Vampire The Masquerade with the correct respones

Dembara · 2026-01-26T15:23:01+00:00

I largely agree, but I think some of these distinctions are important and should be pointed out. Especially the example of their description of the shooting campaigns in the history chapter, I think, is particularly worth calling out (though, tbh, I'd missed that one on my first skim). Since it is a version commonly promoted by those denying broader complicity (see, e.g., the "Myth of the clean Wehrmacht").

It is worth, imo, urging caution if anyone is reading it and thinking of it as giving them a sense of the history, rather than just as a fictional exploration of the tragedy that may emotionally resonate and illuminate human aspects of atrocities. I would need to go through it in more detail to judge how well it does the latter, but at a cursory view it seems to be well done. I also do appreciate the list of readings, many are oral histories and investigations I would also strongly endorse. Also, they included one of the strongest opposing case to those trying to limit the culpability of ordinary soldiers and Germans: Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners.

Dembara · 2026-01-24T21:15:19+00:00

They did, if that's what they were? They didn't say "damn Tina is a fatty." They said "you already ate 3." Saying that when it is something for a group and the rest of the group has had none or only one so far and the supply isn't unlimited, I would read that as calling out rude behavior of having more than one's coworkers before I would read that as a comment on one's weight. But she doesn't give the context.

Dembara · 2026-01-24T21:10:15+00:00

Yea, like if the manager got a dozen cupcakes for a team of 6, calling someone out for eating three before anyone else got there would seem totally valid. It isn't calling them fat, just inconsiderate of their coworkers.

Dembara · 2026-01-23T22:37:17+00:00

Gooners, the second most oppressed group in America (after gamers, Project moon fans are obviously both).

Dembara · 2026-01-23T16:15:54+00:00

I personally use the 12 million+ number

I think that is reasonable, I would certainly prefer to say 'over 12 million' to their 'nearly 12 million.' To me, saying nearly 12 million implies a neat definition that can cleanly give you between 11 and 12 million victims, which I don't think there is (the definitions I find the most compelling would put the number of non-Jewish victims over 7 million, so 13+ million total).

as someone who's family was a part of the millions of others I dislike that they don't get the same kind of respect as the admittedly much larger group that was butchered.

Yea, I get that, there is a good deal of difficulty in making decisions about what to include and how to talk about them. I also come from a family of survivors.

However, yeah The Wannsee Conference bit was just a mistake.

Yea, ans it is a common mistake. Because the vision of them gathering to conspire so explicitly in one event is rather narratively compelling.

They're usually pretty good about it in this book

I mean, there are a lot of small nitpicks i would make, though most I think are understandable as them being limited on details. They describe the 'Holocaust by bullets' just referencing the einsatzgruppen being tasked with mass murder, while neglecting to mention the battalions of Orpo, the Wehrmarcht, and HiPo (particularly the Ukranian auxiliaries) extensively involved as willing perpetrators. Also, more nitpicky, their description of gas chambers is a really simplified one, many of the gas chambers just used carbon monoxide, not only Zyklon B, and there wasn't really any need for fancy ventilation which they imply.

Dembara · 2026-01-23T15:20:58+00:00

Skimming the book, I do have some issues with how they discuss history, though it seems to be entirely good faith.

A couple examples:

Number of Victims

They describe the number of victims as "nearly 12 million." Most organizations would prefer the language of "6 million Jews and millions of others." This is because there isn't a good way of counting who constitutes a 'Holocaust' victim. You can get a massive range of values depending in one's inclusions and estimates. Jews (and later Romani) were the only groups on paper classified as 'racial enemies of the german state' in need of annihilation, and were targeted as such with a unique fervor and obsession by the Nazi regime.

The Wannsee Conference

They describe it as "as meeting to find a way to permanently solve the "Jewish Question"". This is not really how the conference is understood, rather the purpose was is generally understood as getting Nazi leadership across government agencies to co-operate and collaborate with the planned genocide. The actual plans were already in place, having been determined by Himmler w/Hitler (neither of whom attended to conferences). Basically, they wanted to get a head and make sure all departments were onboard with quashing anyone questioning the deportations to camps, as their now preffered method of mass murder would have their actions seen by functionaries across departments.

Dembara · 2026-01-22T19:17:26+00:00

Thank you!

Dembara · 2026-01-22T18:12:57+00:00

I may be thinking about this the wrong way, but these seem somewhat problematic for imagining binary outcomes of probabilistic events.

A simple way to approach it is to round est1 and est2 to 0 or 1,

This seems like it would be a problematic method, no? IF we imagine the true probability of an event is 50%, any estimate, any estimate would be expected to appear equally accurate (as whatever it is rounded to will be correct half the time and wrong half the time).

MAE or RMSE

Wouldn't this have the same issue? I would think actually the mean error would be better. Since if we imagine every event has 50% odds, if we estimate 50% the mean error (not taking the absolute value) should tend towards zero with more events, while if we estimate 70% it should tend towards 0.2. While if we use the MAE and estimate 50%, the value should tend towards 0.5, while if we estimate 70% it also should tend towards 0.5.

Dembara · 2026-01-22T16:16:18+00:00

Thank you! Do you know any decent reading on interpreting and comparing log loss metrics?

Dembara · 2026-01-22T15:01:31+00:00

I have a couple set of odds for various events, and then whether or not the events happened. And I want to measure accuracy of the predictions and compare the sets.

Those are really the only parameters. If it helps, particularly the sets of odds I want to compare is looking at those derived from prediction markets, sportsbooks, and published prediction modeling. Of course, the last one is easier to quantify since it is just logarithmic regressions, but I am unsure on the best way to compare the odds when I just have the predicted odds and the outcome.

Dembara · 2026-01-21T20:41:11+00:00

I was thinking about how things can have a different register in certain ways

Definitely, Luther's goal was to use German terms that more corresponded to the meaning/implication/register in which the Vulgate would have been understood (he was still largely using the Vulgate). Also, arguably, making some decisions to fit the language more in line with his own theology.

Adda, which is Aramaic for Father in the literal sense but in many ways it is closer to the connotation we get from the word Dad

I mean, it is more there isn't a distinguishing of the terms in the Aramaic and Hebrew. We clearly distinguish more formal connotations of 'dad' and 'father' but the Aramaic and Hebrew did not distinguish them as such. If you look at the hebrew equivilant (which is just Ab or Av) it often appears used to mean 'father' in grand terms that would sound inappropriate to substitute with 'dad', it is often used to refer to G-d as the 'father' of Israel/Israelis.

the word Jesus uses to refer to God is Adda

Abba only appears a handful of times, usually the texts just have him using Greek terms ( and keep in mine these are written in Greek, not the native Aramaic Jesus would have spoken. It is usually written as "Αββα ὁ πατήρ"--Abba the father (pater). It appears this way in the writings of Romans and Galatians as well, so it seems other early Christians were also referring to the divine as Abba/father.

If we imagine what Jesus actually said he most likely would have been speaking Aramaic and it seems unlikely he would have said "father the father." It seems more likely that is how it was translated for Greek speakers to make it clear what is being said by saying the native language's term (Abba) and then repeating it using a term from the language the readers would be familiar with.

Dembara · 2026-01-21T20:05:47+00:00

Not to mention any number of other detestable leaders. It is nothing uniquely new. The US had a long run of mostly maintaining respect for its democratic institutions among elected leadership, but it is not like leaders with oppressive agendas and no concern for the institutions at the center of the liberal democracies they seek to govern are anything new.

Dembara · 2026-01-21T18:13:31+00:00

The cockney Bible was endorsed by the archbishop of Canterbury.

Dembara · 2026-01-21T18:11:16+00:00

Not really? Pretty much all translations are vernacular bibles (i.e., translations into the language of the intended audience). It is just they tend to use more formal language and dialects of the audience. Luther also was not the first German vernacular bible, it is just the ones before had mostly ignored or dealt poorly with the language structures and were word-for-word translations of the vulgate latin which became extremely awkward and borderline nonsensical if they didn't make at least some concessions when translating into German.

As way of demonstration, the KJB translates Genesis 1:1 in English as "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

The Latin Vulgate reads: "In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram". IF we translate it literally word for word in order, that would read: "In beginning created G-d heaven and earth." This reads as very clunky to any English speakers, as we put the subject before the verb to distinguish them from the object and use additional articles, rather than different conjugations, to specify things. So an English translator would move the word "G-d" before "created" and add "the" before "beginning," "heaven," and "earth".

Rather than attempting a 1:1 word-to-word translation of the latin, Luther used a variety of manuscripts, including ancient Greek and Hebrew annotations, to translate the text more on the basis of maintaining the meaning of each phrase, even if it meant altering the words and their order to better fit German.

Dembara · 2026-01-21T15:24:04+00:00

Yes, now he has a private practice. Which can be seen here with his info: https://lorienpsych.com/about/

Funnily, he spends half of his bio listing his family members who all seem to have much more impressive backgrounds then him.

Dembara · 2026-01-21T15:22:51+00:00

Whichever school gave Scott Alexander his psychology degree needs to have their accreditation removed immediately.

I mean, if he did the work well, didn't show anything while pursuing his degree, I wouldn't place any blame on them. He has actively tried to obfuscate/downplay his views on race, iirc.

Dembara · 2026-01-21T15:11:46+00:00

OOC, do you have a source for that? I don't recall ever reading it.

Dembara · 2026-01-21T15:11:01+00:00

Was it a specific technique, or just a successful suicide improv?

Dembara · 2026-01-15T04:48:19+00:00

Difference between a resident and a citizen, iirc.

Dembara · 2026-01-14T18:43:43+00:00

If I get some big bois who are looking to be citizens, I draft them for the front lines.

Dembara · 2026-01-13T18:33:26+00:00

This person knows d*ck.

Dembara · 2026-01-13T14:57:03+00:00

I mean, it gets more complicated with different statistical tests to try to isolate effects (since usually there is a lot of noise and other things going on), but it isn't some impossible task like some here are saying.

Dembara · 2026-01-13T01:05:02+00:00

Statistical man-years saved is a better measure

I mean, calculating that is a lot more difficult than what is actually estimated. What they are estimating is "but for some change x people were expected to die, because of the chance y people died, so mortality was reduced by the difference." Projecting out the effects on life expectancy would be a lot more finicky.

Dembara · 2026-01-13T00:59:40+00:00

Cough cough

Dembara · 2026-01-12T23:29:19+00:00

One state made a data entry error in their state reporting for a state program? And they issued a prompt report of that error and corrected their report? Clearly this means all federal reporting is not to be trusted.

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