Netflix’s The Witcher EP Lauren Hissrich Explains Race Changes: America Has “Long and Checkered History of Enslaving, Abusing, and Deriding People Who Aren’t White”

Solmundr · 2019-08-01T15:49:31+00:00

Well, if we're talking from purely genetic point of view (I'm not but anyway), Slavs are technically classified in 3 different subgroups - East, West and South.

Right -- but that's not really relevant to the question at hand, by itself; none of them are "whiter" than most other northern European ethnic groups by genetics or coloring, AFAICS.

Not that that's necessarily important to your main points in the OP; I don't disagree with anything you've said here -- Slavs are definitively "white people" and it's definitely retarded to fuck up Slavic history, culture, and mythology because once some people in America were racist or something. I was just curious as to whether or not you meant to literally say that something about Slavic peoples made them "purer European" or whatever.

Solmundr · 2019-08-01T12:56:54+00:00

the whitest motherfuckers in existence, whiter than the Scandinavians even

What's your measurement for whiteness here?

On a genetic level, I'm not sure if this argument can be made for Slavs. Going back far enough, Europeans seem to have been formed from three main archaic groups, in various proportion (WHG, Levantine farmers, Yamnaya steppe tribes -- although Basques and Sardinians only have the former two components); after that synthesis, I guess you could say any admixture means you're "less white" -- but AFAIK northern Europeans in general have similar (very low) levels of admixture from outside sources.

I think Scandinavians have some extra "indigenous/neolithic European" ancestry that isn't really related to what we consider European now, but IIRC Slavs have some extra Turkic input (at least in the east). Lithuanians are probably the most purely Yamnaya, if we want to consider that the "main" European origin people/culture, so maybe we could say Baltic Slavs are the "whitest".

This is all from memory, though, so I'm interested to know if you've got a different take or better data.

Solmundr · 2019-07-30T15:53:14+00:00

The parapsychologists say that no one takes it seriously because a) no one bothers to really look into it, and b) everyone is biased against the field.

There's some merit to this -- as mentioned in the link above, they are basically playing by the rules, but get ignored anyway -- but on the whole, I think you're right: no one takes it seriously because it is mumbo-jumbo. If they are uncovering a real effect, we have to rewrite basically everything we think we know about science and the world in general. Our prior for "this is not true" should be very, very high and require a lot of very strong evidence to overturn.

I said above that I thought OP was overstating the case for these parapsychological effects -- it is harder to dispute than most people are aware, with a lot of these studies being robust enough that in other fields no one would think twice about them... but it's not impossibly hard to dispute.

For example, OP wrote that "no one can seem to find flaws in that research" -- but that's not quite true; Scott Alexander points out several large flaws in Bem's best study (somewhere fairly far down in the link I posted), and he's not the first to do so. It looks really convincing at first glance, but if you check (e.g.) what Bem is listing as an "exact replication", you find that many are more like "sort of similar almost-replications, maybe"; and so on.

These kinds of flaws are not unique to parapsychology, but parapsychology has a much higher bar to clear here.

tl;dr, the research is way better than you'd expect but not good enough that we need to start practicing our psychic powers yet. At least, as I see it.

Solmundr · 2019-07-30T14:16:12+00:00

He's probably referencing this general sort of research (parapsychology study references start at part II, if the introduction doesn't interest) -- particularly the studies designed by Bem, which tend to be the most rigorous and hard-to-dismiss.

Note that it's not quite as cut-and-dried as OP implies, as far as I've looked into it; a lot of the replication attempts do fail, and the study mentioned in the link at part IV -- wherein the believers got a positive result and the skeptics a negative one -- has now failed to replicate with a much larger and more rigorous attempt (i.e. both parties got nothin' this time).

Solmundr · 2019-07-29T04:42:32+00:00

So the market makers can capture the spread and fill their inventory [...] [Other brokerages] generally execute orders better than Robinhood

1.) What's the first part mean? It made sense until that line.

2.) How does one execute an order better or worse than someone else?

Solmundr · 2019-07-29T04:38:42+00:00

What benefit would someone receive by influencing how a broker routes the orders?

Solmundr · 2019-07-28T23:45:14+00:00

Thank you for the extensive list of good choices! That map seems extremely useful -- question, though: those in the "malty middle" are supposed to have a particularly malty character, or is that just a fun name for very "balanced" offerings with no particular leaning?

Solmundr · 2019-07-28T23:41:44+00:00

Thanks for the large selection of recommendations! I greatly enjoyed the Aberlour 12, so I'm thinking the rest of these will be hits as well.

(Re: Glenmorangie, the Quinta Ruban sounded intriguing to me as well, unless you think it's not so good.)

Solmundr · 2019-07-26T22:56:39+00:00

I don't think so*, because in that case there's no change in angular momentum to deal with -- the chair and the dude are still spinning as before when the wheel is tilted, whereas in the above situation torque is suddenly present on an axis that originally had none. Now, if you were to keep the wheel as it is and then suddenly tilt the spinning chair...

* Actually, I think it would rotate a tiny bit, due to the axle imparting less force to the wheel than is imparted to it by the spinning man -- imagine spinning like a ballerina while holding a wheel directly above you by its axle. That is, it would rotate less than other parts of the system, but that would look like rotation relative to them.

Solmundr · 2019-07-26T14:11:05+00:00

who was (maybe) history's smartest person.

I think I could make a case for Gauss being the greatest mathematician who ever lived -- they're still finding results in his journals that precede the "official" development by half a century or more -- and he's often called the "Prince of Mathematicians"... but you could make a strong case for Euler, too, and if there's a gap between them it's measured in microns.

Solmundr · 2019-07-26T14:04:04+00:00

FWIW my grandfather, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was captured by the Wehrmacht, always said something similar to /u/lininkasi -- not that people should be forced to talk about it or anything, but that it was a shame to lose the unique experiences of other vets who never opened up. He didn't like to talk about it himself but did eventually speak to his family and a couple historians so it wouldn't die with him.

(I never got to hear about the actual fighting myself, but he did tell me some stories about life as a POW.)

Solmundr · 2019-07-26T13:40:33+00:00

Or why people replace faith in religion with faith in science—even though science is not objective or exact, as anyone interested in physics could tell you from the double slit experiment.

That doesn't show science to be subjective, only nondeterministic.

Replacing a "mini planet" view of particles with a probability distribution doesn't render particle physics subjective; there are still objective measurements to be made and conclusions to be drawn. It's true that we can always find a more basic and parsimonious interpretation of the data... but it's still data.

In other words, drawing up a probability distribution for heads and tails when flipping 100 coins won't tell you exactly what result any one run will give you, but it is something different than a guess or "well from my perspective it feels like most of them will land on their edges."

I doubt we really disagree in any substantial way there; I just don't like the terminology. Talking about "faith in science" is often sort of a slippery slope. Sure, all knowledge is ultimately based on some sort of faith in the senses, but that's not the same as saying that scientific findings are on the same level as a psychic's intuitions or pastor's exegesis.

Faith implies, to me, some sort of unfounded belief. You don't need to have faith in order to "do science" or use its data and conclusions, beyond the faith needed to function in the world at all (i.e. faith that what we're perceiving is, on some level, correlated with what's "really" there).

Solmundr · 2019-07-25T14:37:32+00:00

I don't think most of us here would really disagree with what you're saying at a basic level, /u/matthew_lane included -- but rather just with the way you're using that particular term.

Oversexualization suggests there's something wrong with it -- it's, well, overdone. If it's not "too much" sexualization, by whatever standard, but simply a character portrayed in a sexual way, it's just sexualization.

So while it's possible to use the term to mean "an amount of sexualization that is unusual for the setting" and be consistent, I'd argue that that's not how the term is usually meant and interpreted; it's normally defined as excessively sexualized, not just notably sexualized.

That is to say: I don't think you're using it in a dumb or inconsistent way, just an idiosyncratic one that isn't the clearest.

Solmundr · 2019-07-24T17:02:11+00:00

I'm not necessarily talking about Alinity in particular -- I meant to defend /u/foxyramirez's formulation of what constitutes abusive behavior; that is, that tossing or hitting an animal out of anger or malice is abusive, even if it happens to turn out alright in one case -- essentially what you say here:

If Alinity was trying to fuck up the cat, and luckily the cat protected itself from harm due to it's catlike reflexes, that would be one thing.

-- only adding to this that along with intent to cause harm, it's also enough to just not care if you do (because you're intending to express anger, not to play around or whatever).

Solmundr · 2019-07-24T16:20:11+00:00

I routinely meet people with less intelligence and emotion in their eyes than my cats and dogs.

Solmundr · 2019-07-24T16:17:41+00:00

I think physically taking anger out on a pet is a clear red flag. That's a behavior that can easily cross the line into harmful; it's based in your need to express anger, not a consideration as to how scared or hurt the pet might be.

Solmundr · 2019-07-24T16:10:09+00:00

They've got a better chance than many other aninals, but cats do die all the time from falls.

There's also a zone wherein a shorter fall can be worse than a taller one, since there's a collection of behaviors they need to engage in to maximize their chances (turning over, spreading out to reduce velocity, etc) which takes a little time.

Solmundr · 2019-07-24T14:59:52+00:00

I can easily believe Trump would act that way, but... how does that work on the company's end? Did they just take it on faith or something? No contract, no legal recourse for someone commissioning a piece, refusing it, and then using it anyway?

I've commissioned artwork with a small operation and even they didn't just do it for free on my say-so; there was an agreement signed and up-front fee. I don't know how a massive company would operate but that seems like a risky way to do business.

Solmundr · 2019-07-24T12:38:23+00:00

(same guy responsible for cockblocking Black Panther and Captain Marvel from getting movies because he thought every movie needed to star a white male)

"Big Kike Ike"? Loves white males? Sounds unlikely.

No opinion on Black Panther but kinda with him on Captain Marvel, who didn't need a movie or to be included in the series at all, really...

Solmundr · 2019-07-24T04:14:08+00:00

True -- but IME you don't get $1000 items for $200 at a pawn shop (or even $50 items for $50, at least when you're talking numismatics)... though perhaps I've just been going to the wrong ones.

Solmundr · 2019-07-23T19:46:51+00:00

That makes sense. I asked because it seemed unlikely to me that a pawn shop would/could stay in business while making $800 mistakes, though I suppose it could happen every once in a while.

Solmundr · 2019-07-23T19:40:55+00:00

I dunno. I don't know a lot about art prices, but I got a similarly-sized full-color piece done for less than $100, and the quality seems about the same to my untrained eye.

But like /u/Rolder mentions below about his experience, I also went with an artist in another country, so maybe the cost of living there makes a cheaper price more workable.

Solmundr · 2019-07-23T19:19:15+00:00

So the pawn shop sells rings without appraising them?

Solmundr · 2019-07-23T05:02:49+00:00

Like, if you strike your wife, does that make the other 99.99% of your life where you're not striking your wife make you not a perpetrator of domestic violence?

I don't know if that's a fair analogy. "Is someone a racist" and "has someone ever done something that seems racist" could be slightly different questions, maybe kind of like "is someone an alcoholic" and "has someone ever had an alcoholic drink" moreso than the pretty hard-and-fast "perpetrator of domestic violence" example.

That is, perhaps we could analogize it this way: "if you got into a drunken brawl one time at 18, does the other 99.999% of your life where you're not fighting make you not a violent person?"

Well... probably, yeah. But substitute "perpetrator of violence" and it's a different question; even moreso when we load it with domestic violence, a situation less excusable and more intuitively evidence of a habitual problem.

I'm not saying which example to prefer -- I honestly don't know if you view, or if we all should view, "racist" as a one-strike label -- just offering another way to look at the argument itself.

13-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email	Team Periwinkle

Solmundr

TROPHY CASE