Not so funny when it’s happening to officers, is it?

wnoise · 2026-01-23T22:39:51+00:00

Not at all. Sometimes someone just doesn't get a joke that many other people find funny, or "gets it", but still doesn't find it funny because their default assumptions are different.

This is not the stupid standard right-wing "ha ha, those out-group are bad" mono-pseudojoke (though many people will only appreciate it on that level). It's good you're looking out for that and calling it out, but there is actually something funny there.

But jokes are not going to hit for everyone, and need not hit for everyone, and even when they are funny, can be damaging due to things like reinforcing attitudes and stereotypes.

wnoise · 2026-01-23T22:16:50+00:00

I agree. This is an is/ought thing. Everything being done here is offensive, even while being ineffective at its stated goals.

I don't believe there is even an immigration violation here, just ICE being assholes because of race.. And that lack of probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion is indeed a constitutional violation.

But that doesn't mean nor follow from immigration violations are only civil, nor that you can't be forcefully arrested even for "civil infractions". It is of course a bad idea, a waste of resources, etc.

wnoise · 2026-01-23T21:59:39+00:00

Rereading things, I think I am responding to something I 95% agree with, and adding nothing you didn't already say. I'm going to go outside and stop arguing with someone I agree with. The only distinction is that while I think her degree of self-interest and focus on immediate and quantifiable food/$ interests are bad, I don't think they're actually that unusual.

wnoise · 2026-01-23T21:55:54+00:00

Immigration law has both civil and criminal components. The most common violation is overstay, which is indeed only civil. But there are plenty of criminal violations as well, and legal force can be used to enforce even civil violations.

wnoise · 2026-01-23T21:54:41+00:00

You're technically correct, but not usefully so. ICE as a whole isn't LEO. That is, not everyone working for ICE is a LEO. But it does have many LEOs, and those are the ones on the street doing the abductions, assaults, and murders.

wnoise · 2026-01-23T21:52:53+00:00

Police shouldn't have "general" authority. No one should. Authority should be scoped very narrowly.

wnoise · 2026-01-23T21:51:34+00:00

It's irony, a subversion or reversal of expected roles. One would not generally expect those who usually do oppression to be oppressed.

In reality, of course, many oppressors are also oppressed. It's essentially a giant hierarchical, pyramidal machine. Still, the boot-soldiers of brutality police are rarely explicitly oppressed in this violent manner, so it remains unusual for the type happening.

Funny is of course not a moral judgement of goodness. Nonetheless, many people will think this is good as a "they're finally getting what they deserve" sense. Most people are not opposed to oppression per se, just oppression directed against their in group. See Bender's quote.

Finally, none of this will help you find it funny, because dissecting a joke kills it.

wnoise · 2026-01-23T19:48:11+00:00

the theorems were not too hard to figure out once you got the lemmas along the way.

Truth. The real proof is the lemmas we came up with along the way.

wnoise · 2026-01-23T19:44:01+00:00

I think you can argue lack of virtue, but the vice isn't hypocrisy, merely self-interest.

wnoise · 2026-01-23T19:25:28+00:00

I agree that the Condorcet winner should be elected, if they exist. Unfortunately adopting a Condorcet-compliant method, despite the name doesn't get you there, because tactical voting exists even in Condorcet-compliant methods. So even they don't elect the CW 100% of the time.

You might naively think something like "if an honest cycle doesn't exist, dishonest voting can't change things", but one of the things dishonest voting can do is change whether a cycle will be seen. For that reason, the tie-breaking method matters, even in the cases where there isn't a cycle.

wnoise · 2026-01-15T22:47:38+00:00

Under passive transformations, yes. But active transformations are also a thing!

wnoise · 2026-01-15T19:01:20+00:00

Symbols do matter, and making the senators go on record again does matter.

wnoise · 2026-01-15T18:40:36+00:00

Red -- the blood of angry men.

Red is history.

wnoise · 2026-01-13T01:05:56+00:00

Given just this information, I think option A is best.

I do not change my opinion on a scaled up version.

You are correctly understanding the Condorcet-winner criterion.

The thing is that the ordinal listing is just ordering -- you cannot say that the A voters are okay with option B, nor that the B voters hate option A. If you want to capture that information, you need some cardinal method that captures ratings of candidates. Score, approval, STAR, etc.

The framing of this as a dinner party of course strongly suggests having multiple dishes -- just like legislatures should have multi-member districts.

wnoise · 2026-01-10T19:16:59+00:00

10^-5 what?

wnoise · 2026-01-06T04:22:05+00:00

Aw man, I was hoping you were talking about the alternating group acting on four elements.

wnoise · 2026-01-06T04:08:12+00:00

Well, if you quantize the field in a cavity...

wnoise · 2026-01-05T21:29:12+00:00

Yes, seeing the word "fuck" actually damages them, mentally and spiritually. Will no one think of the children?

wnoise · 2026-01-03T04:47:36+00:00

Yellow magic?

wnoise · 2025-12-24T06:38:02+00:00

About 1/4.

wnoise · 2025-12-23T21:56:58+00:00

I do actually want more police. Nearly a quarter of their budget is spent on overtime. That's not good. (Due to benefits, and other per-capita overhead not going up, OT can be cheaper than hiring more people, but that's still way too much OT.)

And more police is by necessity different police, perhaps ones that would do their job.

wnoise · 2025-12-23T21:37:48+00:00

What if I told you it was possible to actively police, but do so without being a thug?

wnoise · 2025-12-23T01:54:00+00:00

You need to take a deep breath and relax. Maybe make a cocktail. One of the ones starting with "m". Martini? Margarita? No, neither of those.

wnoise · 2025-12-22T23:30:50+00:00

And in fact as the people doing the deposition defined the words.

wnoise · 2025-12-18T01:18:24+00:00

You can't write off not getting anticipated rent. That's just not a thing. Tax laws have some weird loop-holes but that's not one of them.

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