyed that we worry so much about drought in the state when residential use is already very efficient (excepting perhaps lawns). While agriculture has also gotten more efficient it's still the biggest user and has way more space to change, primarily to stop growing water intensive crops like alfalfa, almonds, or rice.
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Comment on What steps can the average user do to secure their data privacy? in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link ParentIt's very hard to maintain privacy without security, so I don't think they're neatly separable concerns. That xkcd comic is overused IMO. There's a meaningful category of threat modeling where you...It's very hard to maintain privacy without security, so I don't think they're neatly separable concerns.
That xkcd comic is overused IMO. There's a meaningful category of threat modeling where you assume the bad actors are malevolent enough to use restraint but not going to torture you, ie. regular cops and not the CIA or even a random pickpocket who will flash a phone at your face as they run away but won't beat you up in a busy area. In the US a biometric passcode is not as protected and you can be compelled to unlock a device with a fingerprint/face scan as part of a search and they're not going to bust out the wrench for a passcode. Courts in the US hold that forcing a passcode would violate the fifth amendment so there's additional legal protections. As for the periodic requirement to use a master password, that doesn't help very much, police and criminals have tools to keep a device awake indefinitely after one unlock. Better is to know how to put the device into lockdown mode and do that whenever you are in a place likely to involve police or pickpockets.
Having said all that, I think the better approach is biometric on the device itself (and know how to put the device into lockdown mode anyway) and then use individual apps which require a passcode/pin to access ala signals PIN.
Oh wow, fantastic job on it! It's one of only like 3 web games I keep returning to solve while on short train rides :)