promethea.incorporated

multiheaded1793:

I am all for basic income, I think it’s a great thing, the “non-reformist reform” that leftists ought to embrace. But.

I’ve been hanging out mostly with techno-libertarian types for a good while now - all wonderful folks, yes, I mean you, y’all just great -

- and I increasingly cannot shake the impression that propping up empty talk of ~basic income~ to every instance of economic oppression and misery is a lot like the internet bolshevik staple of ~we won’t have this problem after the Revolution~. And meanwhile, in the here and now, it is very easy to use it to brush aside lesser, economically Bad suggestions, dismiss ongoing workers’ struggles as misguided, etc, etc.

Like, tell me I’m just being uncharitable and gloomy and ideologically obsessed here. But seeing one post after another ending with “maybe, some indeterminate time in the blissful future, We shall be able to dole out enough for everyone to survive on - after scrapping every current social program everywhere and attaining efficiency and getting rid of Crony Capitalism” - well, it’s enough to see a pattern. I don’t know what it means, but it’s vaguely alarming.

And also… there is never a roadmap or even the most vague sense of how to get from here to there. How to deal with elite resistance to redistribution and capital flight, how to square it with another professed (and likewise worthy) techno-libertarian goal of open borders, etc, etc. There’s rarely anything at all written on this. Again, this is why ~basic income~ alarmingly resembles a hand-wave more than a goal.

@theunitofcaring @tropylium @socialjusticemunchkin 

After? Who said “after”? The way I use it is as a perfect bargaining chip: You want to scrap the minimum wage? okay sure, as long as we get basic income as a replacement, not as a vague future speculation. Bust the regulatory capture of corporatism (HAVE I MENTIONED IT’S ILLEGAL TO HIRE ANYONE IN FINLAND FOR LESS THAN WHAT THE UNIONS AND BIG BUSINESSES HAVE AGREED AMONG EACH OTHER, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE WORKER WOULD PREFER A LOWER WAGE TO UNEMPLOYMENT THIS IS A SOCDEM HATEBLOG AFTER ALL)? yeah, we could look at that once we have our UBI. Stop paying people welfare to get rid of incentive traps? a marvellous idea, only when accompanied with the basic income to replace the welfare.

It’s not like we need to attain magical future hypercapitalist efficiency to sustain it; in Finland all it would take is to stop playing the fucking musical chairs with the half a million different forms of welfare (all implications intended) and just give everyone a seat on the couch (THIS IS A SOCDEM HATEBLOG, REMEMBER) and the remaining need for adjustment of the national budget would be smaller than the cuts the current PM is doing. And it needs to be done alongside the other things, not left as a vague promise for the future, and that’s why we’re so noisy about it because it needs to be done RIGHT NOW before the sinking illfare state takes any more people with it. And in a staggeringly surprising display of competence from the normally witless cronyists in our government they’re actually preparing to test basic income soon™ and I’m just chewing through my teeth in anticipation of how they will fuck that one up because so far everything else the government has done has been a gigantic fuck-up (except deregulating the opening hours of grocery stores because even stopped clocks and so on…).

The Greens (basically the coalition of SWPL blues and the local equivalent of SV technolibertarian greys alike, which results in some weird things) have a roadmap. The Party Formerly Known as the Communist Party (after the Communist Party lost all its money speculating in the stock market) has a roadmap. The libertarian wing of the Crony Capitalist Party (because they were left without a political home after the Liberal Party joined the Redneck Party and had to choose the least disagreeable alternative) has a roadmap. Even the Redneck Party (which is nominally a liberal party and don’t ask me why because it hates free markets and gays, loves agricultural and regional subsidies and conservative values, and is like half controlled by a cult which forces women to be baby-making machines by banning contraception and stigmatizing singles, gays, trans people and anything else that stands between them and paperclipping the universe with white assigned-christian-at-birth babies (unsurprisingly, they tend to drop out of the cult just as fast as the cultmothers drop out more so no demographic takeover has happened in the last two centuries but they certainly have been trying)) wants it. Pretty much the only thing stopping it from happening is (aside from the question of how exactly the Popular Front of Judea is going to be named) the Social Bureaucratic Party (THIS IS WHY THIS IS A SOCIAL DEMOCRACY HATEBLOG) which loves equality and therefore is very invested in maintaining the means-tested welfare systems and redwashed rentiers establishing an ironclad class division between the middle class and the precariat.

So if basic income is the equivalent of “after the revolution”, we’re realistically at “red guards, stockpile weapons and ammo; Lenin is returning from exile and the german armies are keeping the state occupied” instead of “the revolutionary club of Berkeley celebrates its fiftieth year of talking enthusiastically about the imminent overthrow of the bourgeois devils”.

Basic income is no more subject to resistance to redistribution than the unholy mess we have now. It’s no more subject to capital flight. Those are completely orthogonal problems, all basic income would be is allocating the tax money the state already takes a lot better in ways which both the (actually value-creating instead of rentseeking) businesses and the (actually value-creating instead of rentseeking) workers would both find preferable, and it would also help those who can’t provide for themselves on the market far better than the bullshit we have now.

4 months ago · tagged #this is a social democracy hateblog #win-win is my superpower · 103 notes · source: multiheaded1793 · .permalink

My little emotional kinkster: suffering is magic

Keep reading

4 months ago · tagged #death cw #parenthesis junkies unite #user's guide to interacting with a promethea · 1 note · .permalink

ranma-official asked: I'm doing backend work on this software and we had a discussion on colorblind friendly ui (there's a lot of types of colorblindness) and our project lead just closed the ticket as insignificant and linked to a bunch of articles on male privilege

ilzolende:

funereal-disease:

……….

complain that this is erasing transfeminine people and POC residents of certain islands :P

(seriously, though, wow. color-blind people are, iirc, more common than autistics, even! apparently now being unsupportive of people with x-linked disabilities is feminist. ugh.)

What the fucking fuck.

4 months ago · tagged #transmisogyny cw #ableism cw #not my feminism #what the hell · 31 notes · source: funereal-disease · .permalink

slatestarscratchpad:

Okay, we’re having too many collisions here, so here’s the updated Official Rationalist Tumblr Argument Schedule. Please remember to stick to the schedule unless you’ve applied for special dispensation.

January: Is MIRI Effective?

February: Are We Bad People For Tolerating @severnayazemlya ?

March: Intelligence Explosion

April: Torture Vs. Dust Specks

May: Has Social Justice Gone Too Far? Or Possibly Not Far Enough?

June: Is IQ Real?

July: Utilitarianism-Related Grab Bag

August: Conservatives: Terrible People, Or Terrible People But We Shouldn’t Say So Explicitly And Should Pretend To Like Them?

September: Quantum Physics

October: Is Less Wrong A Cult?

November: N  E  O  T  E  N  Y

December: IDK, Probably Moldbug Or Something

(via rusalkii)

4 months ago · 294 notes · source: slatestarscratchpad · .permalink

endecision asked: non-stop, say no to this?

non-stop: talk about something you’re talented at, or even just something you can do very quickly and efficiently

Optimizing, seeing opportunities and possibilities and exploring ideas to their most exploitable conclusions.

In practice this turns out most commonly to mean that when I have an audience (one or more people) I am familiar with, or can predict enough, to know their predispositions; in a sufficiently non-prejudiced state of mind; and a suitable channel of communication, I can convince them of quite unexpected things by playing around with the style of what I’m saying while keeping the substance fundamentally the same.

Another, strongly related, thing is that I have quite decent metacognition I’ve cultivated over the years to gain awareness of and access into the deeper parts of my brain. While it’ll always be a work in progress, I’m able to do the same kind of things to myself and self-modify in some pretty promising ways. I’ve tied my sense of self-worth not into any object-level feature but into the highest meta, of seeing promethea as a terrible kludge of deterministic mechanisms and intertwined levers that I should, and most importantly am allowed to, mechanistically manipulate in ways that work without being tied to counterproductive value judgements about them. I can be biased and irrational, I can do political posturing to save face while figuring out sneaky ways to turn things around, I can fail again and again and again and sometimes be even too exhausted to bother trying to improve, and it’s perfectly okay and doesn’t reflect badly on me because that’s what everyone deep down is and I’m already better than most if I at least admit it. On the most fundamental level my utility function is simply playing with the cards it was dealt the best it can to maximize expected value and in practice this turns out to be ultimately pretty well.

say no to this: what’s your biggest guilty pleasure?

Guilt is a counterproductive feeling, one to be optimized away. I suppose this could refer to things I enjoy but might not want to admit out loud for status or political reasons, or to things I enjoy and spend a lot of time doing but would rather self-modify away from or at the very least hack into a more synergistically exploitable form that simultaneously furthens my other goals.

I obviously can’t say publicly what the first things would be because so many people don’t understand these things and giving away such information could hurt me, if I have such things. Of course, even admitting to having such things could be a mistake as well because things can be deduced from even the existence of such information. For game-theoretical reasons the only right way to deal with such things publicly is by making the information content as close to zero as possible. These things might be something that would make group A laugh at me, or they might be something that would make group B scorn me, or they would seriously compromise my credibility with group C, or maybe I don’t actually have such things but think that even ambitious people should be allowed to be unique human beings, beautiful with their warts and all, instead of having to sanitize their entire existence into the flawed and phony perfection of ideological purity and thus am helping such people by placing myself in the same reference class out of solidarity even if I myself might not actually have such flaws. Nobody can know, and I am definitely not telling. The only winning move is not to play. Checkmate, status gamists everywhere.

The second one is easy to answer: pointless political debates with people who are Wrong On The Internet, especially social democrats (a curious combination of the narcissism of small differences and actual fundamental disagreements on deeper facts and values; pretty much exactly the finnish equivalent of silicon valley technoliber(al)tarians yelling at SWPL liberals) and other statists and paternalists and people who say they are egalitarians but whose actions hurt those who are already being hurt by so many other things as well. No matter how little I could actually change things by debating the same things endlessly with people I know are never going to change. That one I’m hacking into aiding in my ambitions as networking with interesting people, gaining PR points and cultivating an image and establishing a personal brand sorry I seriously can’t say that one with a straight face how on earth do people come up with this stuff it’s so hilarious is anyone ever actually serious when they say such things haha wow.

4 months ago · 3 notes · .permalink

hamilton songs ask meme

macaroon22:

alexander hamilton: what are some things you want more people to know about you?
aaron burr, sir: when was the last time you met someone who changed your life?
my shot: talk about something you’re determined to accomplish before you die.
the story of tonight: talk about some of the best times you’ve had with friends.
the schuyler sisters: do you have any siblings? if so, what are they like?
farmer refuted: do you ever send letters in the mail?
you’ll be back: when was the last time you were dumped?
right hand man: who do you look up to most?
a winter’s ball: what was the last party you went to like?
helpless: when was the last time you had a crush that really hit you hard?
satisfied: what has been the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make?
the story of tonight reprise: do you have any friends who are married?
wait for it: what’s something you’re really longing for?
stay alive: have you ever had any near-death experiences?
ten duel commandments: have you ever been in a physical fight with anyone?
meet me inside: talk about a time you got in big trouble with an authority figure
that would be enough: do you prefer an eventful or a peaceful life?
guns and ships: who is your greatest partner in crime?
history has its eyes on you: talk about the best teacher you’ve ever had
yorktown: talk about a time you struggled but came out on top
what comes next?: are you anxious about the future?
dear theodosia: what’s one nice thing you wish you could say to someone right now?
non-stop: talk about something you’re talented at, or even just something you can do very quickly and efficiently
what’d i miss: do you suffer from fomo (fear of missing out)?
cabinet battle #1: do you enjoy debating or arguing with people?
take a break: if you could run anywhere for a getaway, where would you go and who would you take with you?
say no to this: what’s your biggest guilty pleasure?
the room where it happens: talk about a group you would love to be a part of, whether it’s an official group or a group of people
schuyler defeated: how do you feel about changing yourself and your image in order to succeed?
cabinet battle #2: are you a person that helps yourself, or others first?
washington on your side: who is the most important or influential person you’ve ever been friends with?
one last time: do you have a hard time quitting things or saying goodbye?
i know him: do you enjoy talking smack?
the adams administration: talk about a time you’ve clashed with authority
we know: do you enjoy gossip?
hurricane: what’s the hardest thing you’ve ever managed to make it through in life?
the reynolds pamphlet: do you prefer keeping secrets, or being an open book?
burn: talk about a time you’ve felt betrayed
blow us all away: can you hold yourself back when you hear people speaking badly about someone you like/love?
stay alive reprise: have you ever lost anyone?
it’s quiet uptown: where do you like to go to think or brood?
the election of 1800: do you think it’s important to vote?
your obedient servant: how do you feel about passive-aggression?
best of wives and best of women: do you prefer sleeping alone or with someone else?
the world was wide enough: talk about a time you had to make a decision and ultimately made the wrong one
who lives, who dies, who tells your story: how do you want to be remembered when you’re gone?

I suspect ask memes might be a good way to get into the knowing-people-a-bit-better thing, something that’s definitely relevant to my interests.

(via sdhs-rationalist)

4 months ago · tagged #ask meme · 3,432 notes · source: macaroon22 · .permalink

nostalgebraist:

multiheaded1793:

earthboundricochet:

osberend:

obiternihili:

ozymandias271:

a lot of SJ is weirdly soft on privileged people. like “oh, cis people have to do a continual process of unlearning transphobia overcoming the social conditioning of an entire society! it is so difficult!” no, actually, not being a transphobe is not that hard, it’s just that a lot of cis people don’t do it

i think this is the first time i’ve seen you criticise sj for not being stereotypical sj enough

MOAR STALINZ PLZ!

The hardest thing about not being a transphobe is that I am a trans person myself and still am 100% confused about why certain things/people are being called transphobic.

If even I, a Smol Oppressed Tran, am confused about What Makes Something Transphobic in a fair number of cases, how exactly is Clueless Average CisJoe supposed to tell?

I’m 100% this too

And moreover I have some beliefs/ideas that help describe my trans experience and the experience of some of the people I know, but are VERY LOUDLY AND AGGRESSIVELY denounced as “gross” and “transphobic” by a vast, representative swathe of the internet ~trans community~.

Fuck that.

The way I personally conceive of these things, the OP and the last two reblogs are not necessarily opposed?

Like, I think there is this tension between versions of SJ that tell privileged people to “just listen to marginalized people” and versions that tell them “unlearn your privileges, educate yourself, level up in non-oppressiveness”

I favor the former versions, because they can deal gracefully with the fact that marginalized people don’t actually agree about everything, and because the latter often turns into this never-ending Mundum-like injunction to become more and more “aware,” which leads privileged people to develop very specific beliefs about these issues and connect these beliefs to their self-worth (”I understand these complexities, so I’m possibly not a piece of shit”), and then get angry if and when these models don’t fit reality (”if your experience doesn’t fit my headcanon, then maybe I am a piece of shit”)

I’m not trying to say the problems mentioned by the last two posters are all the fault of cis people – not that I would know – but I do think the spread of these very complex, restrictive, difficult-to-understand versions of concepts is related to some people’s need for an ever-ascending scale of ways to be more “aware.”

4 months ago · tagged #basically this #steel feminism #nothing to add but tags · 134 notes · source: ozymandias271 · .permalink

ozymandias271:

anyway here is my point. the whole “not being a dickbag to trans people requires A TON OF WORK AND CHECKING OF PRIVILEGE” narrative:

(a) lets transphobes off the hook
(b) is insulting to non-transphobic cis people
© leads some non-transphobic cis people to hate themselves
(d) leads other non-transphobic cis people to talk about how NOBLE they are because they have learned NOT TO ASK ABOUT ACQUAINTANCES’ GENITALS! SO HARD!
(e) lends credence to “trans* is transphobic!” nonsense because keeping track of a constantly shifting set of shibboleths actually is hard

and it is super-weird because while SJ legitimately might not care about (b)-(e) you would think they would at least manage to avoid (a)

Also, it’s incompatible with “not being a dickbag is such elementary stuff that it’s literally the basic minimum prerequisite for being a decent human being, not something you deserve extra credit ally cookies over”. Consistency, how does one do it.

I personally possibly endorse having a distinction between the layperson-accessible low-hanging fruit that should be an obligation to people, and the expert-level follow-the-theory-to-weird-places-to-see-if-there’s-something-there stuff that (e) kind of is about but with more self-awareness.

Physics would be an apt comparison; the layperson needs to know enough to not cause harm via bad policy or shitty decisions, and then there’s the experts who do things like “let’s check out if the universe is actually an 11-dimensional hologram and see what the implications would be for stuff we could engineer out of it, and also if you don’t know what you’re doing just don’t do it because we don’t want people doing really embarrassing amateur quantum physics”.

All in all SJ needs to acknowledge that this distinction is possible and allowable and not everyone should try to be an expert in hardcore intersectionalist gender theory any more than people need to be experts in quantum physics. I suspect a lot of the frustration around (e) comes from people thinking they need to keep track of constantly shifting shibboleths but can’t do it that well, but can’t admit it because of signaling pressures to keep up with the cutting edge and as a result end up sounding like Deepak Chopra when they espouse what’s basically a cargo-cult version of last year’s cutting edge instead of being like “I’m not an expert in this stuff but I trust the physicists when they say nuclear power isn’t actually that horrible” as they should.

It’s probably useful to have some small subset of people chasing theory to weird places just to see if there are some useful insights to be found, but they should recognize that that’s what it is and that it’s a completely different thing from the minimum criteria for a decent human being. Also, this feels like an interesting hack for replacing the stick with a carrot; instead of being just barely decent human beings while everyone else is horribly failing at it the experts could feel like high-status people who are successfully doing something cool and rare while others are okay too, and only the ones who do the Deepak Chopra quantum physics woo equivalent of gender theory, like TERFs, need to be scorned.

[epistemic status: literally inconclusive but feeling like putting some strong intuitions into words and generating important insights]

4 months ago · tagged #specialization of labour: it exists for a reason #steel feminism · 46 notes · source: ozymandias271 · .permalink