metatron207's recent activity
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Comment on I'm so excited about the Singapore summit. I am really hoping for a productive deal to come out of it. in ~talk
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Comment on What are your thoughts on a Universal Basic Income? in ~talk
metatron207 Link ParentThe difficulty really depends on the scale of the project you're talking about. Near where I live there are several trailer parks that have been bought out by their residents, and some fairly...The difficulty really depends on the scale of the project you're talking about. Near where I live there are several trailer parks that have been bought out by their residents, and some fairly large residential buildings in the middle of one of the state's biggest cities, all of which use a cooperative style of ownership and management. If you were talking about all of Manhattan buying up their residences, or maybe even a single block, that would be too big to manage.
The "very localized government" is just the board, really; it's no different in that sense from forming any other kind of incorporated business or nonprofit, except that the Board of Directors has a much bigger stake in the outcome.
Raising the funds for purchase is the most significant problem in my mind, and there are a number of ways of handling that: working with credit unions to develop special loan programs, or working with state and local governments and whatever finance agencies exist to give residents (and workers, too; you mentioned that you're not just talking about rent, and neither am I -- this is a solution I would apply to most facets of private ownership) right of first refusal and better loan options.
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Comment on What are your thoughts on a Universal Basic Income? in ~talk
metatron207 Link ParentI think the solution, rather than legal safeguards like rent controls, is to encourage more renters -- especially once they have some money in their pockets via a UBI -- to form renters'...I think the solution, rather than legal safeguards like rent controls, is to encourage more renters -- especially once they have some money in their pockets via a UBI -- to form renters' cooperatives and start purchasing the buildings they rent in. This isn't going to work for luxury places that make a significant profit, but those renters are probably already not worried about increased rents. Housing co-ops and community land trusts shift the power away from the rentier class and toward the working-class folks who make up the bulk of most communities. In short, it's about replacing profit-driven private institutions with community-driven, community-controlled institutions.
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Comment on I'm so excited about the Singapore summit. I am really hoping for a productive deal to come out of it. in ~talk
metatron207 Link ParentWell, that wouldn't be desirable, exactly, but it sure as shit would be substantive.Well, that wouldn't be desirable, exactly, but it sure as shit would be substantive.
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Comment on I'm so excited about the Singapore summit. I am really hoping for a productive deal to come out of it. in ~talk
metatron207 Link ParentNo, that makes perfect sense. Living near a significant military installation is probably more reason to be concerned than living most other places, though it's still really unlikely.No, that makes perfect sense. Living near a significant military installation is probably more reason to be concerned than living most other places, though it's still really unlikely.
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Comment on I'm so excited about the Singapore summit. I am really hoping for a productive deal to come out of it. in ~talk
metatron207 Link ParentOut of curiosity, where do you live that you were afraid of a North Korean nuclear strike?Out of curiosity, where do you live that you were afraid of a North Korean nuclear strike?
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Comment on I'm so excited about the Singapore summit. I am really hoping for a productive deal to come out of it. in ~talk
metatron207 Link ParentAny kind of agreement.Any kind of agreement.
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Comment on I'm so excited about the Singapore summit. I am really hoping for a productive deal to come out of it. in ~talk
metatron207 Link ParentThis being the beginning of a process is frankly the best that the US can hope for. It would be beyond shocking if something substantive actually came out of this summit; it would take the...This being the beginning of a process is frankly the best that the US can hope for. It would be beyond shocking if something substantive actually came out of this summit; it would take the surprise announcement that President Trump has secretly been laying the groundwork for this deal since the start of his term without anyone finding out. There's just no way to reach any sort of satisfactory agreement in a single meeting without a whole lot of preparative work.
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Comment on What do you think about IHOP's new name, "International House of Burgers"? in ~talk
metatron207 Link ParentReally, it sounds to me like IHOP just became Denny's. They're not exactly the kind of restaurant that thrives on doing wild and crazy foods; they don't really want to be unique.Really, it sounds to me like IHOP just became Denny's. They're not exactly the kind of restaurant that thrives on doing wild and crazy foods; they don't really want to be unique.
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Comment on On making a fresh start in ~tildes
metatron207 Link ParentI hear what you're saying about leftover expectations, and I know it's hard to overcome that ingrained suspicion; it's a deep personal belief of mine that we should always try to give people the...I hear what you're saying about leftover expectations, and I know it's hard to overcome that ingrained suspicion; it's a deep personal belief of mine that we should always try to give people the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, but I've called bullshit on more than a few well-meaning people because of the weight of past negative experiences.
As for the context of the original comment, I stand by my conviction that the comment is better without that statement, and that even with the context it's inflammatory. After re-reading the thread, I want to reiterate that I think you did the right thing by commenting, and that you said something that needed to be said. And, importantly, it wasn't the full sentence that I originally quoted that I took issue with; it was the single clause about progressives. Here's your original comment with the single clause about progressives removed:
One of the biggest improvements is not being able to downvote. As mentioned in the docs, downvotes are used most often by people who have no arguments, but don't want your argumentation to be seen by others. Tildes forces you to actually respond to the other person to show disagreement, and discuss it. If you can't do this, you're part of the problem that makes Reddit such a terrible place for civil discussion.
That's a powerful statement, one that has no cultural particular cultural alignment and applies to all of us. Also, for what it's worth, I did comment on the OP, and got a barely-civil response in return. I doubt they heard much of what you had to say, but keep on saying it. To paraphrase The Stranger from The Big Lebowski, "I like your style, dude. There's just one thing, dude: do you have to use so many political labels?"
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Comment on On making a fresh start in ~tildes
metatron207 Link ParentYou're not interested in having quality conversation? I was pretty clear that I'm not talking about whether people like you, I'm talking about the quality of conversation.You're not interested in having quality conversation? I was pretty clear that I'm not talking about whether people like you, I'm talking about the quality of conversation.
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Comment on On making a fresh start in ~tildes
metatron207 LinkOP, you'll get a far better response -- not in terms of more positive, but more substantive -- if you replace the shorthand "alt right talking points" with a clearer and more fleshed-out...OP, you'll get a far better response -- not in terms of more positive, but more substantive -- if you replace the shorthand "alt right talking points" with a clearer and more fleshed-out description of what you're talking about. As others have noted, it's not a bad thing to simply be exposed to ideas that you disagree with or dislike. If your point is that there are some Trump supporters here, I would argue that that's a very good thing, because the nature of this platform is that we're encouraged to have civil and productive discussions with one another, and we'll be better off as a society if we can return to having discussions with people we disagree with where we're trying to treat our fellow discussants with respect and understanding.
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Comment on On making a fresh start in ~tildes
metatron207 Link ParentIn my original comment you'll note that I went through your post history because I was interested in reading some of your good discussions, referenced in another comment of yours that was at the...To go out of your way, read through all posts of a person just to find something to call them out on doesn't seem like the attitude of someone interested in reasonable discussion, but of someone looking to smear someone.
In my original comment you'll note that I went through your post history because I was interested in reading some of your good discussions, referenced in another comment of yours that was at the top of this page. I came out of that experience with mixed but mostly positive sentiment toward you; I had no intention of replying to anything you had said. Then I replied to you after returning to reading the original conversation that had sparked my interest in your post history.
You can believe me or not, but I hope you do; if you can't trust someone to be telling the truth on something like this in a forum specifically geared toward constructive and civil discourse, the game is already lost.
And in this particular case, I still think I did the right thing. We can disagree on that, or the reasoning behind it, but that's why we discuss things, and most likely is a big part of the reason we're on Tildes anyway. Most things I say are said with a particular reasoning that I stand by.
I'm not sure if you're referring to your original comment as a whole or just your specific calling out of progressives. I'll reiterate that I agree with the entire rest of your original comment, and agree that it was the right thing to do. I'll also stand by my conviction that calling out progressives in that comment in the way you did detracted from the comment rather than adding to it. I also don't feel that you really addressed the meat of my last paragraph. You confirmed that you felt the use of progressive was justified because you believe @Syntax "would most likely consider themselves a progressive," but I'm more interested in your thoughts about whether it's helpful to push this sort of culture war. Personally I don't think it's conducive to civil discourse to use a political label as a pejorative like you did; not because people can't handle it, but because it inherently reinforces us-vs-them thinking and actively encourages a matching response.
if you read all my comments from late, you'll have seen that I also say that I don't know how to define political groups with strict boundaries, and thus the term "progressive" has no hard definition of who it applies to in my mind.
Two things about this. First, I agree with you totally on that; I hate the use of labels in politics (aside from party names) because I don't believe there's anything remotely resembling consensus about what any political label means, and people often get into heated arguments over what amounts to a minor misunderstanding because one person means X but the other person hears Y.
Second, I don't think it matters that there's no "hard definition" of progressive in your head, because you're still using it in a way that's guaranteed to elicit a partisan response. Meanwhile, I realized while reading your comment and writing my reply that I didn't write a similar response to OP for their ambiguous and accusatory use of the term "alt-right," so in the interest of not applying principles unequally based on ideology, I'm going to make that point.
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Comment on Cyberpunk 2077 | Official E3 2018 trailer in ~games
metatron207 Link ParentThis is what gets me, I guess. I completely understand why you read their comments the way you do, and I get that that's also probably informed by other conversations you've had elsewhere. But,...the disagreement that they construct isn't necessarily accurate to what those who don't like it really feel, and I wanted to bring that up.
This is what gets me, I guess. I completely understand why you read their comments the way you do, and I get that that's also probably informed by other conversations you've had elsewhere. But, giving them the benefit of the doubt, they don't actually say what you suggest they mean, and while it's a reasonable inference, it's also reasonable to infer that they were meaning to highlight the things they liked about the trailer without ascribing any traditionalist characteristics to you in particular.
In the end, it just comes down to the fact that you and the other user have different aesthetic hopes/expectations for the game than the top two parents in this thread and I do, and that's fine. If it's not clear by now, I can only speak for myself, and I think there's a place for the all-night, all-grimy version of cyberpunk as well as the version seen in the trailer, and other versions I'm not familiar with. I don't think there's anything wrong with you for not liking the trailer or for expecting the game to be shit. There's not a game out there that pleases everyone.
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Comment on Cyberpunk 2077 | Official E3 2018 trailer in ~games
metatron207 Link ParentWhere do you see that in the comment you replied to and its parent? Both comments expressed a distaste for overly dark and always-night motifs, and the parent said they disagree with the other...I think it's really dishonest to say that people who don't like what we're seeing here just hate color and want to see dark nothingness.
Where do you see that in the comment you replied to and its parent? Both comments expressed a distaste for overly dark and always-night motifs, and the parent said they disagree with the other comments (your original presumably included), but they didn't make any judgments about you, and the parent didn't say why they disagreed; it's entirely possible (and in fact I interpreted the comment to mean) that they simply liked what they saw, where you didn't like what you saw. There's no guaranteed implicit deeper judgment there.
Meanwhile, I may not agree with you, but this was the most refreshing honesty I've seen today:
I'm just here to hate, honestly. I fully expected to hate whatever I saw from CDPR as always and I came in to be a jerk about it, lol.
Kudos for the self-awareness.
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Comment on On making a fresh start in ~tildes
metatron207 Link ParentI have to say that I just don't get you. Something you said about having had a good conversation upthread sent me searching curiously through your recent post history, so I got a pretty sizable...I have to say that I just don't get you. Something you said about having had a good conversation upthread sent me searching curiously through your recent post history, so I got a pretty sizable dose of @tyil. While I didn't agree with everything you said, in many places I found you to be thoughtful and able to exemplify the ideals you're espousing in this thread. But every now and then I'd see a comment like this one (which I'm seeing after the fact, reading through more of the thread that sent me reading through your history in the first place) where you "spice up" an otherwise reasonable comment with something like this:
As mentioned in the docs, and as everyone knows who doesn't have a "progressive" mentality, downvotes are used most often by people who have no arguments, but don't want your argumentation to be seen by others.
Emphasis mine. I agree with your point, but why make it so needlessly partisan? There are more than enough examples on reddit of libertarians, conservatives, communists, apolitical people, and every other stripe using the downvote as a way to bury things they don't like. You're either making a personal attack, a needlessly broad (not all progressives are like that) and simultaneously narrow (others can be like that) statement for political points, or both.
You can make the argument that you threw the progressive pejorative there because of the context of the post, but what you're doing by including it is extending the culture wars at least one more comment. Take it out and you have a comment that doesn't attack anyone for who they are or what they believe, which makes the lesson you're trying to share more likely to sink in. With that barb, you're stooping to the level you're arguing against, without provocation, and making it more likely that you'll get a combative response rather than a thoughtful one. To end with a quote of yours, "If you want to see an improvement, you best start with improving yourself."
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Comment on Suggestion: Have academic flair for qualified users. PhD etc.. in ~tildes
metatron207 Link ParentI agree with your first paragraph completely. It's unlikely that we would see an active attempt to suppress a portion of the research in a field, but it could definitely happen that the members of...I agree with your first paragraph completely. It's unlikely that we would see an active attempt to suppress a portion of the research in a field, but it could definitely happen that the members of a field who are likely to join tildes happen to slant one way or another. Or, as in your crypto example, that only members of one field would join up and discuss a topic where multiple fields have input and varying opinions.
I'll admit that I don't pay much attention to crypto, so while your example makes sense it doesn't mean much to me beyond what's on the screen. I guess my stance is that I actively dislike having (edit: flaired) experts involved in the conversation because it can shut conversation down, and what I would rather see to combat what you describe (and any number of other unintentional ills) is for a culture to develop here where anything that's not purely an opinion is cited. I think that makes for better discussion all around, and adds more depth for after a discussion, when anyone who's interested has a head start for where to look for more information about a subject.
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Comment on Suggestion: Have academic flair for qualified users. PhD etc.. in ~tildes
metatron207 Link ParentHonestly, highly contentious topics are where I'm most wary of expert flairs, though I'll add the caveat that we may be using slightly different definitions here and we may not actually disagree....Honestly, highly contentious topics are where I'm most wary of expert flairs, though I'll add the caveat that we may be using slightly different definitions here and we may not actually disagree. To use an example that I don't think the majority of users would be particularly likely to fall for, imagine if there were a discussion about human-driven climate change and that one of 100 scientists in a relevant field who disputes the consensus of their peers happens to be the one user here with a PhD flair, and they start hammering people with that flair.
Again, in that context it doesn't sound too worrisome, because surely most people would see through it. But now imagine something similar where there's a deep division in the field, and a strong plurality of flaired users here happen to share the same viewpoint (accidentally or otherwise). Now we have a conversation that's being driven by a group of legitimate experts in their field who aren't necessarily representative of the breadth of thought on the subject. I can absolutely see a community starting to close out dissenting views shared by non-flaired users, even links to other research, based on the number of flaired experts denying the value of the opposing viewpoint.
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Comment on Suggestion: Have academic flair for qualified users. PhD etc.. in ~tildes
metatron207 Link ParentAgreed on all points. As soon as you start flairing PhDs, you're inherently diminishing the viewpoints of doctoral candidates / grad students and professionals in the field, as well as PhDs in the...Agreed on all points. As soon as you start flairing PhDs, you're inherently diminishing the viewpoints of doctoral candidates / grad students and professionals in the field, as well as PhDs in the field who want to remain anonymous (timely, given that there's a front-page discussion right now about why privacy is important).
I would also submit that flairing 'expert' posters promotes intellectual laziness on the part of users and could actually harm the goal of quality discussion; it may be more interesting and useful to have a conversation among 15 interested amateurs that goes on for hours with dozens of comments than to have that conversation cut short off the bat by a "correct" response to a prompt presented by a flaired expert.
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Comment on Let's speak in foreign (non-English) languages! in ~talk
metatron207 Link ParentTu español es muy bien. Yo no recuerdo mucho de mis lecciones, y no tengo oportunidades a practicar. ¿De donde eres, originalmente?Tu español es muy bien. Yo no recuerdo mucho de mis lecciones, y no tengo oportunidades a practicar. ¿De donde eres, originalmente?
Yes, and not in a good way. I don't think it's a "win for diplomacy," I think we witnessed a President so obsessed with making a deal that he was willing to give up things no previous administration would for nothing more than what previous administrations have gotten.