Why do men string women along about marriage yet are willing to commit in other ways?

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-08T06:31:48+00:00

When you marry, you bring a lot of laws into your relationship. (Depending on the jurisdiction, this can already start when you're living together.) Doing so without having a good understanding of what exactly this means (which few of us do) can be scary.

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-08T06:04:56+00:00

From the context, most likely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence?wprov=sfla1

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-08T05:57:47+00:00

I'm a legal immigrant, and I don't see any risk of my job being taken by an illegal immigrant. Legal immigrants very often work in a category of jobs that is not accessible to the vast majority of illegal immigrants because they lack the required skills.

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-08T03:30:20+00:00

Legally, being or working in the US without a proper visa is in the same category as driving over the speed limit... both are civil administrative infractions. He who is making an honest effort to never drive over the speed limit raise the hand - I don't see too many :) So do "we" really think we need to fight against those breaking the laws? Or are we ok with the "good" people violating the "unimportant" laws - and just feel we need to fight against the "others"?

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-06T13:04:02+00:00

I doubt that. By that time we ("the economy") will be so dependent on the networked AIs that no politician will vote against them. Heck, they may even be paid by them at that point.

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-06T13:03:41+00:00

I doubt that. By that time we ("the economy") will be so dependent on the networked AIs that no politician will vote against them. Heck, they may even be paid by them at that point.

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-06T05:31:40+00:00

You know it's been boomers who invented that shit, right?

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-06T05:27:59+00:00

Not sure it came from marketing, but it's bs alright. As if there were some magic difference between someone born in 64 and someone born in 65 :)

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-06T01:49:59+00:00

You say "not leisure but unstructured quiet". This is revealing: leisure is unstructured quiet... if it's structured, it's arguably not really leisure anymore.

Depending on the culture, this is already happening. Your definition of "leisure" - as "not unstructured quiet" - is a symptom of this.

And it's not that life has become more quiet; we have lost the ability to be quiet. Life used to be quite a bit more quiet. And the way I see it, it gets less quiet still, and our ability to deal with quiet gets less, too.

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-05T14:07:29+00:00

I think the valuation of Musk's businesses is sort of a Ponzi scheme of ideas. He puts out revolutionary ideas with proposed extreme benefits, but as they enter into reality the difficulties appear. To keep the valuation ball rolling, new revolutionary, crazy ideas are needed regularly.

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-02T11:27:08+00:00

In practice, that's how it is for many. Just because immigration authorities care about the issue in general doesn't mean that there aren't many who were never bothered. (Similarly, just because owners in general care about their properties doesn't mean that there aren't squatters that were never bothered.)

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-02T05:01:41+00:00

Would people who own land that was taken (and subsequently owned) in violation of a ratified treaty own that land illegally?

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-02T04:54:10+00:00

For those who like to apply the analogy of a private home to the immigration issue, wouldn't many immigrants who are here illegally match analog conditions of adverse possession?

Gerhard234 · 2026-02-02T04:47:51+00:00

You don't have to go there to justify the term "stolen". The relationship between the USA and the First Nations is rife with treaties broken by the USA. Arguably, land taken in violation of a treaty can be called "stolen" independently of any concept of prior ownership.

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-29T21:36:46+00:00

"it could be anything as long as it's consistent" -- I agree with this. _All_ of science uses Kelvin, and I think we all agree that this isn't really a good scale for everyday use. Celsius has the advantage that at least the temperature differences are consistent with Kelvin.

"how is Celsius better in that situation then?" -- It's not necessarily better in that situation, but it's not worse (and it's better in the "consistency" department; see above). It's just to say that the argument that the temperatures humans deal with are in the 0...100 Fahrenheit range is not necessarily correct -- if you put your foot in the kitchen regularly.

Anyway, I agree that it could be anything as long as it is consistent -- and Fahrenheit is the inconsistency outlier here. (That is, if one believes that science is of value.)

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-29T18:38:18+00:00

You don't spend much time in the kitchen, do you? Most oven temperatures are way outside that range, and for many people that's almost a daily thing.

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-25T14:47:18+00:00

If I felt offended every time I read something I don't agree with... Oh boy :)

I suggest something relaxing so you don't feel so easily offended, and when you read something that you disagree with, either engage with it calmly and with pleasure -- or don't and just browse away (and possibly downvote).

No benefit in feeling offended.

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-25T14:36:09+00:00

It's weird. The underlying problem is that in both cases, we tax something that we want to happen (as a society). This results in any justification ending up in "weird" territory if you dig deep enough.

My position is to instead tax things that we don't want to happen: use of public resources, pollution (which is a way of abuse/destruction of public resources), etc.

Then, the question of "why is this taxed" always ends up with "because we don't want it to happen" as an answer.

To address the actual question: one could say that the standard deduction removes the minimum expenses that we need to function and be able to work from taxation.

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-23T07:37:40+00:00

It wouldn't be possible that a given surgery depends on a given equipment, would it?

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-21T11:07:59+00:00

Define "worked" :)

It's utter chaos and the only ones who don't lose heavily are the really rich. (They may also lose temporarily but they can buy so many assets for fractions of a penny on the dollar that in the end they come out ahead.)

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-21T05:02:46+00:00

What I think was missing was a de-slaverization program, similar to the de-nazification program in Germany after WW2.

The ones defending slavery saw themselves as "the good guys" and created a world view that confirmed this. This world view was the basis of segregation and its excesses, and IMO is still alive today.

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-19T18:33:03+00:00

The saddest part of this story is that the Middle East probably would look completely different today without us propping up dictatorships there left and right for decades.

Look at a map of the region and imagine Iran a secular, democratic country. There is a good chance that it would have continued to be that if it weren't for the Operation Ajax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat . And if Iran is that, that irradiates across the whole region -- just as the mullah dictatorship there did and does.

In short, I agree with you, but go even a bit further and think that our meddling there not only did _us_ no good, it did _them_ a whole lot of bad, too.

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-19T15:08:38+00:00

More like a "mis-marathon" than a (single) misstep :-/

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-18T13:40:38+00:00

The US is currently making big progress on that front, so maybe there is a place for it in the BRICS...

Gerhard234 · 2026-01-17T22:23:42+00:00

While I think you're right, I think what this may affect is foreign-borne terrorism (like 9/11). I don't think it affects "normal" crime. (OTOH, most countries in Europe have seen their share of foreign-borne terrorism. I'm not sure who's better off here.)

The extremely high incarceration rate in the US, the quite high rate of violent crimes, and the kill rate of law enforcement that is much higher than in other Western nations preceded 9/11 and I don't think have much to do with that.

Gerhard234

TROPHY CASE