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I Met Paul Graham Once

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651–660 of 860 posts

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#651
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Do you ask everyone you work with for a birth certificate so you can ensure you're referring to them using the terms you consider appropriate?

Yes absolutely, and I take a blood sample from each of them for karyotype testing while doing a thorough inspection of their genitals.

Any more daft questions?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it fascist to vilify immigrants? Is the republican party full of bright young twenty year olds? Can you post "cis" on twitter?

Who “vilifies immigrants”? President Trump is married to an immigrant, as is Vice President Vance. And many of Trumps advisors are immigrants. And he has repeatedly said he wants America to attract the best people from around the world. You mean he vilified illegal immigrants specifically. That’s fair, he did. But he’s not obligated to speak kindly about people who flout our laws. > Is the republican party full of br…

He's not obligated to do anything, man, but I can point at what he does and call it fascism.

I know you may struggle with this because the American education system is awful, but if you pay a tiny fraction of attention to what American senators are like, you'll come to know that in a fistfight or a battle of the wits there is a non-zero number of senators that Biden could beat. This is not a Red vs Blue issue, as simple as that might be for you.

You're claiming America is "turning away from fascism" because of free-er speech. Citation needed. The Christian right is famously book-ban happy, my friend.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#653
post #651
post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ask everyone you work with for a birth certificate so you can ensure you're referring to them using the terms you consider appropriate?

Yes absolutely, and I take a blood sample from each of them for karyotype testing while doing a thorough inspection of their genitals. Any more daft questions?

So is it a problem to use the "wrong" pronouns for someone or not? You take people at their word on their gender every day. Why go out of your way to fret about what you call people only when they tell you they're trans?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it goes against your personal beliefs to call someone what they prefer to be called at no expense to yourself, then you need some new personal beliefs.

What about neopronouns? Can someone just make up a new set of words like zi / zim / zis and expect you to remember them whenever talking to or about that person?

What have you done so far in cases where a coworker has asked you to refer to them only using a neopronoun?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#655
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operation paperclip would beg to differ WW2 ended because of sheer numbers

> operation paperclip would beg to differ Operation paperclip? A huge number of scientists and engineers unable to accomplish much under an authoritarian regime, but then driving massive innovation and discovery when freed from it, is exactly my point. Even when employing brilliant creative people authoritarians will always setup a work culture and organization fundamentally incompatible with innovation where traits…

They did accomplish a lot you just don't hear about it because history is written by the victor. Think about the numbers it took to defeat them: USSR, USA, British Empire, French Empire, and China.

The reason the scientists were gobbled up by the US and USSR is precisely because of the knowledge they developed during and why everyone else was hanged.

One can argue a lot of the advancements made until the era of computers was made because of that horrible war

Not pro authoritarian regimes but logically if your life depended on creating something 9/10 you will

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#656
I think I have strong feelings about this because PG exploits people the same way cults exploit vulnerable people insecurities and uses them to build power and influence for the cult. If PG is now sharpening the lines (us vs them), in a way which benefits him - it's at the cost of the victims who didn't make it along the way.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#657
post #655
post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> operation paperclip would beg to differ Operation paperclip? A huge number of scientists and engineers unable to accomplish much under an authoritarian regime, but then driving massive innovation and discovery when freed from it, is exactly my point. Even when employing brilliant creative people authoritarians will always setup a work culture and organization fundamentally incompatible with innovation where traits…

They did accomplish a lot you just don't hear about it because history is written by the victor. Think about the numbers it took to defeat them: USSR, USA, British Empire, French Empire, and China. The reason the scientists were gobbled up by the US and USSR is precisely because of the knowledge they developed during and why everyone else was hanged. One can argue a lot of the advancements made until the era of compu…

I do hear all about it because my wife is an obscure history buff interested in Ww2 and Soviet history, and I am particularly interested in foreign science and technology we don’t here about in the USA, and enjoy learning about soviet research and other science that still hasn’t made it back into mainstream western knowledge.

Authoritarianism does not fundamentally make it impossible to develop technology, it just stifles innovation and creativity to a degree that creates a noticeable disadvantage. Even US academic and government research institutions suffer from this to a substantial extent. Even being under stress for your life will be motivating but stifle your own creativity to an extent- and that physiological dynamic itself is very much central to how differently authoritarian organizations function, as they maintain a high stress environment to motivate and control people- which it does, but not in a way conducive to creative thought or risk taking. You also have the aspect of just giving individuals much less freedom and independence: needing to justify and seek approval up front for every little experiment, etc.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#658
post #45
post #24

Great, cohesive, and clear essay! Hear hear. One thing that I think is underappreciated in our current times, that gets lost on both the left and the right sides -- an individual is more important than their identity . - A specific trans person can also be an asshole. - A specific white man can also be a saint. Extremists on both political sides will scream about the reasons one or the other of those statements is wr…

Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you. In general I wholeheartedly agree. But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree.

My challenge is I can’t even tell if me and someone else are seeing the same facts. Take trump for example. Policies etc I may disagree on but I can see why someone else would support them.

As a person, looking at everything he says and does I can only conclude that he’s a narcissist that only cares about himself. But then there are a lot of trump supporters that are convinced he cares about them and the country. What am I missing that we can come to such dramatically different conclusions?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#659
post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? I thought it was the west that couldn't ramp up and is running out of stockpiles. I'll admit I'm an armchair general but I did serve so I have at least some minimal idea of what war looks like. EDIT: Also not clear how long the US is going to keep supporting Ukraine now that Trump is in power so that's another factor.

You can track Russia’s stockpiles through open source satellite imagery, here’s a recent video overview: https://youtu.be/TzR8BacYS6U Ukraine benefits from being on defense, as the attrition rates are significantly in their favor. I’m not sure what will happen after Trump does whatever it is he’s going to do, but it is clear that Russia’s current trajectory is not sustainable beyond a year or so

> it is clear that Russia’s current trajectory is not sustainable beyond a year or so

Those cheering for Ukraine have been saying this from the start. They have been lying again, and again, about everything... The Russian MoD has been on point, again and again. Why should I trust anything camp NATO/Ukraine says?

The reality on the battlefield is that NATO/Ukraine loses badly, while spending much/much/much more money. Donated money.

Sorry bro: it's a lost cause. The russians will be victorious again, fixing Europe's nazi problem again.

Everyone who teaches their kid "Bandera is my papa, Ukraine is my momma" is a nazi to me. And according to my research, that's a lot of the Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you happen to live in Switzerland?

I think it’s Sweden.

It can be any country in Europe. Fact is that the country inside looks different than in the movies in one’s home country. Another fact is that we like the others that look like us and not like the others. In other words racism and xenophobia are real. Some people can live with that and bite back when confronted, for others occasional reminder about their origin is too much.
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