HelixDab

I have a pair of Bellville MiniMils that I wear every single day; I had the last pair for about three years, and I’m at about a year and a half on this pair. I work and hike in them (although I want to get nicer hiking boots, something like the VivoBarefoot Tracker). They are minimalist boots though, so if you don’t already like and wear minimalist shoes, you’re not going to like these.

First: How do you reconcile that view with the idea that animals also experience the world as people do with the idea that animals kill and eat other animals? Bears, for instance, are roughly as intelligent as a kindergartener, and yet happily kill and eat any other animals that they can. Pigs and crows are also omnivorous, and will eat any source of meat that they come across. They can all likewise avoid killing if they choose, yet they don’t. Are they immoral? Or does morality only apply to humans? (Even animals that we traditionally think of as herbivorous are opportunistic meat eaters.)

Second: What would you propose replacing animal products with, when there are no alternatives that function as well? What about when the alternative products also cause greater environmental harms?

Third: So you would not have a problem with, for instance, hunting and eating invasive species, since those species cause more harm to existing ecosystems than not eradicating them would? What about when those invasive species are also highly intelligent, e.g. feral pigs? Or is it better to let them wreck existing ecosystems so that humans aren’t causing harm? To drill down on that further, should humans allow harm to happen by failing to act, or should we cause harm to prevent greater harm?

Fourth: “Exploiting” is such an interesting claim. Vegans are typically opposed to honey, since they view it as an exploitative product. Are you aware that without commercial apiaries, agriculture would collapse? That is, without exploiting honey bees, we are not capable of pollinating crops?

Would you agree, given that all food production for humans causes environmental harm, that the only rational approach to eliminate that harm is the eradication of humanity?

…And how exactly do you think people are going to be able to eat meat otherwise? Or have dairy, eggs, wool, etc.? Do you think that people should e.g., raise chickens in the city?

And that’s ignoring the small obligate carnivores that make up most of the pets in the world.

Hey, I’d rather hunt my own food too, but we no longer live in tribal or feudal societies where you can reasonably expect to engage in animal husbandry yourself.

“Truth” is a matter of conclusions and meaning, not of facts. Factual information would be something like–and this is an intentionally racist argument–53% of the murder arrests in the US come from a racial group that makes up 14% of the population. This is a fact, and it can be clearly seen in FBI statistics. But your conclusions from that fact–what that fact means–that’s the point of rhetoric and logic. Faulty logic would make multiple leaps and say, well, obvs. this means that black people are more prone to commit murder. A more logically sound approach would look at things like whether there where different patterns in law enforcement based on racial groups, what factors were leading to murder rates in racial groups and whether those factors were present across all demographics, and so on.

That seems like a dangerous approach to not care if you disagree with people. Shouldn’t you know if your disagreement with them is based on sound reasoning?

Well. Yes. This is true though. And that’s a ‘problem’ with a lot of things; they can be ‘true’ when looked at from a certain perspective, but not necessarily useful in any meaningful way. For instance, pain is a sensation, and that sensation is not, by itself a ‘bad’ thing. It’s just sensory information. Pain in the context of BDSM can evoke positive judgements in the person experiencing the sensation. An identical sensation experienced in the context of being physically abused by an intimate partner will likely evoke a negative judgement. Your judgement about those sensations is based on your context and past experiences.

But at the same time, looking at a larger picture here, if times are getting tougher, then rather than looking inward to the self and your own perception, it makes more sense to look outward to community, to try and change circumstances in a way that is positive for the entire greater community.

RIP Vicki and Sammy Weaver.

Huh. I got 1312 confused with 1349, and was wondering why left libertarians would care when the black plague arrived in Norway, or why they’d all be super into a black metal band.

But yeah. 1312.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in a dissent to the ruling joined by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that the decision “unjustifiably grants true threats preferential treatment.”

…What the fuck? Am I taking crazy pills? In what fucking world do Thomas and Barrett advocate for a sane and rational approach to anything?

Economics is political. Always has been.

That’s closer to anarchism then communism. Communism, as it’s generally developed, has a central state authority.

Personally, I see the existence of a state and individual liberties as always under tension. You can’t have a state without some infringement on individual expressions. But some restriction on individual expression is necessary for a functioning society. The question is what infringements and under what circumstances are acceptable.

…But that’s not what Christian nationalists are working towards. They want to teach their religion, not teach about all religion.

I don’t think that it’s accurate to call tankies liberals.

A lot of this gets thought of on a left-right spectrum, but it’s really more like a compass, with economics being left-right, and authoritarian/antiauthoritarian being top-bottom. Liberals in the US would be slightly left of center on the economic spectrum, but largely centrist on the authoritarianism spectrum. Tankies would be far left on the economic spectrum, but at the top of the authoritarian spectrum. Libertarians (or, what gets called libertarian now) would be at the extreme right on the economic spectrum, but at the very bottom of the authoritarianism spectrum. (The most modern libertarians are not actually anti-authoritarian, although they claim to be. E.g., many of them oppose abortion rights.)

Fun fact: you can be opposed to capitalism without being a communist.

You [tankies] maybe opposed to capitalism, but you’re still in favor of the coercive control of individuals by a state-level entity. That’s just another flavor of authoritarianism.

I will definitely check it out. I’d love to see an open world game made now with the same kind of scale, but I don’t think you could. IIRC, it would ahve taken something like a year in real time to have your character walk across Tamriel.

…Or Oblivion. Or Daggerfall. Probably not Battlespire or Redguard though, and I don’t know if you could get Arena to run on a modern computer. Daggerfall was a bit tricky; I think it bugged out for me before I got out of the first dungeon.

I’d need a Real Attorney to chime in, but I think that, once you’re actually in a trial, you can’t dump your client without the permission from the judge. (You also can’t intentionally stop providing your best service for any reason at all, not unless you want to be sanctioned or disbarred.) So while an attorney could insist on money up front, if the money they were paid didn’t cover the real expenses, they could still end up getting stiffed. I suppose the ‘smart’ thing to do would be to have $100M put in an escrow account, and the money can only be released from the account if both parties agree. So if Trump tries to stiff you for the bill, he’s still out the money since you don’t have to release it back to him. Kinda like what The Silk Road used to do, only even shadier, since you’d be working for Trump.

Lawyers can potentially get sanctioned for client conduct. I can see a potential problem if attorney are given access to classified information for defense prep, then Trump accesses the information, and then disseminates that information. It’s a bit of a stretch, but given how bad Trump’s behaviour has been, that’s not a stretch I would ignore if I was an attorney.

THIS is what’s going to bite him in the ass.

This is a huge case. It’s going to take hundreds, if not thousands of billable hours. Any attorney that’s competent that takes this case has to know that they’re probably not going to see even a fraction of that money, meaning that they’ll be without income for a long period of time. A competent attorney that’s not ideologically motivated and independently wealthy is unlikely to be able to take the case. (An _in_competent attorney that doesn’t realize this fact might take the case, and then not be allowed to withdraw from the case by the judge.)

Second, Trump has a history of running his mouth in public. The attorneys that are going to be defending him need to have national security clearances in order to be effective counsel. If Trump talks about the cases in public, he could cost his attorneys their security clearances, which would not only impede their ability to defend him, but could also prevent them from being able to defend similar clients in the future. If I was an attorney, that would be a really big fucking deal. Not only would I be unlikely to be get paid, but there would be a real risk that Trump could harm my ability to earn income in the future.

If I was a competent attorney with a track record of defending this kind of case, this case would be radioactive.

Possibly an alcoholic. Hand sanitizer is about 70% alcohol, and even if it’s isopropyl and could kill you, an alcoholic that needs a drink will sometimes take the risk.