TemulentTeatotaler's recent activity

  1. Comment on Coinage and the tyranny of fantasy ‘gold’ in ~humanities.history

    TemulentTeatotaler
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    I was surprised to not see it in the wiki, so to add another bit of history, in music the Greek modes come from Lydia and it's neighbors. The economy of scale I've heard so much about

    I was surprised to not see it in the wiki, so to add another bit of history, in music the Greek modes come from Lydia and it's neighbors.

    dragons

    The economy of scale I've heard so much about

    12 votes

  2. Comment on Poll results show the percentage supporting the position 'let them burn' regarding American institutions in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    The one that would've required a single extra non-DINO vote, if that wasn't clear. It isn't hard to find instances where policies are pretty clearly not what corporate interests wanted, like a cap...

    The one that would've required a single extra non-DINO vote, if that wasn't clear.

    It isn't hard to find instances where policies are pretty clearly not what corporate interests wanted, like a cap on insulin or other medications. Frequently you find them when the GOP gets rid of them, such as the net neutrality decision, repealing Deep Water Horizon regulations, or whatever else comes under Trump's pro-deregulation head of the EPA.

    2 votes

  3. Comment on Poll results show the percentage supporting the position 'let them burn' regarding American institutions in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    I've mostly been lurking this year, but I've seen you and other trans/queer members of the community, like Gaywallet. My heart and best wishes go to you and yours. And apologies again, I'm often...
    • Exemplary

    I've mostly been lurking this year, but I've seen you and other trans/queer members of the community, like Gaywallet. My heart and best wishes go to you and yours.

    And apologies again, I'm often not great with communication and this has been a frustrating year. I'd like to be able to wear the hats of supportive/empathetic while still expressing honest concerns as well as others in the community but I often struggle getting just one to fit.

    Part of the overhead of talking to anonymous strangers is you just have to check in sometimes because sincere and sea-lion and present the same at times.

    I'm usually happy to be corrected on my views and have pretty basic progressive/Star Trekian (well, as concisely described by others) values.

    nothing gets done to protect us nationally no matter who's in charge

    Not qualified to debate any of this, but over the last term I've seen at a number of efforts from the administration to support the trans community and the opposite from the GOP.

    Why do things like EO 13988, the recent nondiscrimination in health care safeguards, or simpler signaling of being in support of gender-affirming surgery for youth not count for caring, if perhaps inadequate?

    If you want to include some intersectional issues you can find more disappointments, but also a good number of successes.

    it's pretty hard to see a way that things will meaningfully improve

    Gay rights might be a success story? There have been massive strides forward in my lifetime, socially and politically.

    In 2008 Obama opposed gay marriage. 2010 he supported civil unions, 2012 same-sex marriage, and throughout his two terms protections were expanded to include gay people. This seemed to roughly track with changing cultural norms.

    Politics and society influence each other, and anything involving changes in the hundreds of millions to billions of people is hard to understand. Most of us just try to do our best by our conscience and intuitions.

    The curse of being a big tent party is sometimes you have many irreconciliable conflicts of interest. With Prop 8 a narrative I recall (not sure if correct) was it was going to either be that or pro-immigrant laws, depending on the amount of religious/conservative Dem Hispanics showing up.

    The question of what a pro-gay politician ought to do if they have a choice between a few stances with increasing benefit to the community but decreasing chances of winning an election is a difficult one. The follow-up question is then what should a pro-gay constituent do, especially if they don't actually know the values of that politician.

    I don't think I have any answers buy on the political front my intuition is:

    • Criticism is healthy and desirable when it corresponds to reality. When it's coming from vibes it's rewarding/penalizing perception instead of policy.
    • Protest votes or abstaining can influence a future platform, but only when that future vote is "cost-efficient". I've heard voters that voted two elections ago but skipped the last one are the most paid attention to because they're recoverable.
    • Compromise and solidarity are powerful. If nothing else Ted Cruz, Musk, or Lindsey Graham letting Trump humiliate them and having a career drive it home. The religious right got on board with the guy bragging about infidelity and sexual assault.
    • Even small steps in a positive direction can add up, and decades of progress can be lost in a week.

    On the social front most of us do our best on the daily to promote our beliefs and values in our communities. When relevant I'll point out de la Chapelle syndrome when someone wants to say "it's simple, XX = woman" or debunk the Chapelle Netflix claims of a community driving a woman to suicide for defending his bold comedy. Not losing her job and custody, ofc...

    How to "win a culture war" (read: trend Trek-wards) is something I've always struggled with, but especially recently. Which may be why I lurk (I regret everything, per usual).

    I can think of dozens of possible major contributors to the post-Obama zeitgeist, but I'm not confident in anything.

    Same with possible improvements. "Respectability politics" is a bit of a dirty word, and it's not hard to understand as it places an undue burden to placate or educate on the already marginalized or overwhelmed. "Ought implies can" and a lot of people really can't even.

    Sometimes I find an inversion helpful. "How do you ruin a relationship" can give you a nice negative blueprint for how to have a healthy one, and if you ask "how do you lose a culture war" or "how do we harm/marginalize the trans community" some horrible folks have done the legwork.

    Those 100+ member calls with alt-right influencers and conservative politicians. The troll farms of the country bombing child oncology wards.

    That's where a lot of my frustration comes from. I've seen far too many of the same talking points of alt-right-adjacent crowds and communities I ostensibly share values and goals with. Surely that ain't it.

    Thankfully my BIL is in MN where they've been killing it with getting a progressive agenda through, including trans rights.

    I get feeling abandoned or frustrated with the DNC. I'm a frequent critic, systemic or specific.

    At the same time why shouldn't Walz or Harris feel abandoned by the populace that looked at him and JD Vance and thought "no real difference"? Call your running mate America's next Hitler, refuse to say the 2020 election was lost, make up and double-down on a story about immigrants eating pets-- same deal, totally get sitting out this election.

    If I'm being honest I feel like more needs to change socially than politically. And that's harder. There may never be a bigger difference between candidates, or a more obviously immoral and incompetent person elected... and it didn't matter. Given polls showing complete ignorance on some measurable topics, I could make some guesses, but I'd checked out of politics before the postmortem. Intellectually a pragmatist, emotionally black-pilled for a bit.

    It's honestly baffling, and that is the impetus of the aforementioned soul-searching. Something clearly went/is wrong, and at least some of it resonates with me. I've got people I've known who are active and involved in their community and I'm not. I have no delusion of any moral highground. Voting in a deep red state, as you pointed out, doesn't make any direct impact, and I was swamped or drained and did a minimum.

    For me, some part of that is an admission that my preferred process is inadequate.

    When I see flame wars involving trans athletes part of me is like... I got this. Surely I can write just the right screed to win hearts and minds, this is what my decades of education and giving a shit were for. But it's fighting the culture war by committing to a pitched battle on unfavorable terrain. It's something next to no one needs to be talking about, a carefully-selected contentious issue that pertains to a very small fraction of a small fraction. In giving it attention is breaths life into it, and you wind up with someone hearing from a babysitter of a friend that kitty litter is a real problem in schools. And it doesn't matter if I'm "correct" or Rawls is my homeboy if it doesn't matter to whoever I'm communicating with.

    ...anyways, sorry, deleted things but this is either going to be deleted or stay a rant. So I'll end it here, with a slightly more positive anecdote I've kept with me that's germane (heh) to the feelings of ineffectuality of an individual wanting to change the world.

    There was an interview I caught with a researched who'd found that social media posts of friends, and friends-of-friends was better able to predict things like quitting smoking than the individual's own history. When asked if it bothered her that this suggested her free will was more a product of her community/environment than her own self-determination, she said that it also meant that she was able to have some positive influence on all those other people as well. We're small and inconsequential, but not alone. And our better moods or choices can go viral, sometimes.

    11 votes

  4. Comment on Poll results show the percentage supporting the position 'let them burn' regarding American institutions in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I should reword that since it was unclear that the unfortunate thing was thev sentiment of the country. I'm a bit low on sleep, sorry. My now BIL is trans, and while I'm not especially close with...

    I should reword that since it was unclear that the unfortunate thing was thev sentiment of the country. I'm a bit low on sleep, sorry.

    My now BIL is trans, and while I'm not especially close with them they're looking at leaving the country. My former housemate asked me about secure communication because they're scared. I've been stuck in a deep red state for close to a decade taking care of a disabled parent, and as part of that I'm exposed to a good deal of the conservative antipathy.

    I'm not trying to make some sort of "I have black friends" excuse. I have people I'm very worried for in my life and frankly they're owed more than empathy, which is a given. They're owed better outcomes. I sincerely believe doomerism and both-sidesism is harmful.

    8 votes

  5. Comment on Poll results show the percentage supporting the position 'let them burn' regarding American institutions in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    Honestly I don't have time to reply right now, and probably won't later. I can point out all the pro-worker initiatives under Biden, or revisit the ACA public option and Joe Lieberman like...

    Neither party is pushing for universal healthcare, or paid parental leave. Neither is putting nearly enough support behind Unions not only retaining what power they have, but expanding into new industries and supporting workers rights into the future. Neither party enshrined bodily autonomy rights into law. Neither side protected the supreme court from becoming a biased, untrustworthy institution.

    Honestly I don't have time to reply right now, and probably won't later.

    I can point out all the pro-worker initiatives under Biden, or revisit the ACA public option and Joe Lieberman like NaraVara was.

    Fundamentally the issue is--and don't take this as negative or malicious-- magical thinking.

    If you want to make a valid heuristic for solving a puzzle you can just remove one of the constraints. Squares can move anywhere, or they can overlap. That is the core of accelerationist/abstain/burn-the-system thinking. If you want to fix American politics just rally the people to have a constitutional convention! Get the people to do <large political movement>, like the sub 1% of the population that was the hippies, convinced they could change the world with music and free love.

    When pinned down by pragmatism those options are far harder than just not rewarding bad actors. Democrats have actually accomplished some pretty significant things with the narrowest of margins in a broad-tent coalition with diverse preferences, and they got punished for it.

    Maybe there are some hidden background dealings with healthcare executes that scuttled the public option of ACA. It's not impossible. It's also possible a purple Democrat whose spent the last decade working for conservative interests was the deciding vote.

    12 votes

  6. Comment on Poll results show the percentage supporting the position 'let them burn' regarding American institutions in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    Which I understand, and if you'd like I could requote myself. It's not much of a mystery. I've got trans friends, had a former housemate who transitioned who'd been kicked out of her house and...

    I'm explicitly not advocating for not voting nor for accelerationist nonsense. I'm focusing on understanding why people feel alienated.

    Which I understand, and if you'd like I could requote myself. It's not much of a mystery. I've got trans friends, had a former housemate who transitioned who'd been kicked out of her house and living on the streets for years.

    What I'm saying is many people signal-boost a particular narrative which smooths out the sort of differences that make incremental progress possible at the same time as over-representing the feelings of rejection or hate.

    Focusing exclusively on the inadequacies of a party to address trans concerns instead of the progress of someone like Sarah McBride is harmful. Am I supposed to be thrilled about this sort of understandable political self-harm?

    If anything, and unfortunately, the DNC probably positioned itself more pro-trans than the average party member or country member and was punished for it.

    5 votes

  7. Comment on Poll results show the percentage supporting the position 'let them burn' regarding American institutions in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    That feeling is understandable, but it doesn't make them correct. Trump wants to turn Palestine into real-estate and arguably accelerated this situation moving the embassy and reneging on the Iran...

    Advocates for Palestine, including Palestinian Americans often express similar feelings.

    That feeling is understandable, but it doesn't make them correct. Trump wants to turn Palestine into real-estate and arguably accelerated this situation moving the embassy and reneging on the Iran deal.

    Life is awful in Palestine but there is a difference between a party that is trying to appeal to manage being a large-tent with ~80% Jewish constituency and one that is gungho about glassing Palestine. In one there is the most basic pressure to do less harm, and the most basic efforts to provide aid.

    Thank god we got voters to do what Netenyahu wanted! We sure... showed them.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on Poll results show the percentage supporting the position 'let them burn' regarding American institutions in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I can blame them, and I blame rhetoric like this. The intellectually lazy SouthParkian "Turd Sandwich vs Giant Douche" speech that relieves them of the need to engage with a complex reality. Do...
    • Exemplary

    when you're voting for two options that obviously don't care about you

    I can blame them, and I blame rhetoric like this. The intellectually lazy SouthParkian "Turd Sandwich vs Giant Douche" speech that relieves them of the need to engage with a complex reality.

    Do the two parties behave in some ways like duopolies? Yes. Is lobbying and corporatism a major issue? Yes.

    When you move past that and do the research you'll find that the parties are not alike, and regardless of their secret beliefs they vote very differently on prosocial policies.

    For instance, keeping money out of politics. Guess which SCOTUS members supported Citizens United, and which party has supported/opposed legislation (e.g., Democracy for All Amendment) to retract that multiple times. How about the DISCLOSE act? The BCRA back in 2002? For the People Act? Freedom to Vote Act? Fair Elections Now Act?

    Linda Khan is not the same as Ajit Pai or DeJoy. Voting actually matters, and the people/groups that have the most exploitative policies (and foreign adversaries like Russia) are the ones that push to make it harder to vote and these sort of "voting is pointless" / "the government is broken" / "all politicians are corrupt" accelerationist memes.

    51 votes

  9. Comment on Jeff Bezos vetoed Washington Post plan to endorse Kamala Harris, paper reports in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link
    Trump met the executives of Blue Origin the same day:

    Trump met the executives of Blue Origin the same day:

    The former president’s meeting came on the same das it was reported that The Washington Post would not be endorsing a presidential candidate in the 2024 election. The outlet reported Friday that Bezos, the paper’s billionaire owner, himself made the decision to yank the endorsement of Trump’s rival, Vice President Harris, which the news outlet’s editorial board already prepared.

    23 votes

  10. Comment on The Electoral College is bad in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    That paired with mandatory voting (or investment of your vote) is a system I'd be most interested in seeing play out. Another, that would probably have catastrophic growing pains, would be...

    That paired with mandatory voting (or investment of your vote) is a system I'd be most interested in seeing play out.

    Another, that would probably have catastrophic growing pains, would be something like how my brother described WoW DKP points. Politicians are given some sort of voting currency which they spend (possibly blind/anonymously) over the course of the term to determine whether actions pass or not.

    Some legal mechanism for enforcing campaign promises would also be interesting, including things like "I will vote in alignment with the majority of participating constituents on bills related to issue Y".

    8 votes

  11. Comment on Is there actual long-term issues with teens watching movies that are rated out of their range? in ~movies

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    That would be my initial guess, that it might line up with "openness to experience" of OCEAN/Big 5 traits. I remember that was the jist of the "damaged goods" hypothesis for porn actors: A mix of...

    those who are sensation seeking

    That would be my initial guess, that it might line up with "openness to experience" of OCEAN/Big 5 traits. I remember that was the jist of the "damaged goods" hypothesis for porn actors:

    Porn actresses were more likely to identify as bisexual, first had sex at an earlier age, had more sexual partners, were more concerned about contracting a sexually transmitted disease (STD), and enjoyed sex more than the matched sample, although there were no differences in incidence of CSA. In terms of psychological characteristics, porn actresses had higher levels of self-esteem, positive feelings, social support, sexual satisfaction, and spirituality compared to the matched group. Last, female performers were more likely to have ever used 10 different types of drugs compared to the comparison group

    A mix of negative and positive measures ripe for making whatever argument about it you want.

    12 votes

  12. Comment on Hackers take control of robot vacuums in multiple US cities, yell racial slurs in ~tech

  13. Comment on AI accuses journalist of escaping psych ward, abusing children and widows in ~tech

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    Tons of them? Weather prediction, investment, health advice, polling, brainstorming for writers or marketers-- there are endless examples of topics that are extremely hard to get high degrees of...

    In what other commercial sector would it be possible to get away with something like this

    Tons of them? Weather prediction, investment, health advice, polling, brainstorming for writers or marketers-- there are endless examples of topics that are extremely hard to get high degrees of accuracy wrt their intended performance measure, but for which a model or professional is able to do a decent job.

    Some accuracy about an impending hurricane is life saving. Some intuition about what plot would be funny or engaging is a starting point to refine or get feedback on. I've recently had a parent get four different sets of incompatible explanations of their medical situation.

    Take wikipedia. It has a page on its own reliability and includes several times it gave false biographical information. Are wikipedia contributions deterministic? Should we stop using it?

    I think most people would say no. In the early days teachers would say it's terrible, never use it. Then repeated studies suggested it outperformed encyclopedias (at least on a type of topic). Most people I've asked have a "trust but verify" approach, checking the sources if in doubt/citing, and downgrading confidence in the information if those sorts of references are missing.

    And that can't be fixed

    Maybe not "fixed", but why can't it be improved? You can't categorically fix wikipedia or human experts, but you can build safeguards around uncertainty in a complex world.

    Give a thumbs down to a wrong answer to refine the replies with stuff like RLHF. Push for LLMs to do more citations with stuff like RAG. Add checks for things like phone numbers or addresses like sparksbet mentioned.

    The same sort of critical thinking and media literacy that I was taught in school works fine for me with LLMs. Any savvy synthesizer of information should be checking for red flags and some convergence of answers from different sources (on anything that matters).

    10 votes

  14. Comment on The pot farm next door: Black market weed operations inundate California suburb, cops say in ~news

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    Civil forfeiture used to be a hot topic and probably has a lot of related stories of police taking things with no/weak grounds. Some with great names like United States v. $124,700 in U.S....

    Civil forfeiture used to be a hot topic and probably has a lot of related stories of police taking things with no/weak grounds. Some with great names like United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency.

    Not sure if there's been any progress made since then. Definitely recall seeing a number of very unflattering stories about gangs in LAPD or treatment of marijuana industries in California (e.g., a pizza party). Especially when the quasi legal status was more fresh.

    7 votes

  15. Comment on Kamala Harris's speech killed any hope she would end the Gaza genocide in ~society

  16. Comment on Donald Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after apparent gunshots rang through the crowd in ~news

  17. Comment on Donald Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after apparent gunshots rang through the crowd in ~news

    TemulentTeatotaler
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    The CSIS report is one I've seen come up. They separate out religious extremism with the groups: From 1994 to 2020 left-wing attacks were more common from ~2000-2005, but it mentions: In terms of...

    The CSIS report is one I've seen come up. They separate out religious extremism with the groups:

    ...right-wing terrorism refers to the use or threat of violence by sub-national or non-state entities whose goals may include racial or ethnic supremacy; opposition to government authority; anger at women, including from the incel (“involuntary celibate”) movement; and outrage against certain policies, such as abortion.6 This analysis uses the term “right-wing terrorism” rather than “racially- and ethnically-motivated violent extremism,

    ...left-wing terrorism involves the use or threat of violence by sub-national or non-state entities that oppose capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism; pursue environmental or animal rights issues; espouse pro-communist or pro-socialist beliefs; or support a decentralized social and political system such as anarchism

    ...religious terrorism includes violence in support of a faith-based belief system, such as Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism

    From 1994 to 2020 left-wing attacks were more common from ~2000-2005, but it mentions:

    Most of these left-wing attacks targeted property associated with animal research, farming, or construction

    In terms of fatilities, if you remove the very large outlier of 9/11:

    In comparison, right-wing terrorist attacks caused 335 deaths, left-wing attacks caused 22 deaths, and ethnonationalist terrorists caused 5 deaths

    21 votes

  18. Comment on Donald Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after apparent gunshots rang through the crowd in ~news

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    Or it could be an opening to remind everyone of when Trump endorsed "the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat", praised Gianforte for attacking a reporter, or lied about his mass of connections...

    Or it could be an opening to remind everyone of when Trump endorsed "the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat", praised Gianforte for attacking a reporter, or lied about his mass of connections to the Heritage Foundation with their president's recent comment on a revolution that will "remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

    Some Americans might wake up to the possibility that this sort of violence and potential Balkanization is what Trump represents.

    We're a bit off script. We can make educated guesses--and this ain't great-- but I don't think anyone can really forecast the next few months.

    32 votes

  19. Comment on Joe Biden's path to US re-election has all but vanished in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    Do you have a source for this majority? And are they freaking out because that is what their job is when Biden makes mistakes or trends down, or are a majority of them calling for him to be...

    It’s not just him either, a majority of Democratic strategists are freaking out right now.

    Do you have a source for this majority? And are they freaking out because that is what their job is when Biden makes mistakes or trends down, or are a majority of them calling for him to be replaced because they believe that is a better path to victory?

    I would've been happy if Biden didn't run, I'd have been good with him stepping aside after the debate. I've got tons of anxiety about the election, and I'm frustrated with the apparent inability of the DNC to groom talent from what you'd think would be a mucher larger pool.

    That said, the only thing I think is pretty clearly a wrong decision is indecision.

    At this point I doubt Biden is being replaced. And if that's the case, I find it hard to not think that two months later I'm going to be looking back at all of the attempts to build consensus to replace Biden as something other than doing the GOPs job for them.

    Trump had his party do a 50+ point change in opinion Russia. Lindsey Graham went from calling him deranged and unfit to being a sycophant calling him unfairly persecuted. The religious right went from being disgusted by his vulgarity and cheating on his pregnant wives to rationalizations about the Lord using imperfect vessels. Personally I find all that disgusting and hypocritical, but damn if it ain't powerful.

    11 votes

  20. Comment on Joe Biden's path to US re-election has all but vanished in ~society

    TemulentTeatotaler
    Link Parent
    Not exactly making the case that "all but vanished" isn't sensational.

    "Our model currently predicts that Donald Trump has a 55% chance of winning the Presidency. "

    Not exactly making the case that "all but vanished" isn't sensational.

    19 votes