OK but airport bookstores are usually really small, I assumed only the best material made the cut.
Fuck Israel
limited shelf space + high footfall = only the biggest and most grabbable turds.
it's surprising you haven't heard about movements like 'rationalism' or 'effective altruism'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalist_community
a convenient blindspot considering all they boil down to, essentially, is that tech bros and STEM types really haven't the foggiest when it comes to what they're doing in a wider moral-ethical framework. they'll robe themselves in any passing and flattering fad while busily making AI-guided drone assassins or poison gas or whatever.
you've got the same class of people being 'proud to announce' on their linkedin that they've just accepted a trainee role at palantir, helping to construct the surveillance-capitalist state, then flattering themselves that they're part of some philosophical vanguard of 'rationalists'.
it's surprising you haven't heard about movements like 'rationalism' or 'effective altruism'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalist_community
a convenient blindspot considering all they boil down to, essentially, is that tech bros and STEM types really haven't the foggiest when it comes to what they're doing in a wider moral-ethical framework. they'll robe themselves in any passing and flattering fad while busily making AI-guided drone assassins or poison gas or whatever.
you've got the same class of people being 'proud to announce' on their linkedin that they've just accepted a trainee role at palantir, helping to construct the surveillance-capitalist state, then flattering themselves that they're part of some philosophical vanguard of 'rationalists'.
Last edited by uziq (2025-04-28 05:41:56)
I'm sure you'll understand just as there's a difference between actual Oxford lecturers and sell-outs who confer PPE degrees on mindless slugs tech-bros and actual techies aren't really the same.
Generally speaking actual STEM people want to make the world a better place, the whole thing has been hijacked by creeps who saw that getting into Goldman Sachs was hard and it was easier to come up with an evil product with potential and do a rug-pull IPO (or just go directly to jail via crypto)
Generally speaking actual STEM people want to make the world a better place, the whole thing has been hijacked by creeps who saw that getting into Goldman Sachs was hard and it was easier to come up with an evil product with potential and do a rug-pull IPO (or just go directly to jail via crypto)
Fuck Israel
well, yes, i can appreciate that as i've worked with actual career scientists and researchers for a good chunk of the last decade. they're humble and curious, for one thing, which is a quality in short supply in this lot.
turning science or your identity as a STEM graduate or professional scientist into a world outlook is what i would call scientism. that -ism denotes a whole nexus of toxic ideology, lazy thinking, and social posturing and attitudinising. bad, actually!
ironically the agitating on behalf of people like richard dawkins for 'atheist' and 'rationalist' communities opened the door wide open to these types. that is, people basically adopting the same worshipful and ultimately chauvinistic attitudes towards science in the space vacated by religion. the scientific method or your electrical engineering nous isn't a sound basis for a personal identity.
unfortunately the penny that hasn't dropped with you, when you continually push for 'government ran by engineers', is that the only people who would put themselves forward for such positions of power, the only people who would aggrandise, who are arrogant enough to... are pretty much the types we have seen throughout history up until now. very identifiable psychological types. 'well-meaning' experts are in their walled gardens doing research.
turning science or your identity as a STEM graduate or professional scientist into a world outlook is what i would call scientism. that -ism denotes a whole nexus of toxic ideology, lazy thinking, and social posturing and attitudinising. bad, actually!
ironically the agitating on behalf of people like richard dawkins for 'atheist' and 'rationalist' communities opened the door wide open to these types. that is, people basically adopting the same worshipful and ultimately chauvinistic attitudes towards science in the space vacated by religion. the scientific method or your electrical engineering nous isn't a sound basis for a personal identity.
unfortunately the penny that hasn't dropped with you, when you continually push for 'government ran by engineers', is that the only people who would put themselves forward for such positions of power, the only people who would aggrandise, who are arrogant enough to... are pretty much the types we have seen throughout history up until now. very identifiable psychological types. 'well-meaning' experts are in their walled gardens doing research.
Last edited by uziq (2025-04-28 05:51:44)
Great, so we're back to Starship Troopers or Douglas Adams' man with a cat to run the world.
Fuck Israel
scientific expertise has its place, and it's a very central and important one, but most political and social questions are not really scientific in nature and do not have 'solutions' that can be rationally planned or controlled for. the efforts to introduce metrics and statistics into every aspect of political life - healthcare, for instance - have mostly been disastrous. the NHS has been well and truly KPI-tized since the blair years, and we don't really have a healthier or happier society to show for it. quite the obverse – and an exodus of trained medical staff to australia and new zealand, just to round it off.
letting self-appointed 'rationalists' try to run society according to their highly technocratic vision of society is not going to work because so much of sociey is not rational. human agents are not rational. markets are not rational. political sentiment and voting behavior is seldom based in a rational outlook on the world or assessment of facts. the people who consider themselves the 'effective altruists' at the top of this seething mass of irrationality are full of blindspots.
their main idea that you can run all of society based on bayesian analysis is just laughably risible stuff, really. these people do not have a well-rounded sense of what they're dealing with, let alone what constitutes the good and desirable, etc. you made a joke allusion to the 'trolley problem', but it's like these people think entirely in these kinds of terms. they are only of limited utility.
letting self-appointed 'rationalists' try to run society according to their highly technocratic vision of society is not going to work because so much of sociey is not rational. human agents are not rational. markets are not rational. political sentiment and voting behavior is seldom based in a rational outlook on the world or assessment of facts. the people who consider themselves the 'effective altruists' at the top of this seething mass of irrationality are full of blindspots.
their main idea that you can run all of society based on bayesian analysis is just laughably risible stuff, really. these people do not have a well-rounded sense of what they're dealing with, let alone what constitutes the good and desirable, etc. you made a joke allusion to the 'trolley problem', but it's like these people think entirely in these kinds of terms. they are only of limited utility.
Last edited by uziq (2025-04-28 07:43:37)
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +659|4139
You ever notice how what turns out to be "rational" somehow always matches up with whatever is in the best interest of the speaker? You never hear someone say "the clearly rational course of action is to put me in a death camp."
It is all rhetorical bullshit to justify the economic arrangement that puts them at the top.
...
You know how a lot of people who lived through the end of the Roman Republic didn't know it actually happened?
I wonder if that happened to us. To the American Empire. The stuff with the tariffs, turning on our allies, and the internal purges.
It is all rhetorical bullshit to justify the economic arrangement that puts them at the top.
...
You know how a lot of people who lived through the end of the Roman Republic didn't know it actually happened?
I wonder if that happened to us. To the American Empire. The stuff with the tariffs, turning on our allies, and the internal purges.
*cracks knuckles*
i've noticed that, yes, and you've probably weathered at least two or three of my mentions of it.
particularly obnoxious, the conservatives and randians with a little bit of tertiary education or some small background in high school debate: they're happy to nitpick little "logical holes" in arguments leveled against their views, but are less willing to entertain that treatment when it's leveled against them in the same argument (what, i can't have an opinion?).
the exhaustive amount of prep time they expect you to put into an argument vs. what they're willing to put into it themselves? not the same. i can reference a battery of op-eds from various experts, but they won't absorb that, and the fact that it's coming from The Experts is a bogeyman factor that scares some off straight away. there's a ton of little microfrustrations that even if you manage to overcome, there's still the matter of retention from one argument to the next. i don't know how much you get drawn into this shit by your conservative TAs or if they just keep it to themselves.
i've noticed that, yes, and you've probably weathered at least two or three of my mentions of it.
particularly obnoxious, the conservatives and randians with a little bit of tertiary education or some small background in high school debate: they're happy to nitpick little "logical holes" in arguments leveled against their views, but are less willing to entertain that treatment when it's leveled against them in the same argument (what, i can't have an opinion?).
the exhaustive amount of prep time they expect you to put into an argument vs. what they're willing to put into it themselves? not the same. i can reference a battery of op-eds from various experts, but they won't absorb that, and the fact that it's coming from The Experts is a bogeyman factor that scares some off straight away. there's a ton of little microfrustrations that even if you manage to overcome, there's still the matter of retention from one argument to the next. i don't know how much you get drawn into this shit by your conservative TAs or if they just keep it to themselves.
Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2025-04-28 22:48:03)
i get asked a lot of stuff that would need like an hour of uninterrupted thought and explanation to get through, but the askers don't have that kind of patience.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +659|4139
What I noticed dealing with my Trump assistants is that pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump/Republicans just makes them dig in. For example, if you point out that Trump did the same wrong thing Clinton did, it will not help make them see Trump's actions as wrong. They will instead double down or disengage.
...
I think Trump wanted conservatives to lose in Canada. He wants a reason to call Canada hostile and justify some nonsense attack on them.
...
I think Trump wanted conservatives to lose in Canada. He wants a reason to call Canada hostile and justify some nonsense attack on them.
Naw dont overthink it. If they won he could ally them against (more of our previous allies?). If the liberals won its more of an uphill battle, especially considering even conservatives are confused why we want to annex our northern neighbors. The rare, universally hated arguments to come out of the mush thats in his head
or they just expel air past their lips like a snorting horse and mansplain, "it's all rhetoric, you know. he doesn't actually mean that!"pirana6 wrote:
even conservatives are confused why we want to annex our northern neighbors
what does he ever mean, then? a distraction from what? they never have an answer.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +659|4139
This should be a shockingly clear sign that this administration is going to end in a disaster. A real life disaster. Just like last time.
He was mocking the Canadians up the morning of the vote? He did it knowing it would harm his own allies in the north. He did it anyway. It doesn't make any sense. Intentional self sabotage.
He was mocking the Canadians up the morning of the vote? He did it knowing it would harm his own allies in the north. He did it anyway. It doesn't make any sense. Intentional self sabotage.
The terminal decline of America began about 40 years ago, even now you haven't noticed.SuperJail Warden wrote:
You know how a lot of people who lived through the end of the Roman Republic didn't know it actually happened?
I wonder if that happened to us. To the American Empire. The stuff with the tariffs, turning on our allies, and the internal purges.
Massive unsustainable public borrowing
Inadequate infrastructure maintenance spending - and no sinking fund
Stupid spending, generous tax structures for people and companies who in turn spend stupidly
This is where America is now
Trump permanently screwing America's finances by blowing up they very favourable bond market may be the final trigger.
Fuck Israel
So many memesuziq wrote:
their main idea that you can run all of society based on bayesian analysis is just laughably risible stuff, really. these people do not have a well-rounded sense of what they're dealing with, let alone what constitutes the good and desirable, etc. you made a joke allusion to the 'trolley problem', but it's like these people think entirely in these kinds of terms. they are only of limited utility.
Fuck Israel
it blows my mind that elites have maintained the delusion/mendacity, that letting all the money in society filter upwards so that billionaires can buy increasingly bigger yachts and individual mailboxes in the caymans can amass 8 figure sums and 300 shell companies ... was somehow a good thing. all the surpluses from that productive labour gone ... where exactly? into labyrinthine trusts and funds that will put the next 17 generations of a handful of families through public school fees and private colleges in new england. ok great?Dilbert_X wrote:
The terminal decline of America began about 40 years ago, even now you haven't noticed.SuperJail Warden wrote:
You know how a lot of people who lived through the end of the Roman Republic didn't know it actually happened?
I wonder if that happened to us. To the American Empire. The stuff with the tariffs, turning on our allies, and the internal purges.
Massive unsustainable public borrowing
Inadequate infrastructure maintenance spending - and no sinking fund
Stupid spending, generous tax structures for people and companies who in turn spend stupidly
This is where America is now
Trump permanently screwing America's finances by blowing up they very favourable bond market may be the final trigger.
so much human effort and ingenuity has been incentivised in all the wrong directions in the last few decades. true progress traps. the most aspirational and motivated people going into 'private equity', and so on. doing the opposite of building and innovating, merely asset stripping and living off the proceeds. the whole cadres we have of management consultants from firms like mckinsey. what do they do? it's a highly ornate version of managed decline in which the last of the remaining surpluses are diverted to their bank balances.
let’s not forget that the phenomenon of the ‘falling rate of profit’ in capitalist markets was at the crux of marx/engels analysis, and vexed much of classical economics before them. previous forms of society had debt holidays and amnesties for this reason. short of revolutions or wars or some other convulsion, this is a persistent problem. the current neoliberal centrist orthodoxy, following the stagnation and supply shocks of the 1970s, is basically to let the 1% amass their fortunes and build their survivalist compounds. the fossil fuels companies you’re so invested in are basically in the same ‘drain the last drop’ mode of accumulation and profit too.
Last edited by uziq (2025-04-30 05:44:04)
So the top 0.7% have more wealth than the 'bottom' 91%?
Fuck Israel
Apart from progressive taxation and the guillotine (both of which work) is there another solution to pathological greed?
OTOH If the poor are treated too well and their life is too easy they burn up their wealth stupidly and overbreed which puts them back where they started.
Its a conundrum.
OTOH If the poor are treated too well and their life is too easy they burn up their wealth stupidly and overbreed which puts them back where they started.
Its a conundrum.
Fuck Israel
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +659|4139
The poor themselves are part of the problem. You have a lot of working class people who are willing to go to bat for billionaires.
Temporary embarrassed millionaires and all that. But Dilbert has a point about the poor basically blowing through wealth and opportunities. How can you convince the middle class to risk their positions as "labor aristocrats" to advocate for more benefits for the poor?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_aristocracy
Doubly so when the working class themselves can be so different in culture and taste from the middle classes.
Temporary embarrassed millionaires and all that. But Dilbert has a point about the poor basically blowing through wealth and opportunities. How can you convince the middle class to risk their positions as "labor aristocrats" to advocate for more benefits for the poor?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_aristocracy
Doubly so when the working class themselves can be so different in culture and taste from the middle classes.
i mean, yes, but you need to be more granular than that. the difference between the top 0.1% and the top 1% is gigantic.Dilbert_X wrote:
So the top 0.7% have more wealth than the 'bottom' 91%?
a net worth of more than $1 million USD is really not much for an australian or european. that's barely middle-class in america in 2025.
(the pyramid of emissions per capita is pretty congruent with this picture, as i have said many times before: we are all here in the global top 1%, 'hoarding' so to speak).
the trumpers are a full-blown cult at this point.
the weird conspiracy theories about pedo-rings beneath washington pizza places were just a side-show.
the cognitive blinkers were slowly being lowered, and the mule-like populace saddled.
trump can just say any insane shit he wants - say, about the illegally deported 'MS13 gang member' - and his adherents will lap it up. his reading of the signs and symbols has an hieratic, priest-like authority. it's the mentality of people who dwell under rocks and endlessly discuss JFK assassination footage or the epstein files. trump is their guiding light through a world of lies and deception.
the economy is bad? tariffs are hurting? no they're not stupid. trump said so. those small-business owners are lying. amazon are betraying us by posting the tariff costs!
the weird conspiracy theories about pedo-rings beneath washington pizza places were just a side-show.
the cognitive blinkers were slowly being lowered, and the mule-like populace saddled.
trump can just say any insane shit he wants - say, about the illegally deported 'MS13 gang member' - and his adherents will lap it up. his reading of the signs and symbols has an hieratic, priest-like authority. it's the mentality of people who dwell under rocks and endlessly discuss JFK assassination footage or the epstein files. trump is their guiding light through a world of lies and deception.
the economy is bad? tariffs are hurting? no they're not stupid. trump said so. those small-business owners are lying. amazon are betraying us by posting the tariff costs!
These people, the people Newbie has to deal with, have existed since before the internet, single issue fanatics, blind believers.
Its a weird thing and seems worse in America, blind trust and a complete lack of curiosity outside what people are told.
"Mah granpappy dun teached me heoo to milk a horse an done told me ah dunt need to know no more, ah can trust in the leeord"
Its a weird thing and seems worse in America, blind trust and a complete lack of curiosity outside what people are told.
"Mah granpappy dun teached me heoo to milk a horse an done told me ah dunt need to know no more, ah can trust in the leeord"
Fuck Israel
in retrospect the reformation was a great mistake.
small business owners (not all) are among the cultists.uziq wrote:
the economy is bad? tariffs are hurting? no they're not stupid. trump said so. those small-business owners are lying. amazon are betraying us by posting the tariff costs!
the same people who lose their minds over miniscule grocery bag fees, having to shoulder some microtax for emergency services or schools, bridge tolls, or when gas goes up $0.01 ("stupid blue state!" see also: eggs, milk) are asleep at the wheel on trump and republican mayhem. they either refuse to humor it, or slip into some distraction like how clinton fired people (with zero depth on how this was done). one is stuck on this mental image of vietnam crawling to us on its knees.
never mind all these guys within that same Venn diagram who spend all their free time watching hitler documentaries ("it's important to know history so we don't repeat it!"), while trump is spiriting people away from their court dates to some out-of-country concentration camp.