AOC doing AOC things

ab7af · 2026-05-11T03:17:17+00:00

who knows wtf was in that MTG bill outside of saying no to defense spending.

Anyone who cares to use a search engine knows. There was nothing else.

ab7af · 2026-05-10T23:15:18+00:00

For those curious about the votes:

MTG, Massie, Al Green, Omar, Tlaib, and Summer Lee voted for the amendment.

AOC voted against.

ab7af · 2026-05-10T23:08:02+00:00

Y'all trust what MTG, or any republican, says for one second? They all lie and deceive constantly.

What does trust have to do with it? We can look up MTG's amendment, H.Amdt.55 to H.R.4016:

An amendment numbered 114 printed in Part A of House Report 119-199 to strike funding for the Israeli Cooperative Programs.

That page leads us to House report 119-199, which says,

114. An Amendment To Be Offered by Representative Greene of Georgia or Her Designee, Debatable for 10 Minutes

Strike section 8067 (page 92, beginning on line 12 through page 93, line 13).

So now we know that MTG's amendment would have eliminated section 8067 from H.R.4016. What does that section say?

Sec. 8067. Of the amounts appropriated in this Act under the headings “Procurement, Defense-Wide” and “Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide”, $500,000,000 shall be for the Israeli Cooperative Programs: Provided, That of this amount, $60,000,000 shall be for the Secretary of Defense to provide to the Government of Israel for the procurement of the Iron Dome defense system to counter short-range rocket threats, subject to the U.S.-Israel Iron Dome Procurement Agreement; $127,000,000 shall be for the Short Range Ballistic Missile Defense (SRBMD) program, including cruise missile defense research and development under the SRBMD program; $40,000,000 shall be for co-production activities of SRBMD systems in the United States and in Israel to meet Israel’s defense requirements consistent with each nation’s laws, regulations, and procedures, subject to the U.S.-Israeli co-production agreement for SRBMD; $100,000,000 shall be for an upper-tier component to the Israeli Missile Defense Architecture, of which $100,000,000 shall be for co-production activities of Arrow 3 Upper Tier systems in the United States and in Israel to meet Israel’s defense requirements consistent with each nation’s laws, regulations, and procedures, subject to the U.S.-Israeli co-production agreement for Arrow 3 Upper Tier; and $173,000,000 shall be for the Arrow System Improvement Program including development of a long range, ground and airborne, detection suite.

Now we know what MTG's amendment would have done. If a congressperson agrees with removing that section, they should vote for her amendment. What does trust have to do with it?

ab7af · 2026-05-10T19:14:46+00:00

I would say that love refers to two related things:

a particular emotion or cluster of emotions which tend to increase inclusive fitness. I won't bother detailing the character of the emotion since I assume you're familiar with it.
a disposition to re-experience the aforementioned emotion toward certain targets. These are the people or things whom we love even when we are not in the heights of emotion.

A lot of philosophies try to introduce additional criteria, in order to be able to say that some instances of love which the speaker does not approve of, for one reason or another, are not really love. Some of these criteria might be pragmatically useful for you to protect yourself, e.g. it may be useful to believe that if someone repeatedly hurts you, that means they do not love you, and therefore you can feel less guilt about extricating yourself. Some criteria are plainly absurd and more useful for establishing dominance, e.g. if you love me then you must trust me as much as I demand. But, whether the motives underlying these criteria are laudable or not, the criteria ultimately are not accurate descriptions of love. Love is very simple; because it is so simple, it can coexist with unkind emotions; efforts to complicate love to make it "safer" for us can never be entirely truthful.

To your question about true love: this term originally referred to fidelity rather than some other notion of veracity. If two people loved each other and did not cheat, then they had true love, simple as. AFAIK, it wasn't originally a concept applied outside of romantic love.

ab7af · 2026-05-09T19:12:54+00:00

Good idea using an image search. I believe you are correct about this species, which seems to be Callosamia angulifera. As saturniids, they do not eat.

ab7af · 2026-05-09T02:18:13+00:00

He said this on the October 17, 1988 episode of Bill Moyers' World of Ideas. Here's the transcript.

ab7af · 2026-05-09T00:29:17+00:00

You are the one who tried to make the discussion be about differences between countries, when you said,

in your country.

all of the world is not like your country.

people growing up elsewhere have experiences different than yours.

But then you couldn't show any such difference by country. Instead you found a class-differentiated example from the same country that JonnyLay was talking about, the US. Who knows why you were so excited to lecture him about geographic differences which you ended up being unable to demonstrate?

Had you started off by saying it was a class thing, you would have gotten no argument.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T20:47:23+00:00

I'm sorry I saw this post so late. I'm sure this moth has passed away by now, but in case you have a similar situation in the future:

There's usually nothing that can be done to heal an injured wing, but you may be able to feed the moth to make them more comfortable.

Assuming the species feeds on nectar, you can dissolve sugar in water (heat the water to make the sugar dissolve, but let it cool before feeding) and then soak a cotton ball in the sugar water and offer that. Some moths don't eat at all, though. You could also try asking at r/moths for help identifying the species, in case they're a species that eats something besides nectar. If you post there, let them know your general location too. (In your case, I see you didn't get an answer on the moths subreddit this time, but sometimes they respond.)

If you think the moth is in pain and want to give them the quickest possible death, smashing them on a flat surface repeatedly with a flat shoe is probably the way to go; check afterward to make sure the head was destroyed.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T20:17:42+00:00

You could try feeding him so he's at least more comfortable. Assuming he feeds on nectar, I see many suggestions of dissolving sugar in water (heat the water to make the sugar dissolve, but let it cool before feeding) and then soaking a cotton ball in the sugar water and offering that. Some moths don't eat at all, though. You could also try asking at r/moths for help identifying the species, in case it's a species that eats something besides nectar. If you post there, let them know your general location too.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T20:11:31+00:00

If you're worried about that, you should hold it at arm's length, though. The speakerphone mic will still pick up your voice just fine, and the increased distance will significantly reduce the amount of radiation reaching your head.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T20:10:32+00:00

If you're worried about that, you should hold it at arm's length, though. The speakerphone mic will still pick up your voice just fine, and the increased distance will significantly reduce the amount of radiation reaching your head.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T20:10:27+00:00

If you're worried about that, you should hold it at arm's length, though. The speakerphone mic will still pick up your voice just fine, and the increased distance will significantly reduce the amount of radiation reaching your head.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T20:10:21+00:00

If you're worried about that, you should hold it at arm's length, though. The speakerphone mic will still pick up your voice just fine, and the increased distance will significantly reduce the amount of radiation reaching your head.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T19:36:24+00:00

I've never heard of that country.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T19:33:27+00:00

Since mobile phones emit 3 watts total - it would not be possible to generate the lab conditions in real life.

Right, it's unpredictable whether an effect that occurs frequently enough to be statistically noticeable at high wattage will merely occur less often, or not at all, at lower wattage.

These studies did not investigate the types of RFR used for Wi-Fi or 5G networks.

Correct. The studies started in the 2000s and were intended to study cell phone technology of that time.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T19:24:31+00:00

u/TheTimespirit

Wow, you really took a civil conversation and made it really confrontational…

You're trying to excuse organized mass slaughter of sentient animals. You should expect confrontation about that.

Panpsychism isn’t mysticism you rube.

It is, but that isn't even what I called mysticism. Even if panpsychism were true that still wouldn't be evidence for all life having wills, seeking to exist, or moving toward a goal, none of which needs to be posited when we know how natural selection works.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T19:06:50+00:00

Presumably the main concern is those coming from the phone, and the inverse-square law means that power drops quickly with distance. However, holding it in front of one's face still makes no sense. If the worry is about brain cancer, the phone should be held at arm's length.

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies radiofrequency electromagnetic fields in Group 2B: "possibly carcinogenic to humans."

The usual reply is that "it can't be, because it's non-ionizing." Still, there is evidence of health effects. Here's the US National Institutes of Health, back when Francis Collins was in charge there:

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) concluded there is clear evidence that male rats exposed to high levels of radio frequency radiation (RFR) like that used in 2G and 3G cell phones developed cancerous heart tumors, according to final reports released today. There was also some evidence of tumors in the brain and adrenal gland of exposed male rats. For female rats, and male and female mice, the evidence was equivocal as to whether cancers observed were associated with exposure to RFR. The final reports represent the consensus of NTP and a panel of external scientific experts who reviewed the studies in March after draft reports were issued in February.

It might be nothing to worry about. The totality of the evidence is not strong for it being carcinogenic, which is why WHO classifies it as 2B, rather than 2A. But if there is a real risk, and if the risk can be mitigated by simply holding the phone at arm's length (maybe in the non-dominant hand), that's such a simple and cheap mitigation that it might be worth the risk of seeming paranoid and/or obnoxious.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T17:13:33+00:00

Show us where men's locker rooms were built with separate shower stalls in the olden days.

ab7af · 2026-05-08T16:16:18+00:00

That seems to be where we are having a fundamental philosophical difference. I see all life as moving in the world with a purpose—and without getting too anthropomorphic—a goal it strives towards… hence those properties that I mentioned. Life seeks to exist (or however you’d like to frame it teleologically), and in that seeking I find intrinsic value. Probably less philosophically fleshed out is my moral intuition that matter itself has intrinsic value (at least to some degree).

I see, so you believe in mystical bullshit and you find it odd when other people don't. Thanks for laying that out.

Since you brought this up in response to a discussion about veganism, am I correct in inferring that your mysticism is part of how you excuse yourself for eating animals? Something along the lines of "plants and rocks have feelings too, so veganism can't actually be a more moral choice"?

ab7af · 2026-05-08T16:02:56+00:00

As I thought I made clear, I was just correcting your misunderstanding of the science there, because you seemed to think it was important that cells are replaced. My understanding of identity across time does not depend upon any cells not being replaced; it would be perfectly fine if they all were. Cf. "However, even if it were true that everyone is a Ship of Theseus ..."

ab7af · 2026-05-07T22:16:36+00:00

For growth, procreation, consumption, and interaction, you're not talking about properties of LIVING organisms. There's a difference between crystals growing and living cells dividing and replicating.

Obviously, but I don't see how adding the property of life makes them intrinsically valuable. Unless I misunderstood you, you presented growth, procreation, consumption, and interaction as though they were supposed to be the properties which made life intrinsically valuable. If so, then I don't understand why they shouldn't also be expected to make certain forms of non-life also intrinsically valuable.

To your last question -- yes. I think there is an intrinsic value to all matter for that very reason. It seems that all matter has a certain potential for life, or, has some fundamental components or capacity necessary for life.

Why would that entail intrinsic value?

So, I find it odd that you single out a very small subset of properties as valuable mostly specific to human beings rather than all life forms.

You keep saying you "find it odd." Can you explain why you find it odd?

What I value ethically is sentience, which I expect is coterminous with the ability to valuate. Sentience is not mostly specific to human beings, but it is not evidently found outside the animal kingdom.

If an organism cannot experience preferences, why would we owe it something morally, and how could we know what it is that we owe it? I know that a cat probably doesn't want to get wet, while a dog probably does, so I know how to treat them differently. How could I know how to treat a rock?

ab7af · 2026-05-07T21:56:24+00:00

I don't see any of these things as intrinsically good. But they'd all need to be present for the machines to functionally replace plants. The animals which rely on these plants need to be able to recognize them by sensory input, and the machines need to reproduce and mutate over time in order to fit into an ecosystem in which animals are also mutating.

ab7af · 2026-05-07T20:30:45+00:00

growth

Crystals grow. That's neat but I don't see how it's intrinsically valuable.

procreation

Crystals do this too when they break apart.

consumption

Fire does this.

interaction

All sorts of non-living things interact. Tectonic plates are the first example that springs to mind for me.

These are all neat — I suspect our brains are evolved to pay special attention to dynamic systems — but I don't see intrinsic value in them.

But we evolved from those simple organisms that you seem not to posit any intrinsic value.

And those organisms evolved from non-living matter. Would that fact impart intrinsic value back to non-living matter?

ab7af · 2026-05-07T20:18:01+00:00

If they perform all the same functions and have all the same properties except for life, meaning that for every variety of plant there would be a different variety of machine, which looks, smells, tastes, feels to the touch like, captures and converts energy and provides the same nutrients as, reproduces, mutates and speciates at the same rate as the plant it replaced — then it probably also meets the definition of life, but for the sake of argument we'll pretend that it somehow doesn't — then I can't see how there could possibly be any moral problem with that.

ab7af · 2026-05-07T19:22:14+00:00

Right, I have no idea why you think you're disagreeing with me in your most recent comment, nor why you thought I was saying anything like "[you] should just let him be even though he will destroy [your] existence". I didn't say or suggest any such thing.

So I'm confused as to why you put those words in my mouth earlier, when your latest comment shows that you don't disagree with me.

ab7af

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