arcticdementor

[arcticdementor]

Deeply dispiriting post: testimony from a DOJ antitrust action reveals the entire book publishing industry is celebrity memoirs, established franchise authors like James Patterson, children's books, Bibles, and back catalogues (e.g. Lord of the Rings). Publishing new authors is not even a rounding error; you get the sense it's only done anymore out of a vague sense of obligation, and the moment one of the Big Five decides on the defect strategy, and stops doing that to save a few more bucks, it will end entirely.

#books #publishing

[arcticdementor]

waking up and logging onto tumblr each morning to find out whether im needlessly academic or crudely self-taught

[arcticdementor]

What good is a ham radio when there's no electricity? What good is an encyclopedia set to people who don't know the language it's written in — presuming they can read at all?

People more concerned than me have much better preparations to keep a package of civ-rebuilding and comms tools and other backups in case of collapse.

I doubt the "package of civ-rebuilding" any small individual can keep stashed away will be all that effective — so much is dependent on complex supply chains, on knowledge distributed and embedded across so many different places. Plus, what makes you think these people — or more likely, their grandchildren — will even make it to the collapse, let alone live through it?

I don’t know if you’ve seen the news about the federal lawsuit against the Sheetz convenience store chain charging them with hiring discrimination. Apparently refusing to hire people who fail a criminal background check is racist. Do you think there’s any chance of this rolling back some disparate impact hiring rules?

Almost no chance, good luck with that! Most of the reporting I can find seems to agree on this example of tone:

Federal officials said they do not allege Sheetz was motivated by racial animus, but take issue with the way the chain uses criminal background checks to screen job seekers. The company was sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin.

“Federal law mandates that employment practices causing a disparate impact because of race or other protected classifications must be shown by the employer to be necessary to ensure the safe and efficient performance of the particular jobs at issue,” EEOC attorney Debra M. Lawrence said in a statement.

Finding evidence of wrongdoing is too hard work for the EEOC, so they find evidence of Bad Percentage and prosecute people for that instead!

Disparate impact is a totalitarian insanity of American law, for which the EEOC should be prosecuted by the successor regime.

And it's also well established in precedent of the current regime that disparate impact law gets to micromanage hiring, reverse the burden of proof, invent a Numbercrime, create contradictory obligations on employers to fill racial quotas and also not do that, and contribute to even more problems as side effects such as university diploma mills and inflaming racial taboos.

[arcticdementor]

Seconded.

First Substack-exclusive post (still free to access) looks at a good but one-sided Harper’s piece that linked January 6th to the right having abandoned coherent political narratives.

#substack #read the whole thing

[arcticdementor]

*sees nationalism* This is actually not natural behaviour, humans only do that when stressed out or not provided with adequate enrichment.

[arcticdementor]

I'll refer here to my second-most upvoted (and AAQC'd) effort-post at The Motte as to why publicizing genetic racial differences won't work.

1. progressives wish to lay blame for differing racial outcomes - read: blacks being worse off

As I note, the point is that, in the Kendian view, "the system" is to blame — that is, whichever processes are responsible for the disparate impact. "Systemic white supremacy" is anything (and everything) that causes worse outcomes for blacks vs. whites. It's not that they're not "properly considering other causes," it's that all possible "other causes" are still "the white supremacy," pretty much by definition.

After all, we can imagine different systems where "success" correlates with different traits. For example, if our leaders were selected by their sprinting ability ("there's only one Big Giant Office, and whoever outruns the fireball wins"), the ethnic makeup of our elites would look rather different. If income were negatively correlated with IQ, and positively coordinated with better rhythm, we'd have a very different racial distribution of wealth. Thus, the idea is that "anti-racism" means changing the system in whatever ways necessary to achieve "racial equity."

4. one contributing cause of blacks having worse outcomes is blacks being stupider and more violent 5. one contributing cause of being stupid is having genes for stupidity and violence

If blacks are stupider, whether due to genes or otherwise, then anything that causes "stupider" people to have worse outcomes than smarter ones is racist and part of "white supremacy." If blacks commit more crime, then not hiring criminals is racist — as with the Sheetz case, no actual intent is necessary.

It's the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And what does equal opportunity in employment mean? Does it mean that two individuals of different race, but otherwise identical on the relevant factors, have equal likelihood of being hired — that you don't treat individuals differently on account of race? One might think so, but they don't. For something like half a century now, they've held positions to the effect that "equal opportunity" means a hiring process that doesn't treat racial groups differently (does not discriminate between them) — where blacks as a group are equally likely to be hired as whites, regardless of any differences in statistical distributions of traits (cultural or genetic).

Consider this image from a United Way webpage:

"Genetic racial differences" are like the differences in height and mobility in this image — to the extent they exist, it is the job of an "antiracist" society to compensate for them so as to achieve equal outcomes despite them. Blacks "having genes for stupidity" isn't an excuse for hiring fewer of them, it's the very reason why using IQ testing in hiring is "racist."

Yassine Meskhout had an example from his job as a lawyer, over at the Motte, about the local game laws limiting the harvesting of clams from the beach. Specifically, that in his experience, the only people violating it were Cambodians.

If so, then under the dominant Progressive view, this law — or at least the neutral, colorblind enforcement thereof — is racist against Cambodians. The antiracist position, then, is that it must be abolished.

If blacks break some laws more often, whether because "genes for violence," culture, or whatever, then those laws are part of "white supremacy." After all, our society chose those laws, and chose to enforce them in the manner it does. Thus, the "antiracist" argues, we must change those laws, change how we enforce them, so that blacks are no longer "overrepresented" in the prison population.

Our society has chosen to select for various traits in ways that result in whites having better outcomes than blacks. That, in their view, is the "white supremacy" they want to remove, and no amount of pointing to genetic differences will matter.

Though I don't remember where at the moment, I know I've read works from this set who define "whiteness" as, effectively, the property of anyone who is on the "better" end of disparate impact — that is, someone who "benefits from white supremacy" where "white supremacy" is in turn whatever makes disparate impact. Hence why Jews are white and Asians "white-adjacent."

And as for remedies, Kendi's quite clear: anything that sees the problem to be fixed as some aspect of blacks is racist. The only antiracist way to "target the causes," whatever they are, is to change the system so that outcomes are the same regardless of the differences. To address lower black IQ by trying to raise said IQ is racist — the only "antiracist" way to address it is to reorder society so that their lower IQ doesn't matter for outcomes anymore. To quote from my Motte post:

In particular, there was a narrative in the early days that held that disparate impact was fully downstream from invidious discrimination, thus allowing the conflation of the two definitions of “racism.” If one did care more about ending disparate impact itself, well, then banning invidious discrimination was still the way to go about solving it. Except, of course, it was becoming clear by the time of Griggs that this didn’t hold. That eliminating Jim Crow and making things “colorblind” wouldn’t fully close the gaps. Hence the definition split.

…

I believe it is in Stamped from the Beginning that Kendi specifically addresses and rejects this narrative. Racist ideas do not produce racist institutions, he has argued, but instead it’s the other way around. Our institutions result in disparate outcomes between races — have done so since the first blacks arrived in any notable numbers in Western societies (hence “from the beginning”) — and people come up with ideas to explain it, and when those ideas propose that the “problem” to be “fixed” lies somewhere with the underperforming minorities themselves, rather than the system, those are racist ideas.

…

This is where that example, and the Ozempic analogy comes in. Because that method of addressing different life outcomes between “thin” and “fat” treats obesity as the thing to be fixed, not that the obese have different outcomes. Sure, this might be okay to hold in the case of something like obesity — but even then, note my past comments, here and here, on Carleton University's Fady Shanouda attacking said medication as "fatphobia”, even "the elimination of fat bodies”, and “that treatments for "the so-called obesity epidemic" were "steeped in fat-hatred.”” But for people like Kendi, it’s never okay in the case of racial groups.

You talk about accurately dividing blame among causes, but the progressive view is that you can't consider black culture (or black genes) themselves to be causes, only how our society reacts to them. Black IQ doesn't cause blacks to be hired less, that employers care about (things that correlate with) IQ does. Black violence doesn't cause more of them to be incarcerated, that our society locks up violent offenders does. It doesn't matter whether the difference are genetic or not, either way the only Progressive response is still to do whatever is needed to ensure equal outcomes despite those differences.

Progressivism Incurs A Moral Obligation To Study And Publicize Genetic Racial Differences

In this essay, I will, briefly summarize my line of argument and invite comments.

Keep reading

[arcticdementor]

"Disparate impact is a totalitarian insanity of American law, for which the EEOC should be prosecuted by the successor regime."

What makes you think there's going to be a successor regime (rather than a total collapse into a new dark age)?

I don’t know if you’ve seen the news about the federal lawsuit against the Sheetz convenience store chain charging them with hiring discrimination. Apparently refusing to hire people who fail a criminal background check is racist. Do you think there’s any chance of this rolling back some disparate impact hiring rules?

Almost no chance, good luck with that! Most of the reporting I can find seems to agree on this example of tone:

Federal officials said they do not allege Sheetz was motivated by racial animus, but take issue with the way the chain uses criminal background checks to screen job seekers. The company was sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin.

“Federal law mandates that employment practices causing a disparate impact because of race or other protected classifications must be shown by the employer to be necessary to ensure the safe and efficient performance of the particular jobs at issue,” EEOC attorney Debra M. Lawrence said in a statement.

Finding evidence of wrongdoing is too hard work for the EEOC, so they find evidence of Bad Percentage and prosecute people for that instead!

Disparate impact is a totalitarian insanity of American law, for which the EEOC should be prosecuted by the successor regime.

And it's also well established in precedent of the current regime that disparate impact law gets to micromanage hiring, reverse the burden of proof, invent a Numbercrime, create contradictory obligations on employers to fill racial quotas and also not do that, and contribute to even more problems as side effects such as university diploma mills and inflaming racial taboos.

[arcticdementor]

Some fiction background character work

Which of these three media takes is the most deranged?

A:

“Bob Clark was one of the greatest directors of English-language cinema. Oh, not for launching the execrable ‘teen sex comedy’ genre with ‘Porky’s,’ nor for his collaboration with Jean Shepherd on the grossly overrated ‘A Christmas Story.’ No, Clark’s single greatest contribution to film was the last movie he directed before his untimely death. ‘Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2’ is a sublime masterpiece; a deep commentary on human childhood, contemporary television programming, and becoming your true heart's desire. The acting is tastefully subdued. The dialogue seems authentically spontaneous and naturalistic. The symbolism is at once layered and nuanced, yet immediately graspable to any moderately astute viewer. Through the character of Kahuna, an age-defying toddler who must thwart a power-hungry media mogul’s evil plan, the movie encourages viewers to embrace their inner child and never give up on their dreams.”

B.

“It’s a real tear-jerker of a drama, exploring the strained relationship between a father and son. The movie's portrayals of family dysfunction, the damaging effects of both parental disapproval and false allegations, and the need for forgiveness is a poignant and thought-provoking commentary on the complexities of human relationships. Definitely the highlight of Tom Green’s career, and one of the best films of 2001.”

C.

“Really, ‘Birdemic’ is well worth watching. A powerful film, it eschews reliance on overly-polished special effects, and doesn’t hide or downplay its solid environmental message. With elegantly subdued acting, highly organic sound design, and a complex plot, delivered by a sedate pacing that never feels hurried, it’s a worthy follow-up to its twin inspirations, ‘The Birds’ and ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’”

#minor character #absolute weirdo #movies #poll

[arcticdementor]

[arcticdementor]

five hours of meetings in a row are enough to drive me crazy

[arcticdementor]

As opposed to trying to take every task in one big go and never check if what you're doing is working? I swear every business strategy sounds like this

[arcticdementor]

Trimeresurus Insularis, A Venomous Viper Native To Indonesia

sagnik31

#snake

[arcticdementor]

Weight Loss

I've been struggling, for the past 18 or so years, to try to lose the ~150 pounds of weight I gained when I first went on antipsychotics (a known and common side-effect of that class of medication). Now, I'm finding myself losing the will to keep trying. Why bother trying? Why not just let the fat pack on?

#medication #weight loss #motivation #why bother anymore

[arcticdementor]

do you think that in the 1800s and shit when it was all steam trains and scrooge flavored business guys in the stock market, and shit, that people went to their rich grandmas house from the 1700s french revolution times with roccoco and so on and it was like floral curtains and 1950s lamps and other grandma shit to them? i think it was

[arcticdementor]

The more I think about it, the more I'm certain that there's been a sociopolitical "papering over" of a decades long economic decline. There's been a lot of borrowing again the future for decades, and eventually the piper is going to come calling. Fucking boomers.

#housing #retirement #economy

[arcticdementor]

Tag yourself, i'm Asheliigynne

#twitter #screenshot #ai generated #yearbook photos #those names #i had a high school classmate whose face was almost that hairy come graduation

[arcticdementor]

@poipoipoi-2016 posted this, and I have thoughts that are entirely unrelated to the context it was originally reposted in.

First, I don't like the way it assumes that capability is a sort of set metric, that some workers are just good enough to do O-Ring work and some aren't, because process design and environmental factors will also play a role.

In an uncontroversial environmental design example, I think it's quite likely that even good workers make more mistakes at the end of a 100 hour work week then they do at the end of a 40 hour work week.

So who decided on those 100 hour work weeks?

Second, process design; there's an apocryphal story I heard about nurses plugging IV tubes into the wrong ports, no matter how thoroughly they were trained, until somebody gets the smart idea to redesign the shape of the ports so that you can't plug them in wrong anymore.

I also have a real life example from my brother, who works in safety. His employer was a crucial industry that had to stay open during the pandemic, and so HR came up with a very complicated worker's comp scheme for people who had COVID symptoms and needed to stay home. Part of the policy is that people who stayed home got paid 60% of their salary.

My brother told them, "Hey, a lot of the people covered by this policy are working paycheck to paycheck, and if you tell them that they have to take a 40% pay cut every time they sneeze, they are going to come in to work anyway and pretend to be healthy"

From what he's told me, HR's response was essentially that tweet where the 911 operator says, "He can't kill you, that's illegal!"

So I know a lot of you know math, and I've been thinking a lot about the psychology of certain choices, in particular choices where you have two paths:

In path A, you definitely pay a moderate cost.

In path B, one of two things happen. Most of the time, you pay no cost at all. But occasionally path B creates catastrophically high costs.

I'm curious how people think about situations like that mathematically.

I feel like there's a point at which the moderate cost of path A gets high enough that, when presented with the choice, most people will choose path B, even though the expected cost of constantly choosing path B works out to be much higher.

#workplace safety