Viewing profile — kapitza

"Escapist" might be a good name for the emerging nihilist-libertarian ideology behind Bitcoin. Escapists aren't Republicans or Democrats. They don't have any strong opinions on whe…

> The whole point of fact checking is that the fact check / rebuttal is put side by side or preceding the original claim And of course, the original source's surrebuttal to the reb…

Abstractly, this is a good thought. It would probably gain some nuance, however, by watching an hour or so of WSHH, 30 Sec Fights, even the First 48 or Bait Car: http://www.worldst…

Yes, perhaps the reason rape seems so much more common is that people in the 1940s didn't understand what rape is. I want to order a time machine and send you back to have a conver…

Can you think for yourself without authorities, man? I know it's hard. This passage from the Economist article I think nicely, and unintentionally, demonstrates the level of insani…

That wasn't an appeal to authority, just an appeal to reason. You'll have to forgive me if I prefer to trust Dr. Pryor and common sense over the Brookings Institution's "studies an…

I think the leading expert on this subject is NYT reporter Fox Butterfield: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/us/despite-drop-in-crime-a... In case it isn't obvious: https://en.wik…

Well, it's beyond dispute that prison populations nationwide quadrupled -- that's the whole point of "mass incarceration." I don't know of any attempts to model how many crimes the…

Society's tolerance for crime is bizarrely irrational. There will be about 800 murders in Chicago this year -- yawn. Now imagine if 800 Chicagoans were killed by radiation leaks fr…

I think you're making the very common mistake of thinking about transmitted traditions phenotypically, rather than genetically/cladistically. This methodology leads you to wander a…

Because the goal (or rather the means) of terrorists is to scare people. And it's much scarier to imagine your plane being blown up in the air. Reason has nothing to do with it. Th…

Love to hear any book recommendations on the Algerian wars, especially older books in English, not by Alistair Horne, and not taking the standard Western "missionary position." Rea…

Leftists won the last three big wars, so even most of today's "conservatives" are more than a little hybridized. You won't find any independent clade of wolves who bark for their o…

Depends on whether you're willing to call a wolf-dog a wolf. East Coast coyotes are apparently full of dog DNA, as well as wolf DNA. So maybe they bark, or even howl a bit. But I m…

"Jugurtha" is a pretty easy tipoff. Not that Americans would learn who Jugurtha was in school, except maybe grad school, but a few of us still read books...

A: "Dogs have no proprietary claim on barking." B: "Wolves don't bark. No other canid barks." A: "My neighbor's wolf barks all the time. Drives me crazy." B: "That might lead you t…

Wut? searches mental database for any trace of right-wing egalitarians... You must be thinking of... Nietzsche? Definitely not Nietzsche. Maistre? Mmm... no. Can't be Maistre. Bona…

> To find a parallel for the grossness and debauchery that now reign in New York one must go back to the Constantinople of Basil I. H.L., honey, you have no idea ...

Perhaps you've seen The Big Lebowski . "Leads? Leads? " The odds of the SFPD "investigating" a mere wallet theft are even lower than the Malibu PD trying to figure out who stole Je…