Today's Document
Cosmic Funnies
tannertan36
ojovivo
No title available
KIROKAZE
Claire Keane
Kaledo Art
Monterey Bay Aquarium
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
i don't do bad sauce passes
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Xuebing Du
d e v o n
pixel skylines
dirt enthusiast
No title available
NASA
if i look back, i am lost
AnasAbdin
seen from Türkiye
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Türkiye
seen from Brazil
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from France
seen from Estonia
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seen from India
@testblogdontupvote
Are you still around/ok? (i don't mean to intrude. it's just i've seen too many people become the bad kind of not posting any more)
I'm fine, thanks for checking! I just never returned after the mass exodus. I'm currently most active on Twitter - https://twitter.com/SophiasHotTakes - though we'll see how badly Elon breaks it.
i think the US/canada/other parts of the western world should relax visa restrictions for both ukrainians and russians looking to leave. brain drain the hell out of russia, recognize that it is not a good place to be a citizen and that there is a value in having anti-putin russian speakers on "our side"
actually the language of "sides" is needlessly inflammatory and not what i should have said. i think people who are trying to leave russia or are currently in danger under the regime should be eligible for asylum alongside ukrainians.
I’m certainly in favor of broadening criteria for granting asylum, but I wanna say that realistically, for the US and Canada to be viable options for people fleeing Ukraine and Russia, the US (and possibly Canada, not sure) would need a complete overhaul of the asylum and immigration system in general.
Ukrainian airspace is completely closed to all civil traffic, and people fleeing the country need to first cross one its western borders by car/train/foot. And that immediately runs into the Third Safe Country Agreement. Not that the US Embassy in Kyiv has any visa services at the moment anyway. Ukrainians seeking entry to the US could have gone to the consulate in Warsaw, which is currently designated as the primary one for Ukrainian citizens, but it very specifically says that non-immigrant visas for refugees don’t exist; for an immigrant visa, you need to be otherwise eligible for it; and to get any other non-immigrant visa, you need to prove the lack of immigrant intent, which is basically impossible right now.
In Russia, it’s less bad, but the gist is the same. Russian planes can’t fly to EU and US, and European and American planes can’t fly to Russia. So far, you can connect via Turkey, but no one knows how long this is gonna be available. US consulates haven’t been providing visa services for several years, and I think it’s been a year now since all consular services even for US citizens in Russia have been suspended; only the diplomatic mission remains. It used to be possible to apply abroad, but unlike Ukrainians, Russians need visas to go to the EU and apply there, and multiple EU countries have already stopped issuing any visas to any Russian citizens, regardless of where they apply. And even if one manages to get to a US consulate, the caveat “you’re not gonna prove that you want to return to Russia to anyone” still applies.
And the non-immigrant visa thing is the key. You can’t apply for asylum while abroad; at best, you can do it at the border crossing, but even that is more difficult, compared to first crossing the US border, and then applying from within the country. So basically, the only way to get asylum in the US is to lie on the visa interview and at the border crossing, and these days, the lie would be so obvious that no one would believe it. Theoretically, you might apply for humanitarian parole while abroad, but it can take years, even though it’s partially designed for emergencies... tl;dr: to make fleeing from Ukraine and Russia to the US possible, you need a massive overhaul of the entire immigration system, and I doubt that it’s possible without supermajorities everywhere.
much talk of conscription in Russia, horrifying thought but nothing kills enthusiasm for a war like being forced to participate in it.
I do wonder, if the morale is as bad as they say and if this becomes a long slog, whether this might end up being Russia’s Vietnam moment in the sense of “actually maybe the draft is a direct impediment to a functioning military and we should get rid of it”. I suppose it’s impossible to predict at this point.
that’s what ended the draft in Australia, but America still has one if they ever want to use it again.
Ukraine has draft as well though, and it still managed to have a military that's outperforming everyone's expectations.
drafted to defend your home vs. take someone else’s 🤷
Sure, but this also would have been true if both armies were entirely voluntary. Possibly, the draft exacerbates the difference that defending vs invading has on the performance of the troops, but I doubt that we can draw this conclusion from the war in Ukraine (and possibly Vietnam too, not sure).
I still oppose draft on ethical grounds (though I don't have a firm opinion on cases of being actively invaded), but I honestly don't know what its effects on performance are.
much talk of conscription in Russia, horrifying thought but nothing kills enthusiasm for a war like being forced to participate in it.
I do wonder, if the morale is as bad as they say and if this becomes a long slog, whether this might end up being Russia’s Vietnam moment in the sense of “actually maybe the draft is a direct impediment to a functioning military and we should get rid of it”. I suppose it’s impossible to predict at this point.
that’s what ended the draft in Australia, but America still has one if they ever want to use it again.
Ukraine has draft as well though, and it still managed to have a military that's outperforming everyone's expectations.
I haven’t been here for years, but I came back to say: STOP WAR WITH UKRAINE!
I am Russian, and this war is against my interests. It’s against the interests of my Ukrainian friends who are occasionally writing me messages about how they survived another night of shelling - and Russian army *is* targeting civilian tower blocks AND NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS! This is a serious threat of WWIII. I don’t want it. You don’t want it. No one wants it. If Ukraine falls, NATO is next.
If you want to support Ukraine, check out this: https://supportukrainenow.org/
If you want to learn more about the anti-war flag of Russia, see: https://whitebluewhite.info/en
#нетвойне
I've been telling you guys that Socialism works this whole time, lol. I guess more people will believe me when they cash their checks, despite thinking Bernie Sanders is "radical" (he's not).
If you have a bank account, and are against 'capitalism', I'm happy to take it off your hands. I want to help you stick with your own principles.
Well, actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberkassa
Alt-right is like second wave feminism, but with metaphysical cuckolding instead of metaphysical rape.
All candidates inconvenienced by the issues with Iowa caucus should get extra free time in the ball pit
It’s always been pretty funny to me that color perception is the go-to example for discussions of qualia and questions like “Does red look the same to me as it does to you? Is that even a meaningful question?” and so forth.
Because like. I’m colorblind. It’s obvious that colors can’t appear quite the same way to me that they do to most people.
I think this is a different issue. You obviously get a different neurologal input and obviously get a different qualia. The more interesting issue is whether different qualia are possible given the same neurological inputs.
Guys! I figured it out! Getting off of someone fucking your wife is totally trad! Look:
“everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart” - Matthew 5:28 “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. That is detestable” - Leviticus 18:22
So! You can gaze at your own wife to lust after her AND you can gaze at another man to lust after him, so long as you don’t lie with him! This is absolutely 100% trad certified pastime!
I just realized all the kids growing up with Spotify don’t have to spend money on specific music anymore, so they probably won’t have the memory of saving up money to buy their first CD and having it be something super cringy…like I think I saved up $15 for three weeks to buy the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack at Barnes & Noble when I was 9 and I was really proud of myself for that. Add your first CD you were way too proud of buying in the tags
You folks bought CDs? Instead of copying them or, earlier, cassettes?
Reading big-name rationalists on social media does put one in mind of that “keep your minds open, but not so open that your brains falls out” quote on a fairly regular basis.
I maintain that the biggest problem with rationalists, particularly big-name ones, is not excessive open-mindedness per se but knee-jerk contrarianism. When you have a community founded on “becoming smarter”, appearing smarter is how you gain status, and as a result there is an enormous temptation to depart from conventional wisdom as often as possible, even when the conventional wisdom is completely correct, because you can’t stand out as smarter than everyone else by agreeing with them.
Contrarian takes, even extremely dumb ones, are the social currency of the rat crowd, because it’s a lot easier than coming up with genuine novel insights, which are rare and hard to come by.
That is a different thing. I’m talking about stuff like
I am supportive of people using gay porn/cuddling and psychedelics to hack themselves into bisexuality if they want to, I guess, but trying to get people to do it by saying “don’t be a wuss!” doesn’t seem like it’d work on that set. you need to write an essay about how bihacking is an investment in your human capital because it increases your prospects for relationships and thereby gives you leverage in negotiations
This take is frankly dangerous. Even when rationalists aren’t pressuring anyone into bihaking, this whole area of inquiry is already on a thin fucking ice because for it to work, it must either be true that (1) Christian conversion therapists are right, regardless of what other physiologists think of them, or (2) rationalists somehow found the solution that eluded the conversion therapists, after thinking about it for five minutes. Both of these seem unlikely, but at least one could say that even if we’re crackpots, we’re better than the Christians because we don’t pressure anyone into changing their sexuality (even though Christians can be motivated by self-hatred just as much as by external pressure as well). But actually pressuring people crosses the line that should absolutely not be crossed at all.
It’s at least possible for adding new sexuallity to be easier than removing old sexuallity such that bihacking works and straighthacking doesn’t.
It’s plausible of course that conversion therapy does work if done consentually and well. Brains are plastic, changing even really important things should be possible. It’s a sign of a worrying ethical framework that an as yet unclear empirical result can overturn it.
Your analysis of changing people’s sexuallity needs to still work even if it’s easy.
I'm pretty sure that conversion therapists have tried both of these things: (1) fuck it, we at least want you to be able to marry a nice girl and stop banging guys, even if you can't stop thinking of banging guys, and (2) fuck it, no forcing people anymore, we'll just shame them in church until they come to us consensually. And it *still* works as good as it does.
But in any case, I'm disapproving of this tweet first and foremost on the grounds of pressuring people. Secondly, I'm using prior results showing that being pressured into trying to change one's sexuality is traumatic AF, and I don't think that it's unreasonable to assume that the extrapolation is valid until shown otherwise.
Reading big-name rationalists on social media does put one in mind of that “keep your minds open, but not so open that your brains falls out” quote on a fairly regular basis.
I maintain that the biggest problem with rationalists, particularly big-name ones, is not excessive open-mindedness per se but knee-jerk contrarianism. When you have a community founded on “becoming smarter”, appearing smarter is how you gain status, and as a result there is an enormous temptation to depart from conventional wisdom as often as possible, even when the conventional wisdom is completely correct, because you can’t stand out as smarter than everyone else by agreeing with them.
Contrarian takes, even extremely dumb ones, are the social currency of the rat crowd, because it’s a lot easier than coming up with genuine novel insights, which are rare and hard to come by.
That is a different thing. I’m talking about stuff like
I am supportive of people using gay porn/cuddling and psychedelics to hack themselves into bisexuality if they want to, I guess, but trying to get people to do it by saying “don’t be a wuss!” doesn’t seem like it’d work on that set. you need to write an essay about how bihacking is an investment in your human capital because it increases your prospects for relationships and thereby gives you leverage in negotiations
This take is frankly dangerous. Even when rationalists aren't pressuring anyone into bihaking, this whole area of inquiry is already on a thin fucking ice because for it to work, it must either be true that (1) Christian conversion therapists are right, regardless of what other physiologists think of them, or (2) rationalists somehow found the solution that eluded the conversion therapists, after thinking about it for five minutes. Both of these seem unlikely, but at least one could say that even if we're crackpots, we're better than the Christians because we don't pressure anyone into changing their sexuality (even though Christians can be motivated by self-hatred just as much as by external pressure as well). But actually pressuring people crosses the line that should absolutely not be crossed at all.
You'd rather be supernaturally terrorized into sharing by a Ghost of Christmas than by a Spectre of Communism.
Trying to properly articulate the exact feeling I get when I hear certain Christmas songs (the list is kinda long) and I can't really put my finger on precisely why, but a large number of Christmas songs give me the same physio-emotional response as 'distrust.'
And that's very difficult to explain to people when they ask 'geez, do you hate EVERY Christmas song?'
Do what I do, and straightforwardly explain that there is exactly one good Christmas album— Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas— and all other Christmas music is mediocre or bad. People will usually either agree with you, or at least see where you’re coming from, and the other people aren’t worth arguing with.
I sincerely hope you only mean modern Christmas music.
I know, right! Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is pretty good.
So, like, when are you going to admit you hate men and think they deserve to be treated like shit for being men?
Every once in a while I get called a man who hates women (for saying things like "actually, draft is really bad"), and then every once in a while I get this. There's truly no winning in this game.
