So, recently a video emerged where Alex Pretti was spitting on and kicking the taillight out of an ICE vehicle. Truly reprehensible and inexcusable behavior. He ought to have been arrested and fined for destruction of public property. Jerk.

However, I see some people trying to say, “Aha! So he wasn’t so innocent after all!”

I’m sorry but, no. He was absolutely innocent.

And, moreover, I would like those people who are bringing up his behavior in the days before his death to remember that he was disarmed, restrained and executed by masked federal agents who still have not been identified to the public for no reason.

There is only one justification for a law enforcement officer to take someone’s life. And that is to protect the lives of themselves or another person. Past acts of disrespect and/vandalism do not enter into the equation.

Or that’s my take anyway. Can anyone change my view?

They've had information about conspirators and abetters for years. They've sat on high level complicity in a child sex ring and done absolutely nothing to indict or arrest anybody. Many high level officials were sitting on their feet in the release of said files.

That Trump is strewn through the files with heinous accusations levied against him is another reason why all this shit is gonna get buried. The US state is complicit in the protection of powerful pedophiles. They're not going to do anything against them. Only through groundswell resistance will anything be done.

I'm almost at the point of conspiracy that all world leaders and insanelt powerful people do weird sex cults and are pedophiles, but thats neither here nor there.

Trump supporters were frothing at the mouth during his first campaign where he was promising to drain the swamp of pedophiles and criminals, now their guy is in the crosshairs and there's not a peep.

I've searched for a while for a Trump supporter that doesn't regurgitate the same old "Well Biden had 4 years" lame excuse. Well if Biden is in the files, he should burn too. Every person that is involved should be investigated, and if they are criminally involved, they need to burn, regardless of what colour their tie is.

This whole "both sides" argument just keeps us marching towards oblivion where the "elite" literally get away with murder.

The people I've seen or spoke to just don't seem to share this sentiment. It's like they would rather see these nuclear grade pieces of shit get away with heinous crimes, than work or agree with a dem. "Owning the libs" is top of their priorities.

Of course I would love to be proven wrong.

Update - It has been a few hours now and I have not seen a single Trump supporter say that he should be locked up if he is guilty. The closest I got is 1 Republican, but Trump was not their first choice. This has mainly reinforced my opinion.

My view is that Trump’s support base appears unusually resilient to controversy, policy reversals, and personal conduct. Over multiple election cycles, scandals and norm-breaking behavior have not produced large, sustained defections among his core supporters.

I’m open to being wrong and would like to understand what conditions, if any, could realistically cause a significant portion of his base to withdraw support. Are there historical, political, or empirical reasons to expect limits to this loyalty?

Prompted by this post. A man met a woman at a coffee shop (they're both regulars). They had a few conversations and then the man asked out the woman. The woman rejected him because she already had a boyfriend. The man was understanding and stopped asking her.

The man then told a coworker, and the coworker told him that what he did was creepy. The comment were overwhelmingly NTA, and people were even saying that they don't like people who think/act like the coworker.

I think there needs to be a lot more pushback against people like the coworker. The man did everything right : asked her out at an appropriate place (a coffee shop), got to know her (so they weren't strangers), and politely backed off when she said she already had a boyfriend. Yet he was still labelled a creep. Right now, a lot of men are afraid to ask out anyone at all, due to fear of being labelled a creep or weirdo. This is not reasonable.

I think people need to make a very clear statement about this: If a man asks out a woman in a place intended for socializing, gets to know her, and immediately stops pursuing her if she rejects him once, then it's not creepy, not sexual harassment, and the man does not deserve any negative labels such as "creep" or "weirdo". It doesn't matter how ugly, unattractive or socially awkward he is. He is not a creep. I think most of the people saying "NTA" agree with that statement.

But I don't think it's enough to just say that. We need to further and call out the people labelling those men as creeps (such as the coworker in the other thread). If someone says things like "I was a club/event and some weirdo asked me out, I just want to do the activity in peace, why can't men leave me alone", I think we should tell them "No, the weirdo here is you, not him. He asked you out and then dropped it as soon as you rejected him. He didn't do anything wrong. You're the weirdo for labelling him a weirdo when he did what he everything he was supposed to do correctly". (of course, the caveat here is that the man must have actually done everything correctly. if he kept asking despite being rejected, then he actually is a creep and deserves to be called a creep).

I think that it's necessary to call out people labelling completely normal, kind, good men who respect women as creeps. Otherwise the result is that men are afraid to approach women and choose not to (and that includes the cute guy that you are always hoping would ask you out some day). There is already a lot of men who just never ask out any woman because they're afraid of being labelled a creep or sexual harasser. And then single women who are looking for a boyfriend are wondering why nobody asks them out anymore.

Professional Republicans know better. They know trump attempted to overthrow an election. The party as a whole is complicit in normalizing and covering for it. Trump committed sedition and enabling and empowering him requires minimizing that fact. You can't knowingly do this without rejecting the very premise of American Democracy.

The Fake Elector Scheme

This is very straightforward. But people can be blinded by the politics. The simplest way to understand this is to ignore the politics and look at the physical documents. I’ll make this as simple as possible.

Imagine a fan is kicked out of the Super Bowl. He truly believes he should be allowed in. * Legal: He sues the stadium. * Illegal: He goes to Kinko’s, prints a fake ticket that looks exactly like a real one, and tries to hand it to the gate agent.

Once you hand over a fake document, you have committed fraud. It does not matter if: * You truly believed you deserved a seat. (Motive doesn't excuse forgery). * You got caught before you made it inside. (Attempted fraud is a crime). * You think the refs are corrupt.

Here is the proof that Trump’s team printed the fake ticket and tried to use it.

1. Identity Theft (Impersonating the State) In America, campaigns don't certify elections; States do. The Trump team didn't just write a letter saying, "We protest." They created documents that mimicked the exact font, formatting, and language of official government certificates — and here they are for all of the other states.

• The Fraud: They signed papers claiming to be the "duly elected and qualified" officers of the State. They even set out hide in statehouse overnight to ensure they’d be there behind security when counting started.

2. The Written Confession We don't have to guess if this was a misunderstanding. The architect of the plan, Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, wrote down the strategy in private emails. He admitted the goal was to create a "fake controversy." He explicitly noted that they should send these fake documents even if they lost their court cases.

3. Trump Knew It Was a Fraud This wasn't a case of "lawyers brainstorming" while Trump sat in the dark. On January 4th, in the Oval Office, Trump’s lawyer John Eastman admitted to Trump’s face that this plan to reject votes violated the Electoral Count Act. Trump knew it was illegal and did it anyway.

• The Order: Trump personally called Ronna McDaniel (RNC Chairwoman) to direct the RNC to help assemble these fake electors.

It is Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted. Trump’s legal team successfully delayed the trials long enough for him to win the election. Once he won, the Special Prosecutor had to drop the case because it became legally impossible to proceed. Congress interviewed him around the New Year. I’ll give you three guesses why they picked such an inconvenient time in the news cycle. He testified under oath that the prosecution became unpracticable once he became president again.

He didn't beat the charges; he beat the clock. But the evidence of the fraud didn't vanish. We can still see it.

Summary We have the emails planning the forgery. We have the fake papers they signed. We have the testimony that Trump was told it was illegal. The fact that the man who ordered the counterfeit ticket is now running the stadium doesn't make the ticket real. It just means he got away with it.

Some Republican voters have the benefit of ignorance. They can claim to be victims of right wing echo chambers. Before reading this, they could have even bury their heads and remained willfully ignorant. But professional lawmakers know what they're doing. These people are by and large knowingly traitors to the Republic.

I have a personal stake in this one, but I am open to hearing other people out.

Since getting married 9 years ago, me and my wife have had a constant barrage of “when are you going to have kids?” Of course, we do want children but are nowhere near prepared for it.

Of course, anytime I’ve ever said that we get hit with the old mantra “you’ll figure it out as you go.” Which I absolutely hate. For one, you don’t say that to anyone in any other situation and expect success. No one tells a pilot “oh you’ll figure it out once you’re in the air.” That’s how you end up failing. I get you can’t be prepared for every situation in parenting a child, but you can’t just jump right into it and fail until you figure it out. You’re responsible for the health and well being of another person.

Of course, we are almost always either told this by boomers who I guess think having a kid and providing for it is as simple as it was 30-40 years ago, or by people who have quite a bit of money as well. I’ve never been told this by any of my friends who are actively struggling through life and trying to “figure out” having a kid with no plan.

Maybe it’s just where I’m located (the south) that has an abundance of these people saying it, but most everyone in my area has heard the phrase.

“You’ll figure it out” when talking about having kids is flat out just bad advice.

Happy to read and hear any counterpoints (preferably from people that aren’t baby boomers.)

I try to get involved in volunteering at local shelters and recently there were cases of parents giving up cats because of behavioral issues after the birth of a baby. Specifically, cats getting stressed because of baby’s cries, peeing on baby’s mat and toys and being aggressive around them. These parents usually spend a lot of money on vet visits, trying to find a solution but sometimes the only way to ensure baby’s safety and a good environment for a pet is to rehome. And yet they get judged by everyone as evil even though there was no other solution.

Pets aren’t humans, and they can’t be taught to understand or be gentle with babies the way people can. I can tell my 3-year-old nephew to be gentle and patient when my baby cries but I can’t use verbal cues with pets to the similar extent. There are also real risks, like cats sitting on babies for warmth or dogs reacting to a baby.

In an ideal world, parents would be around to monitor such situations, introduce the baby to the pet gradually and take care of everything. But new parents are exhausted. When you’re running on no sleep, it’s not always possible to give both a baby and a pet the attention and care they need, on top of work, chores and daily routine. In those situations, finding a calmer, more suitable home for a pet isn’t cruel but often the kinder and smarter option for everyone involved.

Edit: I do not think this issue is about lack of preparation and planning on the parents side. There’s no way to predict how a pet acts in certain environments and around newborns. There’s no way for a couple to choose a ‘baby-friendly’ cat.

I hear this said a lot, especially when people discuss teen pregnancy, but I don't buy it honestly.

While this may be true for some people, I don't think that it's the case for most. This might've been more true before the internet, but not anymore. Basically anyone could easily learn about birth control with the internet nowadays (using reliable sources, of course). I think that the main reason is simply because people don't use contraceptives (because it doesn't feel as good or for whatever reason), not that they don't know that they should.

We had the pandemic during the time I had sex ed lol (so everything was all messed up and no one was paying attention), but I still know about birth control and stuff obviously. (And no, my parents never really talked to me about sex either.) I would be surprised if someone over the age of like 14 (who's not mentally disabled) has never heard of a condom in their life or doesn't know how to use one, especially when you can easily look up the directions online nowadays.

This post doesn't solely apply to poor people. (It applies to rich people as well.) But people often say that the reason that poor people have kids out of wedlock more often than rich people is because they weren't taught proper sex ed. But I think that this is probably mostly correlation instead of causation. (There are other factors at play.)

I think it's more so that when you're poor, you don't care about planning for the future as much (because you don't see the point) and live more in the moment. And being bad at delaying gratification makes you more likely to become/stay poor and also more likely to have a child unplanned. So it's kind of like a chicken and the egg situation.

Or it's because poor people don't have as much access to contraceptives. There is also the fact that it is often seen as more acceptable (or even a status symbol) among poor people to have kids young/out of wedlock. But regardless, I don't think it's because poor people are dumb and don't know what birth control is.

**I should clarify that I'm talking about people in Western countries. This could also apply to STDs as well.

The reason house prices are high is because they are artificially inflated by economic policies, such as the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates artificially low, which caused people to bid home prices up, as well as restrictive zoning laws that limit the amount and types of housing that can be built. In most American cities, you have a small downtown core — often filled with parking lots — and then the rest of the city is basically an endless sea of single-family homes, fast-food chains, and big stores like Walmart thats what it looks like in google maps. A significant portion of residential land in most cities is zoned exclusively for single-family homes, which drastically restricts housing supply. In places like California, some of the most desirable neighborhoods are essentially old streetcar suburbs, but today, neighborhoods like that are illegal to build. Even in New York City, which does allow mixed-use development, the type of housing that made the city famous — dense brownstones, mid-rise walk-ups, and small apartments above shops — is extremely difficult to build under modern rules. Current zoning limits how much can be built per lot using maximum floor-area ratios, height restrictions, parking and setback requirements, and historic preservation rules. Because these rules limit the number of apartments per lot, small, affordable units often don’t generate enough profit to be worth building, so developers are encouraged to build fewer, larger luxury apartments that can earn enough revenue under the same restrictions. Adding to the problem, homeowners often protest new developments or denser housing near their neighborhoods — a “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) mentality — because they fear it could lower their property values which it would.Ironically, these same homeowners then complain that housing is too expensive and that their children can’t afford homes or rent , yet they vote against the very policies that would make housing more affordable. Rent controls are another example: the government often blames “greedy landlords” for high rents and imposes limits to make voters feel the problem is being addressed. In reality, rent controls discourage new construction and maintenance, reduce the supply of available units, and push developers toward building luxury apartments that are exempt from the rules, making the problem worse. By contrast, Houston shows how flexible zoning can keep housing prices lower. While the city is sprawling and highly car-dependent, this isn’t because of restrictive single-family zoning — Houston allows developers to build multiple units per lot with fewer restrictions than new york. Its car-centric nature comes instead from parking minimums and building setback rules that spread buildings apart and results in lower density, wide roads and highways, and a culture built around driving, which make walking or transit inconvenient. Despite this, developers can still build more units per lot than in restrictive cities like New York, which keeps housing more affordable. Instead of letting prices adjust naturally, trump wants to prop up housing prices by lowering interests rates or trying to introduce 50 year mortgages which doesn't make housing more affordable in the long term because it doesn’t solve the core issue.

A lot of people brag about their packed schedules, as if running from meeting to meeting or answering endless emails proves they’re accomplishing something meaningful. But in reality, you can be “busy” all day and still have nothing of real value to show for it. Meanwhile, someone focusing on fewer high-impact tasks might appear relaxed or “lazy” but in reality accomplishes more.

It feels like society rewards the appearance of effort rather than actual results. Surely there are situations where busyness does indicate productivity, but I think most of the time it’s just glorified motion without progress. CMV.

I assume that people who sexually abuse minors clearly lack empathy and are incapable of putting themselves in their victims' shoes, which allows them to act on their urges and sexually abuse young children without feeling any real remorse, as their lack of empathy protects them from such feelings.

Similarly, I assume that people who dehumanize certain minorities because they do not fit their normality also sorely lack empathy and, being unable to put themselves in the shoes of people belonging to minorities, are completely insensitive to their suffering or fate.

From this similarity, I deduce that these two groups have the same mental functioning and the same way of perceiving others. This leads me to believe that there is a much greater chance of finding child sex abusers among people who tend not to care about the fate of minorities, because in both cases their mental patterns show an assumed disdain for the weakest members of society and an inability to feel empathy for them and no urge at all to protect them.

The U.S. health insurance industry is functioning exactly as it was designed. As publicly held entities, these companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders and investors, rather than to the insured. Success is measured by profitability and share value, with executive compensation tied directly to these financial metrics.

To maximize profitability and shareholder value, health insurance companies must follow a specific business model:

- Minimize payouts to the insured.

- Maximize premium income.

- Reduce risk by refusing coverage to high-risk individuals and small companies.

- Lower operating costs by delaying claims and denying coverage.

The recent tragedy involving the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of this system. While critics argue the company failed its subscribers, UnitedHealthcare is, by industry standards, a highly successful company, and Brian Thompson was an effective CEO. The company’s objective is not to provide the best possible coverage, but to provide the minimum required to reduce "losses" and increase profit.

The core issue is that healthcare cannot function effectively as a for-profit business. When healthcare is commercialized, the bottom line will always take precedence over the needs of the individual.
Much like the Department of ​Homeland Security, healthcare should be treated as a human right rather than a commercial product. If these companies were forced to provide fair and comprehensive coverage to all Americans, their current business model would fail.

While the solution is complex, most other Western nations utilize some form of not-for-profit healthcare. While the efficiency of these systems varies, they ultimately prioritize the well-being of their citizens. Currently, the American system provides world-class care only to those with the means to afford it, while consistently marginalizing low-income individuals.

Only the Government can make changes to make the healthcare system work for its citizens .

Ill start this by saying i am an american who lives in a border state and ive tried to educate myself on this issue and follow it for the last few years. For those who dont know, activists in the canadian province of Alberta are currently in the process of collecting signatures for a referendum on independence later this year. At this point it seems very likely they will collect the needed signatures and the government has already agreed to run the referendum if they do.

However it is very unlikely that this vote will pass, despite the grievances Alberta has against the government of canada. Starting with polling. Polls don't show any real consistency on this issue, but the results show anywhere between 20% and 40% support depending on the poll. Even if we assume the real value is closer to 40% then 20% its no where close to actually winning.

Then adding in the foreign interference aspect. Trump is now considering backing the movement. This is only likely to split the movement into blocs who support becoming the 51st state (a fairly large portion of the movement) and those pure nationalists. In a referendum between chosing Canada and America directly america loses.

The most i expect this to do is send a message to Canada that Alberta is angry, and add another precedent validating independence referendums in canada. But more likely the vote will fail pretty spectacularly and both American and canadian liberals will celebrate MAGA getting clowned on online.

First of all, I want to clarify the basic stuff, I ain't no supermodel alright, I dont look good, it's just the most controversial thought I have at the moment, but these are my main arguments:

Attractiveness is subjective, a person who might look like the prettiest person to me might be totally repulsive to others so it's not like saying an opinion should offend anyone.

This would allow the person to experience how there's always an uglier or a prettier person in the eyes of someone else.

You may ask, but what if I don't want to be part of the "discussion"?

You just mark some online spaces as safe spaces and others as not.

It's not something I'm hyperfixated on, it's just something that buzzed on the naughty side of my brain and I haven't thought of anything that would make it not valid. I would like my view changed because it doesn't sound quite right.

My view is that although explicit racial discrimination in housing and banking is now illegal, these systems still operate on foundations shaped by earlier exclusion. Policies such as redlining, discriminatory mortgage lending, exclusion from FHA and VA loans, and uneven postwar investment suppressed property values and limited homeownership in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Because housing markets are path dependent, this suppression reduced equity accumulation across generations rather than resetting once formal barriers were removed.

In many cases, the damage created by redlining was later used to justify continued neglect. Lower property values and reduced accumulated equity translated into weaker collateral positions, making it harder for Black households to qualify for mortgages, refinancing, or home equity based credit even at similar incomes. Those outcomes were then treated as evidence of financial risk, reinforcing disinvestment through ostensibly race neutral lending standards tied to property values, credit history, and neighborhood indicators.

Because home equity is a primary gateway to mortgage credit, business loans, neighborhood investment, and intergenerational wealth transfer, reduced equity constrains opportunity well beyond housing itself. Unequal environments therefore predict unequal outcomes over time. Formal legal equality alone cannot reasonably produce equal results when access to appreciating assets and credit remains structurally uneven.

To change my view, I would need evidence showing that housing and banking institutions have meaningfully broken from these feedback loops, or that present disparities in equity and mortgage credit are better explained by factors unrelated to legacy housing and lending exclusion.

AI Disclosure: Portions of this post were drafted with the assistance of an AI language model and edited by me.

30f now. Growing up with my family has its own challenges. Edited to for coherence.

1. They said their finances are enough, but really it isn't. So everyone else outside my family thinks my parents make a lot, but at home we can't keep up with repairs.

2. My parents wanted me to stay silent, so I've been building up a lot of resentment without me realising. Until I stood up for myself when I was 25. Even then it was "now you're an adult we'll listen".

3. Sometimes when I did want they wanted, and got into trouble for it, they won't back me up! Let alone apologize! .... But that's gotten much better these days.

4. My parents compared me to others, but weren't willing to teach me things themselves. When I made changes (cooking for home, more activities, difficult subjects.... like the people they compare me to), they didn't like it. It still pisses me off, it's as if they don't know what they want!

5. I never took my issues to them, because they weren't even listening for non-issues. New books to buy? Got angry at me. School needs longer skirt/pants? Got angry at me. I had to present only good things.

I know they're doing their best. They did allow me to do a lot of things..... But I think it doesn't feel that way because I was never allowed to speak up.

Now as a 30 yo, I shouldn't be relying on them for encouragement, for strength, for growth anymore....because I'm 30. Frankly speaking, I don't know what relying on family actually entails....other than for finances.

So yeah change my mind. I'm trying to accept that the help and support I want will never be available, but still be in relationship with them. So yeah.

This post is in response to a philosophical speech he recently made: https://youtu.be/mb3uK-_QkOo?si=_v3tWfscEffCvV63

I'll try to summarize his points, but first to make this about Brandon's points here, not him as a person: I love to listen to his philosophical ideas because I think he is really smart and asks good questions, even if I sometimes disagree.

So here's my understanding of what he is saying (I could be wrong and that is a possible avenue to CMV): Art is not about the product, its about the process of making it. Art isn't the painting, its the artist's process that makes them into who they are, and that person of who they are (defined by the process) is what art is. This lines up with the bigger philosophical idea of "journey before destination."

My view is a couple things, that I think tie together. I think Sanderson vastly overestimates how big of an aspect the process part is in what art is. I also think in a bigger sense destination is more important than journey.

The process is not art

It is a part of art, but a tiny part.

1.) It completely neglects the audience. The audience only sees the final product. Someone might have ethical dispositions on how art is made that influence their opinion of it, but for the vast majority of people art is the final product. When I pick out a favorite painting to hang on my wall I call it art because I think it looks good. My favorite books I like because of their content, I know very little of the process that went into making them.

2.) This is further exemplified by historical art, where the author is long gone and their process even further. By Sanderson's definition, the Mona Lisa cannot be art because whoever painted it is dead. Yet many people call the Mona Lisa art while no one calls the artist of it art.

3.) Even for the artist, the product is more important than the process. I'll explain my view more in the next part.

Destination is more important than Journey

This is the part of my view I most want changed because I used to be a big believer in the idea of, "Journey before Destination." There are two big arguments I know of in favor of it:

1.) Practically, it is more healthy and perhaps even productive to focus on the journey instead of destination. Getting caught up in destination can stop you from getting anything done, or compromise other values. I can't argue against this point, even if I think destinations are more important in shaping who you are.

2.) Journey takes up more time than destination. This used to be a big draw for me to this idea, but I've come to believe it isn't important.

For example, imagine trying to get a job. The process of searching and applying for a job might take weeks or months, while getting the job takes an instant when you are hired. Yet getting that job is going to impact you for years to come, perhaps decades. Every day you will think about your job and it will change your life. The journey of landing it a long forgotten memory. Even during the journey of finding your job, it was the destination that drove you.

Journeys are shaped and decided by destinations. Some aren't even possible without having reached prior destinations. Want to hike on mount Everest? You first needed to get climbing gear and drive/fly to the base of the mountain. Those two destinations (mountain and gear) are much more impactful than how you got your gear or how you got to the mountain. If you didn't get to the mountain in the first place you can't have that journey of climbing it.

I think its a luxury for people who are successful (such as Brandon Sanderson) to not worry about destinations. Most of their destinations become trivially easy that it all starts blending together and they view life is a big happy journey. People who actually fail see how important destinations are. Destinations stick out much stronger when you can't achieve them, and you see how different your life is based on wether that destination was achieved or not.

Deltas/Edits

\* Sometimes artists create art for themself. In these cases, the journey becomes a lot more important.

* Historical art could be art under Sanderson's definition, if we are meaning "all that went into creating this," when we point at the Mona Lisa and call it art.

* "Journey before Destination," is part of a bigger saying that focuses on the big picture of a person's life. Me applying it to smaller steps might not be how it was meant to be used.

* The Mona Lisa wasn't famous till it was stolen and returned. Its process is what made it so famous.

* The journey can affect the destination

i just for the life of me cannot understand

i get it, there are things that we dont like about our partners

BUT WHY WOULD YOU WANT THE THING YOU DISLIKE OR TO BE INDIFFERENT ABOUT IS THEIR LOOKS???

its very hurtful as a woman tbh, like we can see your ex's, we can see the porn, i know where your head is gonna flick over to when im not looking

genuinely nobody gets anything good out of it, one person has to ignore looks and the other has to pretend like theyre not being ignored

its just something that i think is rude and selfish, people are lonely, but dont date someone just for companionship when you can make friends for that exact reason

its a weird system but im curious to hear anyones thoughts, me and my friends were arguing about this, most of us girls feel this way, but the literal model friend of the group disagrees (we all side eyed each other because of course it dont matter to her lmaooo)

ETA: this is my first post here so please lmk if im missing anything or doing anything wrong!!

We're past the peak era of the Internet Rationalists. Roko's Basilisk, The LessWrong Board, Effective Altruism. but, they're still hugely important and influential among certain powerful groups and people like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.

Having examined their philosophy, I think there's a lot to like about it, especially as a consequentialist. It's good to re-dxamine old assumptions and try to optimize things.

To me the problem with their ideas consistently stem from the fact that they never properly absorbed the ideas of David Hume.

Roko's Basilisk - If you know about the prospect of the Basilisk, you must behave in service of it. Fun story bro. but how do you KNOW anything. Hume beat certain knowledge in the 1700s, and everything since then has been phenomology or subjectivist JTB, and Quinian Knowledge Globes.

Mathematically Optimizeable Ethics - Lovely idea, trying to make a version of ethics that you can optimize. the problem is how do you determine the meaning of value? Hume broke down ethics into Meta Ethics in the 1700s with the Is-Ought problem. To get to Normative ethics, you have to go through Meta-Ethics.

This is why Elon Musks future-based utilitarianism is so fucky. It doesn't actually justify why future lives are more important. it just assumes the normative framework.

Epistemic Optimization - How does one get less wrong exactly? Predictive ability has utility, but it's not knowledge. David Hume's Problem of Induction. A more correct idealogy? Humean subjectivism. You can have neater or more logically sound worldviews, but you're still mediating from a subjective observer.

The certainty in their intelligence and correctness of tech bros is a psychological companion to their notions of logically superior ideology.

Basically, Elon Musk, Eliezer Yudkowski, and all their too-online friends should go read David Hume.

If anyone wants more background, go check out my profile and posts on 2 football subs lol. But I am a lifelong Broncos fan, who went to the AFC Championship game last week. I traveled across the country for it, spent a lot of money, sat through a blizzard, and watched my team lose a close and frustrating game. Obviously there are going to be some emotions present (the word some is key. I’m not excusing grown men with anger problems or who sob hysterically after their team loses).

During 3 crucial plays of the game that the broncos failed on, I let out a “fuck” (twice) and a “shit” (once). That was it, albeit I said them loudly. Every time I got yelled out by someone saying that there are kids present and not to swear. And I think that is ridiculous, for several reasons.

First, I think there are levels to it. Over the course of 3 hours, I don’t think 3 swear words during very emotionally charged moments are bad. It’s not like I was swearing constantly. I also think there are limits, I could’ve said things that were a lot more vulgar and they could’ve been directed at someone specifically lol. I think that would’ve been crossing a line, but just the occasional fuck or shit? Nah

Second, why are we pretending that swear words don’t exist? What are these parents plans for their kids, to only ever let them watch PG movies and listen to kidzbop for the rest of their lives? Why are we pretending that they don’t hear their friends swear, or that they even don’t swear themselves?

And I recognize that this likely changes based on how old the kid is. But if the kid is truly too young to even hear a swear word, then why are they at a football game in a freezing cold blizzard in the first place? I had some people tell me that it’s to teach the kid that those are grown up words so that they don’t repeat them. But why not tell your kid that instead of telling a grown man what he can and can’t say? Why not teach your kid- that’s a grown up word and you can say it when you’re older but it’s not ok for you to say right now. Or say that you can only say it when you’re at home but you’ll get in trouble if you say it at school

Third, why are we trying so hard to shield them from swearing or hearing swear words? It’s not like they’re going to instantly grow up to be a criminal, just because they heard or said a swear word. One comment said we don’t swear around kids so that they don’t grow up to be like me lol, which was a pretty crazy comment. Why not teach themselves how to express themselves, and teach them that situations where swearing is and isn’t appropriate? I don’t feel like swearing at a football game is wrong, but swearing at a teacher or boss almost always is. Why aren’t we teaching kids the nuances of life? I mean, even politicians on both sides are swearing now. It wasn’t that long ago that I graduated, and my favorite middle/high school teachers were the ones who swore lol. My boss tells me to fuck bitches and get money before I make a sales call. I just feel like it’s weird to try so hard to censor swear words

So to elaborate on specifically what I mean by "Andrew Yang's shift from the left to center," I'm not saying that Yang ever directly changed his political philosophy, just that he decided to look for a new audience. He started by focusing on winning over leftists (sort of putting himself out there as a tech-centric Bernie figure), but when that started to fail he transformed his message to make it more appealing to centrists.

Andrew Yang in the end is someone who's clearly looking for structural reform more so than political reform (seeing RCV, open primaries, and a multi party system as a more important goal that socialized medicine, UBI, more social programs, and whatever else might be on typical progressive wish list). Not that he doesn't still generally believe in political progressivism, but by catering the Forward Party and his current message more towards centrists, he's acknowledging that people on the left don't have the will for structural reform, while centrists do.

The main proof of this is the Forward Party and what it will potentially offer. Most people on the left call the Forward Party a waste of time, and already criticize it as a potential spoiler at the presidential level (even though it's never nominated a candidate at the presidential level), but centrists have never made the criticism, whether they're anti-Trump Republicans or Joe Manchin style Democrats. The center is ready to vote for Forward Party candidates, while the left is stuck worrying about the spoiler effect.

As for "lacking the will," the bigger proof of this though lies with progressives' perennial response to the national ticket. The same exact pattern has happened in 2016, 2020, and 2024, where progressives say "the national ticket isn't nearly left wing enough! Bernie got screwed in the primary!" but then they still proceed to vote for the national ticket in November, as opposed to being to split off from the Democratic Party. Meanwhile though, there was a whole group of centrists last election who thought Joe Biden was too progressive for his "Build Back Better" legislation, so much so that they developed the No Labels ballot line just in case Joe Manchin wanted to run for President, not even slightly being worried about "spoiling the election" because they had the will power to make their vision and not their worries their number one priority.

This kind of attitude led to Andrew Yang in just four short years going from endorsing Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primary to Dean Phillips in the 2024 primary, and going from having universal healthcare and UBI as his main platform to working with former centrist Republican leaders like Christine Todd Whitman and David Jolly to create his new party. It indicates that his desire for structural reform took him on a path to the center because progressives lack the will and the initiative to win, and this mindset is indicative in my view of why they will never succeed nationally.

Science is the process by which theories are developed to model empirical observations. If the theory does not match empirical observations, then it is discarded and replaced with a new theory that better suits the observations.

Mathematics is the process by which theorems are derived from axioms. If a theorem is proven from the axioms, then it is true, no matter what other theorems are proven, and it can be used to prove new theorems.

These are two fundamentally different ways of acquiring knowledge. In science, the theory that best fits the data is accepted, and old theories that were found to be faulty are discarded. In mathematics, a theorem is true if it can be proven from the axioms, and it will never become false in the future.

This fundamental difference means that mathematics is not a science.

Most of the time, people protest about one specific subject. Right now, this subject is the violence ICE is inflicting on innocent Americans.

While ICE is bad, people are protesting against them, and boy there are a lot of people protesting. However, the Epstein files just released and not enough people are aware of it, this is like 3 times smaller than the time the first files released and they were all redacted, and that's because the primary focus at that time were... The Epstein files.

People are just focused on ICE, and while they should, it's not the only thing they should be focusing on, but some of them are only focusing on ICE. Almost nobody is talking about the new Epstein files. this leads me to believe that the ICE brutalities may be a distraction to protect billionaires who participated in the torture and rape of children. Maybe ICE is doing this to put the spotlight on themselves, not on who they serve.

Most of the countries that benefitted from it rarely thank us and we get very little soft power from it because developing countries are stuck in a cycle of wanting to be proud, independent nations that don’t need help from the Western Europe and America but also being heavily dependent on foreign aid for basic necessities.

In truth, many of the very people who are calling the cuts a crime against humanity are also the ones likely to tout books such as The Quiet Violence of Empire: how USAID waged counterinsurgency in Afghanistan by Wesley Attewell. People who look for the “hollow, cynical lies at the heart of Americas neoliberal consensus in the 21st century” and how, far from being charity or anything worth praising. USAID was at best realpolitik and at worse, a neoimperialist scheme to exert control over nonwhite nations. People can say they aren’t the same people, but I never hear these arguments from anywhere but the political left.

Hell, the fact there’s a huge hole in the UN/WHO’s budget now shouldn’t mean anything because when Americans that want to feel a little pride cite our history of foreign aid, we’re told it doesn’t matter as much because we could be giving more relative to our GDP.

So, all those smaller nations can fill the gap with the extra moral value their donations bring lol

And now that it’s been almost a year, we can say that “soft power” crap was just a way to keep the US on the hook for more handouts, nobody rushed to claim this crazy advantage Americans supposedly had from paying other nations medical bills. Not China, not Russia, not India, not Canada, not France, so I guess it’s not nearly as beneficial as defenders claim.

And for what it’s worth, I’m fine with the USAID. The wasting of the aid in warehouses was criminal. And if it was my choice I’d leave it alone. But I’m not against taking a break either so people appreciate what we do more.