mbus

7683 pts ยท January 21, 2014


Not really relevant, but does the paradox of intolerance advocate for STATE censorship of intolerance? Or is it more about, like, ethos? I ask because I think Nozick was probably right that if you give those levers of power to the government you can more easily fall into fascism if the wrong person gets elected (e.g., Trump claiming that DEI is "intolerant" and deserves censorship).

1 hour ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Put another way, literally 100% of everyone I know hates him. There have been Jewish conservatives in the past (Joe Lieberman comes to mind) but they had principles. I strongly suspect that anyone in the Trump admin who calls themselves Jewish is using it as cover. I'm not saying Jews can't also be hateful - certainly anyone can - but to directly curry the favor of white supremacists and Nazis just proves it for me.

3 weeks ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

As a Jewish person, I know that there are a lot of people who are not religiously Jewish but consider themselves "culturally Jewish" (which is a complicated topic because it's kind of an ethnoreligion). However, I suspect that for Miller, calling himself Jewish is just a useful facade, and that he really doesn't have any connection to Judaism, either cultural or religious. It's the "porosity" of the Jewish ethoreligious reality that makes it hard to claim he's NOT Jewish.

3 weeks ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 1

This; Democrats have historically worked on fundamentals (strong job market, better regulation on monopolies so that small businesses can compete, worker protections so you get sustainable growth), while Republicans have tended to gut those and just pump up the stock market until the economy overheats, leading to a crash. But for a brief, shining moment, shareholder value was really maximized.

3 weeks ago | Likes 13 Dislikes 0

Trump and Netanyahu don't just make me feel unsafe in the sense that I think the wrong person is at the wheel. They are the actual reason I am statistically much less safe than I was before. It's not JUST that I disagree with their politics, it's that they are enabling and stoking the flames of antisemitism, probably because both of them stand to gain from antisemitism.

3 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

3 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Please say more!

4 weeks ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

Both how he's living AND his nose is large.

1 month ago | Likes 23 Dislikes 0

This just in: not everyone in the US has a morally courageous stance.

1 month ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

I've said (or rather, asked) this before, but... vets vote 35% dem, 63% GOP overall. But among black veterans, it's 82% / 11%, which is basically the same as black non-veterans! Being a vet has no influence on their politics. So the question is, for white veterans, (who go 27% / 72%), is that BECUASE they're veterans, or because veterans disproportionately draw from groups that were already likely to vote R (i.e., more likely to join the armed services in the first place)?

1 month ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

I don't know if democrats can do anything that isn't symbolic currently. Certainly if democrats were in power right now, we would not be having ICE raids or anti-trans legislation. Before Trump we were headed in a direction of increasing diversity and representation at all levels of government. I'm not sure Dems would have handled Israel in a dramatically different way, but they probably wouldn't have attacked Iran. Or Venezuela. So I'm not sure what you say is meaningfully true.

1 month ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

That's a more reasonable response, because it doesn't claim to identify what's the "true" way to interpret a religion but instead notes what YOU would do in that position. I think that's completely fair. My point is just that there isn't a "true" religion. I've seen that argument used in favor of islamophobia, in particular, saying that "the text claims X" (where X is something violent or unreasonable) but it's an being said by non-muslims with no understanding of the context or interpretation.

1 month ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

It's like saying "being rich is against the teachings of the bible." Well, kinda yes, but also the Apostle Paul would say that you are saved if you have faith, so... (???)

It just seems really disingenuous to tell people that their religion does or doesn't support a specific viewpoint. Religions is, by its nature, not definitive on many points. People use it as an excuse to believe in things they already believed in, and they justify it through a religious lens.

1 month ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 1

Look, I'm Jewish, and I hate AIPAC and Israel (and would recommend to anyone that they read Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, which really does a good job of summarizing my viewpoint), but I feel like this kind of argument is not very good, and people who make it don't really understand religion. Example: the Christian bible was used to defend slavery. It was also used to argue for abolition. How? Because the "meaning" is subject to interpretation.

1 month ago | Likes 23 Dislikes 1

I HOPE that's his plan, because it implies that the elections will happen.

1 month ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

100 quadrillion km is on the order of the diameter of the Milky Way.

1 month ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

I'm not sure anymore. The traditional logic is that people who believe that voting are rigged don't go to the polls. But maybe leadership foresees a bloodbath in November this year (they'd be stupid not to), and they're either (a) setting the stage for a coup (again), or (b) prepping their base to be extra angry so that they can try to retake power in the NEXT election. Maybe leadership doesn't even KNOW what they're prepping for because they're waiting to see if Trump is going to try something.

1 month ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Wow, I appreciate this comment. It really is a palimpsest.

1 month ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 0

Honestly, a counter-program with a real lineup would slap. Make it a kind of moment for hope and humanity in the face of right-wing nihilism. I bet you could get some pretty top-notch talent to sign up for something like that without too much difficulty.

1 month ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

Yes. They claim profitability for Q2 while warning that they won't be profitable over the year as a whole... but the math just doesn't add up even for Q2. https://www.wheresyoured.at/anthropics-profitability-swindle/ Basically their costs ramp linearly with revenues, but they figured out a way to time it so that their costs are paused for a couple months so they can look profitable.

1 month ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

I'm pretty sure they aren't. https://www.wheresyoured.at/anthropics-profitability-swindle/ They're doing some creative accounting and timing things so that it appears that they are making money... for a single quarter. In fact, they are losing money just as fast as everyone else in this business. The "look we're profitable" thing is a swindle to get more investment in the door.

1 month ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Love the "have you no decency" quote. That's a reference to the comment by Joseph Welch that brought down Joseph McCarthy.

2 months ago | Likes 19 Dislikes 0

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus

It honestly brings me to tears. We used to stand for something.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Unless their goal is to lose by SO MUCH that they can claim the whole thing was rigged, which it seems like they would just do anyway?

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0