wcerfgba's recent activity

  1. Comment on ‘So, I hear I’m transphobic’: Dee Snider responds after being dropped by SF Pride in ~lgbt

    wcerfgba
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    The distinction between action and subject is interesting. Someone can do something which is transphobic, and/or they can be transphobic. It's an important distinction because the emotional...

    The distinction between action and subject is interesting. Someone can do something which is transphobic, and/or they can be transphobic. It's an important distinction because the emotional effect, and the implications, of those two messages are quite different. Further, people may move fluidly between these different judgements without much discussion about that movement, and where one statement can be used to deduce the other.

    I think both the festival organisers, and Dee, can be seen as making these movements. Dee's quote moves from talking about his actions, both his ally work and this recent controversy, and then moves to ask if he himself is transphobic. The festival organisers, who perhaps invited Dee to perform because of his allyship, have seen this incident, and decided that this transphobic incident justifies revoking their invitation. This can be interpreted as them holding Dee accountable for this incident, but also feel to me like a value judgement of Dee and his positions in general, more akin to deplatforming. That might be a purely emotional resonance based on the similarities of two tactics with different aims, though.

    In terms of the blowback, I think this is an example where messaging is so important. I don't know anything about Dee's work and allyship, but even the best allies will sometimes make mistakes. If you say to someone you have a problem with something they did and you want them to make amends, they can do that and take accountability for that action. If you jump straight to it being an issue about their character though, they will get defensive and also are not sure of targeted action they can do to correct that issue.

    I don't know what comms were like between Dee and the organisers. One point of interest is that the SF Pride press release was not linked from the news article, but Dee's official statement was! I found the SF Pride press release and it doesn't provide much more information other than saying it was a mutual agreement to part ways. So perhaps there has been an attempt at constructive dialogue here.

    I think the same fluidity around judgements about actions vs judgements about people are also present in our criminal justice system and state rhetoric/propaganda around public safety, policing, crime, terrorism, etc. Some people commit crimes, and they might go to jail. But rarely are these people portrayed as 'people who committed a crime', rather they are portrayed as 'criminals', which has the effect of moving the notion of criminality onto them as people, rather than as a function of actions they took in a specific set of circumstances. Once the rhetorical device has implied a binary in the minds of the public (criminal vs good citizens) then the state uses the binary to Other one of the groups and construct a narrative about protecting 'us' from 'them'.

    Perhaps further investigation of this fluidity could be an opportunity for developing new leftist optics and rhetoric. In the case of the 'trans debate', we can make it clear that we are not trying to attack people for their views, we're trying to hold them accountable for their actions. In the case of transformative justice, we can make it clear that people who have committed crimes are still people, that the 'class' of 'criminals' is not useful for creating a fair and effective justice system, is actively harmful, etc.

    Not sure how to really conclude from there. Sorry for kinda a ramble post! ❤

    7 votes

  2. Comment on The Gostok (interactive fiction) in ~games

    wcerfgba
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    Thanks for sharing! I had an idea for a similar mechanic but a different format, more like a top down open world style:

    Thanks for sharing! I had an idea for a similar mechanic but a different format, more like a top down open world style:

    Little Critters

    This is an idea for a game inspired by simulation games and language. The player is able to move freely around a map populated by various ‘critters’, social animals who communicate with a randomly generated language. Gameplay consists of the player observing the critters going about their activities and trying to learn the syntax and vocabulary of the language so that they can communicate with the critters and achieve some objective.

    2 votes

  3. Comment on Kenyan player expelled after pretending to be a woman to win lucrative prize in ~games.tabletop

    wcerfgba
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    What are the reasons for gender segregated leagues in chess? Having seen all the discourse around trans athletes in sports, I've come to the opinion that instead of gender segregation we should...

    What are the reasons for gender segregated leagues in chess?

    Having seen all the discourse around trans athletes in sports, I've come to the opinion that instead of gender segregation we should split leagues by ability instead. This mirrors and extends what we already do with disability sports and weight classes.

    I understand one argument for women's leagues is they provide opportunities for women to win and achieve highly. But I also think it creates competition between men and women as classes and can divert funding and attention away from women in sport, since men's sport is the 'default'. So I think we should instead explain the variance in ability by other factors, and define leagues by those, instead of by gender. Gender can be a useful proxy for many of those factors but there's no reason I see why they can't be explicitly unbundled and defined.

    I don't know anything about chess, so my follow up question would be, are there gender differences in the brain which make women less competitive than men? Or could open chess be a fair playing field? A quick glance at ratings for me makes it look like they could all compete fairly, but perhaps I do not know enough here.

    9 votes

  4. Comment on A Black professor trapped in anti-racist hell in ~humanities

    wcerfgba
    Link Parent
    All the comments on this article are fantastic ❤, but I think what I have to say fits in best to this thread so I'll reply here. I think a big part of the issue with online discourse is that often...

    All the comments on this article are fantastic ❤, but I think what I have to say fits in best to this thread so I'll reply here.

    I think a big part of the issue with online discourse is that often it's with 'random' people that we don't have an established relationship with. I have friends I've known for a decade or more, and we can have conversations about 'controversial' or complex issues like racism, capitalism, whatever, because we are acting as critical friends. That baseline of trust, patience, and compassion is already established. By contrast, talking online through short text messages with pseudonymous people in a (semi-)public setting is a completely different environment, and that baseline often isn't there.

    That said, I think there are (at least) two approaches. One is to ask, "how can we make online discussion more civil/... given that discussion partners don't always have those relationships?" Another is to ask, "how can we use the Internet to create new relationships with people, which can then serve as a basis for intimate discussions?" I'm more interested in this second question.

    9 votes

  5. Comment on A deep, nuanced Tumblr discussion about trans-exclusionary beliefs and how they come to be in ~lgbt

    wcerfgba
    Link
    Thanks for sharing this, it was a really good read. But I notice that just as in the un-nuanced discussions of TERFs there is that assumption that they aren't feminists, this conversation is doing...

    Thanks for sharing this, it was a really good read. But I notice that just as in the un-nuanced discussions of TERFs there is that assumption that they aren't feminists, this conversation is doing a similar thing with 'radfem':

    One thing i'd add that hasn't been mentioned in the reblog chain i read is that radical feminism is absolutely opposed to prostitution, surrogacy and pornography. eradication of these tools that harm women is a core tenent of radfem theory, and seeing liberal feminists talk about how porn is great and sex work is just any other job is a massive part of the betrayal by mainstream feminism that's been mentioned upthread.

    This is not what I thought radical feminism was about. My understanding of the distinction between liberal and radical feminism was that liberal is more focused on legal reforms and creating rights for women, whereas radical is more about critical theory and changing the structure of society. There are, for example, SWERFs -- sex worker exclusionary radical feminists -- but like TERFs they are a minority contingent, not part of the core definition of what radfem is.

    Has the consensus changed, or is this a sign that this thread is mostly led by libfems who have an un-nuanced understanding of radfem?

    5 votes

  6. Comment on Apple TV+ to adapt William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel Neuromancer in ~movies

    wcerfgba
    Link Parent
    True, but I really enjoyed Severance. I guess it depends who the writers/directors are?

    True, but I really enjoyed Severance. I guess it depends who the writers/directors are?

    4 votes

  7. Comment on Can anyone recommend a specific type of statistics course? in ~science

  8. Comment on Cheap, easy, and not-too-unhealthy homemade snacks? in ~food

    wcerfgba
    Link Parent
    I am in the UK and use UK marmite. I was not aware that NZ marmite is different! What is it like? UK marmite is quite salty and meaty.

    I am in the UK and use UK marmite. I was not aware that NZ marmite is different! What is it like? UK marmite is quite salty and meaty.

    3 votes

  9. Comment on Cheap, easy, and not-too-unhealthy homemade snacks? in ~food

    wcerfgba
    Link
    Sriracha Marmite Cashews (via https://jpreston.xyz/sriracha-marmite-cashews.html) My colleague Carnun shared this great snack recipe with me, which combines three of my favourite things! I’ve...

    Sriracha Marmite Cashews

    (via https://jpreston.xyz/sriracha-marmite-cashews.html)

    My colleague Carnun shared this great snack recipe with me, which combines three of my favourite things! I’ve gradually refined the recipe to get these just how I like them. Be careful, they are extremely moreish!

    I get a 500g bag of unroasted, unsalted cashews from the supermarket, and this recipe required roasing the cashews yourself, as I will explain shortly.

    For a 500g bag of cashews, I find 2-4 heaped teaspoons of sriracha and 1 big heaping teaspoon of Marmite (or other yeast extract) works well for a light coating with gentle spiciness. I have also used an Encona hot sauce – this is spicier, so I used less of it, and thinner, which has a slight impact on the ‘finish’ of the nuts, making them more sticky – but sriracha is my favourite for this recipe because I think the higher garlic content and less vinegary flavour works better.

    Combine all your sauce ingredients in a large pan (as you will be stirring the nuts in to the pan later on). You may want to use a low heat to get your yeast extract to loosen up and mix together with your hot sauce but you do not need to make the sauce mix hot otherwise, and you should turn off the heat once the sauces are incorporated.

    I like my cashews heavily roasted, so I roast them on a baking tray in an fanless oven at 140°C for 40 minutes, stirring half way. By the end they are quite dark brown. This step requires a lot of experimentation and calibration for your particular oven and roasting preferences. If you check the nuts at the 20 minute mark you should be able to use your judgement and knowledge of your oven to decide how much longer to roast them for. I would not push the temperature much beyond 140°C to avoid burning.

    Once the cashews are roasted, they will have a lot of residual heat. Dump all the cashews immediately (well, within 2-3 minutes) into the pan with your sauce in and start stirring the cashews and the sauce together. The heat from the cashews will cause some water to evaporate from the sauce and you will get some steam, and it’s this process of the cashews directly heating the sauce which causes the sauce to turn into a coating on the nuts, which is dry and not too sticky, allowing you to eat these with your hands.

    Keep stirring and folding for several minutes to try and get as even a coating as possible. After a few minutes the cashews will be much cooler and steam will stop leaving the pan, and the nuts will be clumped together with a slightly sticky coating of the sauce. Leave the nuts to cool and the sauce will start to dry and stick the nuts together more like a nut brittle.

    Once cool, break apart the nuts and transfer to a container for storage.

    3 votes

  10. What are your favourite mailing lists?

    ~tech Ask (recommendations)
    I love mailing lists! They are my preferred way of discussing interesting topics with people. Please share your favourite lists, and any directories or search engines you know of. 🙂 nettime - net...

    I love mailing lists! They are my preferred way of discussing interesting topics with people. Please share your favourite lists, and any directories or search engines you know of. 🙂

    6 votes

  11. Comment on Why this computer scientist says all cryptocurrency should “die in a fire” in ~tech

    wcerfgba
    Link Parent
    I've heard of all of these and played with most of them except 'age'. Please could you tell us what this is or drop a link?

    I've read into and actively experimented with torrents, IPFS, BOINC, Tahoe LAFS, Tor, GNUNet, GPG, age, Mastodon, Matrix, Pidgin, CJDNS, Yggdrasil, Linux, LetsEncrypt, running home web and email servers, and probably a bunch of other things vaguely in that category.

    I've heard of all of these and played with most of them except 'age'. Please could you tell us what this is or drop a link?

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Prototyping group decision making with automatic delegation in ~tech

    wcerfgba
    Link
    Thanks for this interesting post @lonk. A few ideas come to my mind. First, you might want to look into the experimental economics literature. These researchers often create 'toy' situations where...

    Thanks for this interesting post @lonk. A few ideas come to my mind.

    First, you might want to look into the experimental economics literature. These researchers often create 'toy' situations where participants set down and play a 'game' to explore real world behaviour around different economic mechanisms. It has a lot of overlap with the kind of prototyping work a user researcher may undertake when designing a new product or service. You may be able to short-circuit building an entire website and instead be able to hold a workshop with a few pieces of paper to work as voting counters, coming up with some example scenarios to vote on, etc. You could also host a workshop virtually over a video call and then coordinate the game using something like Google Jamboard or Google Sheets. Some advantages of running a workshop are: lower startup costs ('cos you don't have to build a complete app) and a richer opportunity to gather qualitative data (because you can ask participants questions face-to-face, before/during/after the workshop).

    Second, there are teams working on collective/democratic decision-making software and research that you might want to reach out to about this idea. They may be interested in implementing it as a feature, exploring it through prototyping, or just interested to hear your thoughts. The two that come to my mind are Loomio and mySociety.

    Finally, I'm subscribed to the UK Centre for Democracy's UK Democracy Forum mailing list, and some on there have asked me to share a draft whitepaper they've been working on. It's about democratic reform in the UK, and the document outlines some of their ideas around 'participatory representative democracy'. If that sounds interesting to anyone in this thread, and you'd like to give the draft a read and provide feedback, please drop me a DM and I'll send over the whitepaper. This invitation is open to people outside the UK, although be aware that some of the issues discussed are specific to UK constitutional issues and voting systems etc.

    OK one more thing... there used to be a website called Advogato which had an interesting trust metric system that may also be of interest given your other project. :)

    3 votes

  13. Comment on Representation and uncertainty in ~humanities

    wcerfgba
    Link
    This was a fantastic read, thanks for sharing @skybrian . I am a bit tired so I need to go over this again and write up my notes, but my main takeaway from this is that data, statistics and models...

    This was a fantastic read, thanks for sharing @skybrian . I am a bit tired so I need to go over this again and write up my notes, but my main takeaway from this is that data, statistics and models are only as useful as our capacity for meaning: we need to have words to describe the concepts underlying variances in the world, in order to know how to collect data, if it’s useful, and how to interpret it.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on What's one weird thing about yourself? in ~talk

    wcerfgba
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    I have really vivid and weird dreams sometimes. Once I dreamed I was a twig, and I was walking down a corridor where all the other twigs lived in discarded soda cans. And then I got to a room at...

    I have really vivid and weird dreams sometimes. Once I dreamed I was a twig, and I was walking down a corridor where all the other twigs lived in discarded soda cans. And then I got to a room at the end and there was like a big gyroscope thing, and I stepped into the gyroscope and grew into a big branch.

    I can do some fun things with my eyes. I can make one of my eyes cross over while the other stares straight ahead, and then I can move them so they kinda 'ping pong'. I can also make my eyes shake left and right really quickly.

    Finally, I have super skinny wrists and ankles, the smallest of everyone I've ever met (and asked to see the wrists/ankles of, which tbf isn't literally everyone I've met).

    4 votes

  15. Comment on What's one weird thing about yourself? in ~talk

    wcerfgba
    Link Parent
    It's interesting to see how many other people have these 'scenes'. I have one which makes me feel a little anxious. I'm in a white room staring at a dimmer switch on the wall, and as I continue to...

    It's interesting to see how many other people have these 'scenes'.

    I have one which makes me feel a little anxious. I'm in a white room staring at a dimmer switch on the wall, and as I continue to stare at the switch I lose my depth perception and it feels like its both right in front of my face, and really really far away. As if the room is both tiny and huge at the same time.

    I think it's based on a room from my childhood but I don't really know.

    4 votes

  16. Comment on Resonate: A co-operative music streaming platform in ~music

    wcerfgba
    Link Parent
    I too was saddened to learn about the Epic purchase yesterday. It did occur to me that a co-op would be a great replacement, and I wish Resonate success. I have no interest in streaming and I only...

    I too was saddened to learn about the Epic purchase yesterday. It did occur to me that a co-op would be a great replacement, and I wish Resonate success.

    I have no interest in streaming and I only care about downloading MP3/FLAC so I hope they deliver that soon.

    I think the biggest challenges for Resonate will be getting enough artists and labels to use it in addition to / instead of Bandcamp; and providing existing physical features from Bandcamp like vinyl presses and merch. Vinyl in particular is a big one for certain artists and labels in certain genres.

    2 votes

  17. Comment on I need life/career advice in ~life

    wcerfgba
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    I think there are two questions you are trying to answer at the same time: What do I want to do with my life? What is my passion? How can I make a living? What job should I do? The degree to which...

    I think there are two questions you are trying to answer at the same time:

    1. What do I want to do with my life? What is my passion?
    2. How can I make a living? What job should I do?

    The degree to which you want these questions to interact, and the degree to which any one answer will overlap these questions, is highly fluid. Some options:

    • Job must also be passion. Try and make a living writing exactly what I want to write.
    • Job must be enjoyable and pay well, but not necessarily be my passion. Get a DevOps job in tech which is interesting and in demand. Pursue passion writing in spare time.
    • Job satisfaction doesn't matter, I just need money. Take a random part-time job and focus on maximising free time to work on passion writing.

    I would suggest to think about your long-term objectives and work back from there, I have found that has helped me with aligning what I'm doing now, what I want to be doing in a few years, and what I want to have achieved before I leave this plane.

    Part-time might be a good option: less money, but more time to work on your passions. You could probably pursue that through a job in tech as well, either by being open about that at recruitment time, or just by finding a good place to work and then trying to swing it after a few months.

    The job with your partner's company sounds like an ideal way to get your foot in the door. You might be able to take on more sysadmin/DevOps responsibilities over time and really enjoy it. Otherwise it just gets you something on your CV to help you start moving along the dev career path.

    Good luck! x

    5 votes

  18. Comment on When private equity becomes your landlord in ~finance

    wcerfgba
    Link Parent
    Hey thanks for tagging me! :D Yeah I think housing co-ops are great, I have some friends from long ago who live in one. :) The article is a depressing read, even more so when you consider how many...

    Hey thanks for tagging me! :D

    Yeah I think housing co-ops are great, I have some friends from long ago who live in one. :)

    The article is a depressing read, even more so when you consider how many other people are going through this kind of shit. :/ It's not that surprising either.

    Housing seems like an area ripe for good simulation modelling in economics due to the large amount of readily available data, which would allow researchers to compare the resilience of co-ops, public/state ownership, different regulations for private equity ownership, etc. but I haven't really looked for any of that literature in a while, it's not what I'm focusing on at the moment.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on How do you manage your music collection? in ~music

    wcerfgba
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    Rather than following / subscribing to artists, I track labels instead. Bandcamp is great for this if a label is using it, because I can subscribe to their newsletter and get email alerts any time...

    Rather than following / subscribing to artists, I track labels instead. Bandcamp is great for this if a label is using it, because I can subscribe to their newsletter and get email alerts any time they publish a new release.

    Why do I follow labels instead of artists? Two reasons. First, labels aren't clearly surfaced in the metadata in my music player, whereas the artist is. If I'm listening to a release and I'm wondering "hmm have they released any more music recently?" it only takes me a couple of minutes to look it up on the Web while I'm listening to their music. Keeping up to date with artists in this on-demand way is working fine for me. Second, labels, especially smaller ones, provide a form of curation and network knowledge around the music I like. If I find an artist I like, and I want to find more artists I might like, I look at the labels they've released on to find new artists and releases. This has worked really well for me so far for building up a network of artists and broadening my horizons. I have a few artists I love but then it's always frustrating when I want 'more' and it doesn't exist. Labels help me solve that problem.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Why you're christian in ~humanities

    wcerfgba
    Link Parent
    Thanks for your reply :) I'm kinda tired so this might be a bit of a ramble-y response and not address all of your points. Foremost I am a pragmatist: I'm only really interested in philosophical...

    Thanks for your reply :) I'm kinda tired so this might be a bit of a ramble-y response and not address all of your points.

    Foremost I am a pragmatist: I'm only really interested in philosophical ideas and definitions that are useful to me, and help me to understand my self, other people, or the world around me. That said, perhaps moral relativism isn't exactly correct to describe my own perspective, depending on how we define it. I say this because philosophers also have a range of metaethical stances on the 'truth status' of ethical statements: i.e. can a sentence like "killing is wrong" be true or false?

    Honestly I don't really care if ethical statements have a truth value or not, and it's not a discussion that's relevant to me, so my position on that is "I don't know and I don't care". That could position me as some combination of moral relativist, moral anti-realist, moral non-objectivist, moral nihilist, moral skeptic, and/or emotivist.

    More specifically, I think the core of my metaethical perspective is that I believe that ethical sentences are often underspecified, but can usually be interpreted as a value judgement which is held by the speaker. So for example "killing is wrong" can be interpreted and questioned in many ways: what is killing? why is it wrong? is it always wrong or are there exceptional circumstances? is it wrong to you personally, or do you mean it is against your society's culture or laws, or that it is or should be universally disparaged? do you want me to agree with you? I would usually re-interpret such a sentence as "I believe that killing is wrong", but it's still an incredibly fuzzy sentence.

    This position firmly places ethics in the realm of discourse, because it implies that often people are talking past each other and need to get on the same page, with a very clear and precise definition of their views, through the interrogation of edge cases and the parts which have so far been unstated. If someone starts with "killing is wrong", two people could easily arrive at "we both believe that it would be wrong if either of us, or anybody we know, killed someone, and it should not be permitted in our society". Further interrogation of the statement may reveal a schism on the issue of assisted suicide: is it OK for a person A to aid another person B to commit suicide if they are, or will soon be, in incredible pain or suffering? The discussion would continue as participants outline their perspectives on a set of increasingly refined scenarios.

    All of this is informed by my ethical (not metaethical) belief that "usually, forcing people to do or believe something they don't want to do or believe, is bad, and I don't want to do that to people, nor have other people do it to me, or the people I love". So if I met someone who wanted to impose their beliefs, I would very likely take issue with that, but that's more from an ethical perspective than a metaethical perspective. That is, it's not because it goes against moral relativism per se, but because it goes against my personal values, and the values that I advocate more broadly to the world around me (and I advocate them because I believe they bring many benefits).

    I love debate, especially of ethical issues, and I would go further to say that ethical debate (both debate about ethics, and debate conducted ethically) is essential for a well-functioning society, and a democracy in particular.

    For me relativism boils down to acknowledging that different humans have different values and will disagree with each other on certain ethical statements (even highly specified ones), and that if there is a 'pure form' of 'ultimate morality' somewhere then it is inaccessible. So we are effectively stuck with just our respective, personal value systems, and the dialectical method: talk to other people about them, interrogate them ourselves, try to be highly specific with our propositions.

    4 votes