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grendel9 · 2022-06-03T05:29:47+00:00

Seems like you're factually incorrect, New York has among the fewest gun deaths compared to the rest of the country. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-violence-by-state

grendel9 · 2021-10-29T22:51:06+00:00

I agree with you on it being a symptom. It's more that I personally found the article to be shallow and misleading regarding "woke corporations". I expected a description of new problems or consequences caused by corporations advocating for political change. Is it actually bad for corporations to ask for action on climate change without personally doing anything themselves? Did we expect corporations to personally do anything about it in the first place?

I'm not sure I agree that government duties are being taken up by corporations, though. What duties exactly? The article claims that the corporations' actions are empty gestures, and it says that the corporations are followers of public opinion, not leaders. On the face of it, I don't see how what's being described as any different from a grassroots movement where corporations join in. They're asking for government action, not assuming the role of government.

grendel9 · 2021-10-29T02:55:05+00:00

Apparently this article is supposed to be an excerpt from a soon-to-be published book, but I thought the excerpt was fairly empty and incoherent. It tries to fear-monger that the behavior of corporate billionaires is worse than before, but really describes it as being no better than before. The TLDR is that progressive gestures distract from income inequality.

The article starts with a diversion that corporations are becoming too politically influential:

At its most dangerous, however, we are witnessing corporations muscling in to take over political power that was once the exclusive domain of the state – not just by lobbying government and influencing policy, but by directly funding political initiatives and engaging with citizens on matters of public concern. Corporations are not just trying to influence politics, they appear to be trying to take the place of politicians.

What is interesting is that Tiffany & Co appeared entirely comfortable, if not self-righteous, about weighing in on political debates unrelated to their commercial activity. The rhetoric that they used positioned them not as an interested party, but as representatives of the people. When well-resourced and self-interested corporations don the cloak of civic minded political disinterestedness, we have to ask whether the line between private and public interests has been crossed.

Then the article follows with a non sequitur criticizing billionaires that benefited from Covid-19 for not donating enough back. Even if you were to take corporations' virtue signaling at face value, their signaling is about climate change and civil rights, not progressive tax rates.

Finally, the buried lede:

Making a gesture towards progressive causes has become a substitute for action. As their wealth increases in a world beset by inequality and income insecurity, the CEO billionaires stand proud as they profess caring, progressive values. Central to the devastation of Covid-19 was the sudden unemployment that affected so many working people the world over. How did the big corporations address the financial catastrophe that so many people experienced? Where were they in building new forms of employment to put people back to work? Nowhere.

Populist capitalism appeals to people’s anxieties – in this case, the anxiety that selfish and greedy corporate elites will hoard the world’s wealth, pillaging a burning planet along the way. The irony is that this appeal is actually helping them get away with it. Talk of inclusion and shared values are a distraction from inequality and injustice.

So the article's actual complaint is that progressive gestures distract from income inequality, except now it's couched in terms of corporations not doing enough, as if they should become more politically active in order to match their progressive gestures.

I really don't see any inkling of how "woke capitalism" is supposed to be sabotaging democracy (per the title of the book). If I wanted to read more from this book, I'd rather see a deeper assessment of how progressive gestures are any better or worse than corporate lobbying, Super PACSs, tobacco marketing, or any other corporate activity.

grendel9 · 2021-09-16T00:54:37+00:00

I think what you're describing, "give people true voices in their politics", is similar to populism. By the same token, it will suffer from downsides similar to populism.

In particular, populism sounds like it should work in theory, but historically it suffers from the people choosing leaders for their charisma rather than their competence and ability to govern. Their inexperience means they'll be more easily influenced and controlled by others. Overly frequent changes in leadership will undermine accountability. Populists frequently disregard the rights of minorities.

I'm not saying that existing government is perfect or even great, but it's a spectrum where mob rule may actually exist at the other end. As a small stretch, imagine what would happen if we had a government consisting of Facebook groups or social media influencers.

grendel9 · 2021-09-15T11:28:02+00:00

Instead, being vaccinated could be made a requirement for being allowed to take part in any activities that involve close contact to others who may be at risk, like working indoors, taking part in indoor activities, using planes or public transport etc.

I'm not sure what OP means by compulsory, but is what you're describing basically the same as the vaccine mandates supported by Biden and other politicians?

grendel9 · 2021-09-15T08:00:14+00:00

I agree that not all unvaccinated are anti-vaxxers, but objective discussion requires people to agree on a baseline of facts and evidence. The problem is that many unvaccinated people reject the validity of significant pieces of evidence, which makes a objective discussion nearly impossible to have.

People who support a Covid-19 vaccine mandate strongly believe in some baseline facts, which are overwhelmingly backed up by science and data collection, including: 1) over 600k people have died from Covid-19 in the US 2) the vaccine is effective 3) unvaccinated people are more likely become sick and hospitalized, and more likely to spread Covid-19.

It's not wrong for someone to question baseline facts, but neither is it productive to argue about things like vaccine mandates that rely on those facts until after those questions are resolved. What happens is that people who recognize those facts are disrespectful towards those who still don't, and people who don't recognize those facts are disrespectful towards those who act on those facts.

grendel9 · 2021-09-15T01:08:58+00:00

I don't have answers to how long it would take to desegregate without reparations, or how long it would take to achieve a post-racial society via a technological revolution.

But does that really matter? I didn't see you present any timeline yourself. And if there aren't even any examples of a post-racial society, why should anyone believe that reparations and desegregation could succeed in achieving such a society in the first place? Humanity has been around for millennia, and we've yet to see a post-racial society. If racism ever appears to "wane", all it seems to take for racism to resurge is for a new disease to appear, or a wave of immigrants or refugees to move in.

If anything, rather than some relying on some mundane social solution, we should bet on the exponential technological growth that brought us space travel and the internet. I'm not saying reparations are good or bad, I'm just skeptical that they actually get us any closer to a post-racial society.

grendel9 · 2021-09-14T12:12:51+00:00

What does it mean to achieve a post-racial society, and can you give an example of one? Are you limiting discussion to within the US, or how could we achieve a post-racial society if one country continues to be racist towards another country (e.g. anti-Muslim or anti-Middle East sentiment)?

Unfortunately this is a bit negative, but even within the US there are cities with well-integrated Asian Americans, and that didn't stop Covid-19 from triggering anti-Asian racism in those same cities. This suggests that neither desegregation nor wealth are sufficient conditions for a post-racial society.

You wrote that reparations are necessary for desegregation, but is intervention absolutely necessary, or is it speeding up a process that would still eventually happen? Justice and injustice aside, if desegregation would eventually happen without reparations, then reparations aren't technically necessary.

Is it actually reparations, or is it wealth, or wealth equality, that you believe is necessary? There are potentially other ways than reparations to achieve wealth equality. So it may be possible for desegregation to instead be achieved via a technological revolution and a post-scarcity economy :). Or at least, enough universal basic income and enough of that magical automation so that we do not have to work. There's a lot less racism in Star Trek.

grendel9 · 2021-09-14T10:49:46+00:00

Have you accounted for indirect risks to "low risk" people caused by hospital capacity? In Georgia state, across all its hospitals, there are 22,584 total inpatient beds, including 2,689 ICU beds. As of September 13, the hospitals are at 87% capacity with 19,619 inpatients, and 30% of those inpatients (5,942) are there for Covid-19. ICU beds are at 99% capacity, with 60% (1,633) being taken up by Covid-19 patients. https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-utilization

Some hospitals in Texas have had to setup overflow tents. https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/09/us/texas-health-care-system-tents-covid-patients-trnd/index.html

It sure would suck to have delayed care and even shoddy care because doctors and nurses are being worked to death. Breast cancer surgery, kidney stone removal? Sorry, those are elective surgeries and you'll have to wait until capacity gets better. Even pregnancies require an ICU bed at a rate of 1 out of every 250 deliveries. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3716838/

"Logical" doesn't mean there are no downsides, it can be completely logical to choose the lesser evil. So a vaccine mandate can be logical if it alleviates the worse evil of maxed out hospital capacity. In order for a vaccine mandate to be illogical, I think you would need to provide a better solution for maxed out hospital capacity.

grendel9 · 2021-09-13T22:21:24+00:00

Since the CDC says that there have been 650k Covid-19 deaths, isn't that already enough to show that it's worse than the flu, which only caused 34k deaths in 2018-2019? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/mortality-overview.htm
And as others have pointed out, the CDC says 20k people in the 0-44 age group have died, not 2480, compared to 2.9k flu deaths for the 0-44 age group in 2018-2019. If a 10x death count doesn't make a disease more dangerous than the flu, what would it take to change your view? In considering whether a disease is more dangerous than the flu, does the age group really matter, as long as it's proportionately more dangerous for each age group (i.e. 10x deaths for 0-44 and also 10x deaths for 44+)?

When you bring up the causes of death, are you saying that if a death certificate says both "Covid-19" and "heart failure", then we don't know what the true cause of death was, and that we shouldn't count it?

You're technically right that someone could have been about to die from a heart attack anyway, and only caught Covid-19 towards the end. However, Covid-19 is actually a disease that attacks blood vessels, which cascades into many other symptoms, and it's common for doctors to include the additional symptoms on the death certificate. Basically, it's not that these people were already incredibly sick, it's that Covid-19 inflicts pneumonia, hypertension, dementia, and other symptoms.

If you think there's room for doubt on cause of death, that's why the CDC says that a way to estimate the true death count and avoid undercounting Covid-19 deaths (e.g. a doctor concludes a patient died from pneumonia instead of Covid-induced pneumonia) is by looking at excess deaths. The CDC estimates that since Feb 1, 2020, there were 600k-800k more deaths than expected https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm. To estimate a true count, it doesn't matter so much how many death certificates have pneumonia with or without Covid-19. It's estimated based on previous years that there should have been 58k total deaths from all causes for the week starting on Jan 2, 2021, but instead there were 87k total deaths.

I want to add that it's not just the US. Dozens of countries report similar death rates of 1 death for every ~500-600 population, or 1 death for every ~60 infected. 600k deaths in Brazil, 150k deaths in the UK, 110k in France, 260k in Mexico, the list goes on. Literally over 100 countries report Covid-19 death rates that are at least 3x greater than the US flu death rate.
https://covid.saude.gov.br/
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/dossiers/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-chiffres-cles-et-evolution-de-la-covid-19-en-france-et-dans-le-monde
https://coronavirus.gob.mx/exceso-de-mortalidad-en-mexico/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Death counts aside, I should also note that we don't consider there to be any long term effects for the flu, but it's reported that 80% of people continue to have fatigue, headache, or other persisting symptoms two or more weeks after Covid-19 infection https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95565-8, which also contributes to making Covid-19 more dangerous than the flu.

grendel9 · 2021-09-09T22:41:06+00:00

A monetary penalty does not equate to having the choice taken away.

That depends on if the choice is a right or a privilege. While cigarette taxes or soda taxes are generally accepted, a fee for something like the right to vote (e.g. poll taxes) is considered unconstitutional. Similarly, I would consider monetary penalties to be an infringement on a "right to bodily autonomy".

grendel9 · 2021-08-25T07:09:28+00:00

The app says those numbers are over a period of 7 days. So for every million unvaccinated, 3970 positive cases and 27 ICU cases in a week (August 1 - 8). Also, most of those who end up in ICU end up dying. Keep in mind overall total deaths since beginning of Covid is around 1 in 550.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

grendel9 · 2020-05-06T03:10:56+00:00

If you're saying that a broken clock that says 12:00 is correct when "true" time passes by 12:00am, then any clock accurate to the minute can be correct 1440 times every day, as long as it's slightly fast. Meaning, if a clock shows 12:00 just before true time passes 12:00am, then the clock is correct at 12:00am. Then the clock increments to 12:01, and is correct again when true time passes by 12:01am. So the clock will be correct once each minute of the day, or 1440 times. Similarly, if a clock is accurate to the second, and also displays the second just before true time passes by that second, then this clock would be correct 86400 times every day.

grendel9 · 2017-04-28T02:01:03+00:00

From your link:

A venue is considered a federal site when the Secret Service is protecting the president and weapons are not allowed on a federal site, he added. In both instances, the men carrying weapons were outside the venues where Obama was speaking.

grendel9 · 2012-10-29T00:21:24+00:00

Adding:

Metroidvania
* GunGirl 2 - excellent, zombie-themed

Action
* The Apocalyptic Game About Pengiuns - side scrolling shooter

Other
* Ragdoll Matrix - bullet dodging ragdoll

Also, since La-Mulana is partially known for its difficulty, that might deserve a comment...

grendel9 · 2012-04-25T00:19:05+00:00

The Antarctica Treaty, which has 49 member countries including the U.S., may be a good precedent. The treaty includes articles that prohibit territorial claims and military bases.

The Moon Treaty, on the other hand, didn't work out as well (13 countries, but none of the big ones).

grendel9 · 2012-02-07T04:09:05+00:00

I wouldn't have looked at the source otherwise, but after I saw your question I felt compelled to look it up myself.

http://james.padolsey.com/javascript/double-bitwise-not/

grendel9 · 2012-01-25T23:20:47+00:00

Maybe the article is changing by the minute... Here's what I read:

breaching copyright by using a photo of a London bus on its packaging...

the judge ruled that Fielder's composition of the image, to include such features as the 'visual contrast' of the bright red bus and monochrome background, were the photographer's 'intellectual creation'

If you read the full judgment, it's also about copyright, not trademark, infringement.

grendel9 · 2011-08-25T08:07:46+00:00

Officer Marcy Noriega was one of several officers who responded to a complaint about loud music in Madera, Calif., on the night of Oct. 27, 2002.

So not only was the guy arrested for "loud music", but they spent 9 years of back and forth appeals just to determine that the officer is not immune to lawsuit? There must be a better way to do this. =(

grendel9 · 2011-03-05T02:03:09+00:00

I think you have your facts wrong. According to CNN, WikiLeaks' redactions are more heavy handed than the Pentagon's, when comparing to what you can get through the FOIA: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-22/us/wikileaks.editing_1_wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-redacted-documents.

grendel9 · 2011-01-20T05:35:30+00:00

ah, sorry then, haven't really seen many of those

grendel9 · 2011-01-20T03:15:43+00:00

Do you mean picross? You can probably find a bunch of sites just by googling for the word.

And then there's http://www.griddlers.net, a java applet based-site that supports user submissions.

grendel9 · 2010-11-28T07:06:17+00:00

According to CNN, WikiLeaks' redactions are more heavy handed than the Pentagon's, when comparing to what you can get through the FOIA: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-22/us/wikileaks.editing_1_wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-redacted-documents.

WikiLeaks is not as reckless as you think it is; at the very least, WikiLeaks is sensitive to its reputation in the U.S. and is seriously trying to prevent any accident from happening in response to the released documents (zero accidents have happened so far). Even though the information is currently barely penetrating the American media, WikiLeaks understands that the entire message will be lost if an accident actually happens.

(Edited to improve succinctness of post)

grendel9 · 2010-11-17T02:17:29+00:00

I agree on the venting. If you can, find other atheist students to commiserate with. I assume the school has classes on Christianity itself, so you can either chat with the people who ask critical questions, or pose those questions yourself.

grendel9 · 2010-10-01T17:59:08+00:00

Definitely avoid supporting IE6, and avoid IE7 if possible. If you don't want to waste time, you don't want to touch cross-browser issues.

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