HackerTrans
TopNewTrendsCommentsPastAskShowJobs

etangent

no profile record

comments

etangent
·8 mesi fa·discuss
Okay, I disagree with a lot of views expressed in this piece, but still found it worth reading. It's well written. In particular, a lot of people here may agree with what the author wrote on housing.
etangent
·8 mesi fa·discuss
100% correct.
etangent
·8 mesi fa·discuss
> a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions.

A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. One of the characteristics of autistic-spectrum individuals is that they must make a conscious effort to achieve goals that are achieved unconsciously by most of us. If we prevent such individuals from learning all that rarely-written-down stuff consciously because it seems "distasteful" to us, then we are disadvantaging such individuals socially.
etangent
·8 mesi fa·discuss
there is no such thing as a scanner for undeveloped film nor will there ever be.
etangent
·9 mesi fa·discuss
> A complex society or a natural disaster (a la dinosaurs) wiping out megafauna sounds much more plausible than the equivalent of the primitive societies we see today.

The problem with your argument is best illustrated with that famous picture of airplane with bullet holes; the only primitive societies you see today are those that are more or less sustainable; any unsustainable primitive society would have gone into a conflict with a major industrial power and ended up being wiped out. That of course does not prove that unsustainable primitive societies never existed; in fact I would say they were the norm as humans were expanding (when the frontier is constantly expanding, there is no need to sustain anything!).
etangent
·6 anni fa·discuss
You are taking a "consequentialist" stance implying that if something has political consequences, then it is political. There are several problems with this.

First, literally anything could have political consequences, from a solar flare to a fly landing in someone's hair. This logic easily devolves into absurdity. Famously, Chinese government under Mao declared sparrows "public animals of capitalism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign

Second, when anything could be political, the moniker "political" (like any other inflated moniker) loses a lot of its meaning. And yet real politics is still done by real people with real consequences.

Third, raising everything to the status of political is an example of politicization. This is typical of totalitarian regimes. Totalitarian regimes are in fact characterized by the fact that literally everything is raised to the realm of political, the realm of rule by the regime. By pressuring others to be political, you are creating a totalitarian environment, a very unpleasant environment for most people to be as we already know from some very bitter 20th century lessons.

Fourth, politics is about having political enemies. When political enemy (opponent) does not exist, there is no politics as such. By insisting that people act politically, you are simultaneously insisting that they have enemies. There are profound moral problems with this, whether you are Christian or even not religious at all.
etangent
·6 anni fa·discuss
You are taking a consequentialist stance, deciding that if something has political consequences, then it is political. But literally anything could have political consequences. A solar flare could have political consequences. A fly landing on someone's hair could have political consequences. This does not mean that flies are political!

If everything is political, then the moniker "political" is meaningless.
etangent
·6 anni fa·discuss
For an action to be "political" in a strong sense, its performer it needs to be consciously thinking about their political alignment. Majority of people are economically motivated and do not engage in in-depth analysis of their actions or inactions and thus describing their actions as "political" is quite tendentious.