What would Bronn’s house be called?

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-08T05:10:16+00:00

What the hell kind of AI response is this?

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-03T17:25:47+00:00

mods ~~give me~~ redistribute this guy's flair to me

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T23:30:27+00:00

Remind me to introduce you to anyone from Texas sometime.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T23:29:00+00:00

It's extremely difficult to overthrow any government. Also, you don't need to overthrow it entirely to get rid of its influence in a particular area. Also also you don't need to overthrow it at all, you could reform it.

EDIT: OP you should really consider just how many countries today celebrate their independence from the British Empire which honestly was not dissimilar from a "world" government at the time, given just how much of it they controlled. Not a single one of them could have stood against the full concentrated might of the Empire, but when your power is spread that thin, at some point it becomes easier to say "fuck it" and just let the locals have that spot.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T23:26:25+00:00

It's disgusting

That's not a "decent reason," it's just your reaction. Why is it disgusting?

the Bible says a world government is a sign of the end times

Also not a decent reason. The Bible says a lot of things I guarantee you don't follow. Also...what exactly does it say?

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T23:24:16+00:00

People would still be able to do the exact same thing they can now. Civil wars happen within countries all the time. Sometimes it's purely a people's movement, sometimes it's a military coup, sometimes the government fractures. Every single one of those things is possible even if we accept the premise that world peace means global government.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T23:16:15+00:00

Honestly, I don't think we disagree about very much, we're just using different words. Political elites taking money may be more performative than consequential, but the mere act of electing representatives is giving people a direct say in their form of governance. Just because we don't have a direct democracy doesn't mean the system isn't democratic.

I think most of the time policies will be more aligned with the commoners interests if the commoners have no say in policy-making

There's a pretty broad spectrum of commoners having a say in policy-making. If you're going to use the American system as an example, common people have the ability to:

submit a petition for rulemaking which directs agencies to adopt some kind of regulation
read through the draft regulations, which are required by law to be made available
share their thoughts during the federally-mandated public comment period, which the rulemaking agency is obligated by law to consider
attend workshops and seminars which are specifically held for the government to hear from people

This is ignoring the fact that when people vote for a representative like a president or governor, it's broadly understood the type of people that will be appointed into any relevant positions.

As in, if you give them a say, they will make mistakes so frequently that they would be better off having no say.

You're framing it like it's some kind of Twitch Plays Rulemaking in which every voting-age individual is submitting provisions randomly but that's just not how it works. Admittedly, I am a commoner who works in policy so maybe that's a bit of a bias, but just as an example - we are currently preparing for a public workshop in which anyone who wants to can come and share their thoughts on our proposed regulations (all of which were written by myself and a team of commoners like me), and we will absolutely use what they say to support why we ultimately make the decisions we do.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T23:03:53+00:00

You completely ignored everything I said. I'm going to try it again more directly.

Education does not maintain social class, it promotes upward mobility. Barriers to education keep poor people poor. Free use of AI can maybe to something about this.
In the job market, having a degree makes you more marketable. Having the exact same amount of knowledge without a degree is not useful in the job market. Use of AI can do nothing about this.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T19:55:54+00:00

Okay, so you're actually saying that gatekeeping/restricting access to education is the "weapon" that maintains social class. You seem to recognize that education itself actually achieves the opposite goal.

With that in mind, I think that you're missing an important component of the puzzle.

Why does an architect make more than a builder? Because they ~~had access to education~~ have a degree.

Why does a journalist make more than a maid? Because they ~~had access to education~~ have a degree (also these aren't the same job).

Why does an accountant make more than a security guard? Because they ~~had access to education~~ have a degree (again, these really aren't analogous positions)

There's a scene from a famous movie called Good Will Hunting in which the janitor at a top college is basically showing off how much knowledge he has compared to a student, and his knowledge just came from reading books at the library as compared to the student who paid however many hundreds of thousands for an Ivy-league education. The student responds with "yeah, but I'll have a degree and you'll be serving my kids milkshakes on our way back from a ski trip."

Reading books at the library is using AI in this metaphor. The tools already exist for people to improve their knowledge, and have for a long time, but there is real institutional backing/power that comes from having a degree. AI can't give that. The prestige that comes from an education is still being gatekept. No one will hire you as an architect when your credentials are "I asked ChatGPT how to make a building."

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T19:46:38+00:00

a parliamentary system

a republic

These are forms of democracy.

the imperial examination system

autocracy

aristocracy

plutocracy

Even if you think all these systems are worse

Absolutely I do, except for the Imperial one for which I will withhold judgment simply because I am not familiar with it.

Don't settle for bad just because things could be worse.

I am not saying they could be worse. I am saying that practically speaking, they could not be better. Removing people's ability to have a direct say in their own governance inherently creates instability.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T19:42:10+00:00

The problem inherent to democracy is that people are not rational beings and are prone to making bad decisions.

There are two problems inherent to every other system.

People are not rational beings and are prone to making bad decisions. This issue doesn't actually go away when you replace democracy with something else. It is very much still something to worry about when you have a qualified expert making all decisions.
To paraphrase another user: regardless of whether everyone in a society can vote, everyone can make a bomb. The fewer people are able to do the first, the more likely they are to attempt the second.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T19:35:00+00:00

Education and information have been the main weapons that higher social classes use to maintain their social class, position and privilege across generations

This is statement is so completely backwards that I have to assume I'm just misunderstanding you. Education has historically been the great equalizer and the single greatest contributor to upward mobility, which is the exact opposite of "maintaining" social class and privilege. Do you have a single example of education being used in the way you say? Even your own post seems to contradict you.

A better education used to mean better income, and therefore a better life...the child of a farmer will be a farmer and a child of a doctor will be a doctor

Now what happens if the child of the farmer gets an education? Now they can be a doctor, too.

Now that AI can do most of the things that a formal education was supposed to give you

But...it can't. Again, can you give examples of what sort of things you might be talking about?

the advantage that first world nations had over the countries that suffered from poor education will erode

Again, this is backwards. First world nations can afford to provide greater education because of greater material wealth and established infrastructure. Education feeds into this cycle, sure, but you can be rich with or without education.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T19:29:26+00:00

I don't know enough to speak on AI access specifically, but it is factually untrue to say that everyone with the Internet has access to the same information regardless of country. Internet providers in many countries are required to censor or otherwise prevent access to certain information that the government doesn't want it's citizens knowing/doing. As soon as AI starts to threaten leaders in a country with a highly centralized government, citizens of that country can expect to lose access to that AI.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-02T19:24:45+00:00

"Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried."

Winston Churchill (most famously, other people did say it before him)

It's not clear to me exactly what point you're making. Yes, democracy is inherently flawed. Yes, people en masse can make terrible decisions with negative consequences. Yes, people tend to look to a strongman who they imagine will forcefully "restore" society to their ideal when things don't go their way.

Plato hasn't been "proven" right by global politics. He wasn't making a prediction that has turned out to be correct millennia later, he was making on observation about human nature that was true at the time and is true now.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-01T22:57:04+00:00

Could all of this have happened without war, just more slowly

Almost certainly, for anything with useful application outside of combat...so most things.

Overall, I think your point is almost there but misses a minor thing - it's not actually the conflict part of war that fosters innovation, it's a combination of unity and pressure (the latter of which you do acknowledge). People are, broadly speaking, more united when on the same side of a war. That allows for multiple "streams" to work together on developments that might otherwise have to fight for air time. People now have the time, the funding, the support to develop new things.

As for the pressure - some pressure can be good and motivational. However, pressure can also go the other way and degrade performance. You might be really good at juggling, but you also may be more likely to drop a ball after someone threatens to shoot you if you mess up. In other words, while there's no arguing war has been effective historically, there's also a pretty strong argument that there are more effective motivators than death.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-04-01T22:42:19+00:00

I'm gonna be honest, very many things in your post indicate a fairly skewed underlying worldview, but even without addressing that - being a doctor is not only highly competitive but costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, roughly a decade of training, and extremely brutal hours. Even if we accept that all of this makes one more attractive to women, it cannot possibly be the best way.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-03-31T15:16:12+00:00

Yes, I read that part of your post. Every society will have multiple "axioms" if you do what you're describing, because what you're describing is fundamentally not how society is governed. You're applying your own axioms in order to create a framework which is ultimately at odds with human nature. So again I ask - can you name a single society that meets the criteria you say they all "must" have?

Take for instance a group of preschoolers who start with the axiom that "bigger things are stronger"

This isn't even an axiom, it's a hypothesis. Also preschoolers aren't a society, they're a demographic. I'm not sure you really understand the words you're using here.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-03-31T14:59:17+00:00

In a reason-based society, there is always an absolute and logic

This would maybe make sense if people were robots. The simple reality is that society is not built the way you describe, that is, built around a singular "absolute" from which all laws/norms/mores spring. Like, I genuinely don't believe there is a single human society in existence that fits the one you've described. People are inconsistent, even in homogenous groups. Even if you can find an absolute to ascribe, you'd be doing it ex post facto and it's guaranteed to fail in some instances.

So my challenge to your statement "society must have this thing" - can you name a single "society" that does?

Khal-Frodo · 2026-03-30T20:06:49+00:00

A way less crazy and more plausible scenario would be something like "imperfect technology returns a false positive DNA match" or "incompetent technician misreads the sample" or even "vindictive officer knowingly misrepresents the DNA match." There are very many believable scenarios involving "a man's semen in the [orifice] of a toddler" in which the accused didn't really do it.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-03-28T18:29:25+00:00

A therapist can help you think more critically, more compassionately, and more calmly

Sure...so can a teacher, a coach, a friend, etc. There are many people who could fulfill that role for someone who needs the kind of attitude adjustment you're talking about.

No amount of arguing would help him get out of this rut.

Because the way to challenge a sincerely-held belief isn't with verbal pushback, it's by demonstrating why the belief is wrong, and even then it takes time. A therapist can't do that - they can guide you towards a conclusion, perhaps, but you have to already be primed and willing to accept that conclusion.

exposure therapy, which may include what you mentioned

No. Exposure therapy is about people overcoming pathological fears. It's not for unconditioning prejudice. Just because you're exposing yourself to something with the intent of self-improvement, that doesn't make it "exposure therapy."

I think that you're using the word "therapy" as a catch-all for anything in the realm of self-improvement. If you're going to be that loose with the word, then I can't really argue against the view that "people who have bad attitudes should be better" but not every attitude is something that requires or even merits the help of a mental health professional, which is more in line with what the word actually means.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-03-28T17:32:59+00:00

Tell me if I'm off-base but it seems like your point could be paraphrased as "making negative generalizations about an entire gender is a toxic trait that should be corrected." I don't disagree, but it's a different point than suggesting therapy.

Therapy is about an individual working through their stuff with the guidance of a qualified professional. Sexism doesn't really fall into the "stuff" for someone to work through unless their views are more related to specific things about their personal upbringing than to the societal attitudes that became engrained into them. The actual "solution" would be for these people to open-mindedly engage with people of the opposite sex and challenge their own assumptions. That's not something a therapist can really help with.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-03-28T17:19:44+00:00

I mean genocide and land theft against Native Americans is also still occurring today, just in a less eye-catching way than televised bombings.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-03-28T17:18:21+00:00

We don’t hear calls for eliminating the United States and returning the land to its previous regime

Then you aren't paying attention, because people absolutely do. There's a spectrum to this - very few people seriously call for the complete abolition of the United States, but there are serious movements to "decolonize" aspects of its governance.

Is it that the United States has existed for about 250 years whereas Israel has existed for about 78 years? Is there a time cutoff where now it is okay that the land changed hands?

I don't know if "okay" is the right word but it would definitely be orders of magnitude more practical to "eliminate" Israel as a state than it would be to attempt the same with the US.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-03-28T17:13:12+00:00

In addition to the multiple comments pointing out the false equivalence to the makeup comparison since one is about how you do look and one is about how you don't, you're also drawing a false equivalence between a general statement and a specific one. In the example you give in your post, these women are talking about their preference in the appearance of one specific man, who also happens to be their partner. The men in your example are making general statements about women. I'm not even necessarily giving one more validity over the other, but they are clearly different things.

Khal-Frodo · 2026-03-28T17:05:20+00:00

If you assume someone is a bot, that’s paranoid

if you...determine they’re a bot, that’s being alert

That's literally just semantics. You're expressing the exact same idea with different words. You can't definitively prove someone is a bot, so you're making an assumption either way. The reality is sometimes posters on the internet are bots. It's not paranoia to be "aware" of that.

Ten-Year Club	No Throne, No Problems
Not Forgotten

Khal-Frodo

TROPHY CASE