This is true for a very narrow definition of debate though. At work, choosing to debate can make the difference between a software design that solves the problem vs one that doesn't. Deploying code that causes an incident vs lands safely.
In broader life, public debate can reveal new arguments to seeking minds, help influence and educate people other than the debaters. It can even grow the debaters themselves if they approach with the right humility.
That said, many do approach debate in the way you describe. For those of us trying to avoid futile debate in favor of productive debate, the best choice is to detect these bad faith actors, acknowledge the bad faith publicly, and pull away
Western media has been overwhelmingly one sided regarding state led IP theft for the last three decades. China steals western IP has been the story, and it hasn't been even a little balanced until reading this.
Not a physicist, but I think this paper used holographic principles to predict the minimum ratio of shear viscosity to volume density of entropy in fluids https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0405231
> Originally coined in the 17th century by René Descartes[4] as a derogatory term and regarded as fictitious or useless, the concept gained wide acceptance following the work of Leonhard Euler in the 18th century, and Augustin-Louis Cauchy and Carl Friedrich Gauss in the early 19th century.
I think the jury is still out wrt utility of AdS spaces. They could be useless toys, or they could be in the Descartes phase rn.
> All other groups were expected to assimilate and join the melting pot.
I partially agree. Counter evidence is that Little Italy, Chinatowns and the like exist and have done for many decades. Ethnic clubs like Sons of Italy persist. Some Pennsylvania Dutch still don't speak English, and still set themselves apart. But at the same time, many from those groups join the majority culture and leave their old languages behind.
In this respect I don't see modern immigration in America any differently. Newer immigrant groups have their culture enclaves, but many from those groups also enter and adopt the majority culture.
> I don't think you thought it through before you wrote this
You're misreading my comment. For most of us, the locals at time of ancestor arrival had already displaced the natives to whom you refer
I certainly don't understand all you're saying through this tortured analogy, but yes an "army" of judges that issue rulings is much, much better than an army of soldiers that issue killings
That analogy doesn't work well. Their situation involved foreign powers enforcing jurisdiction and property claims over their land with a regular standing army; a completely different situation than modern immigration
> Why does ever single bleeding heart liberal globalist try and ignore the deep psychological truths about human tribalism?
I'll bite.
In the US, for one, every single person has an ancestor that thanked their lucky stars the locals didn't think the way that you are recommending we think today. Or an ancestor that suffered because the locals did think that way.
We honor that heritage by paying it forward, lest we be lumped among the trash of history that punished the Irish, the Chinese, and the Jews for the cardinal sin of living down the street.
So you are happy with this outcome, but also so upset at the people that evangelized your preferred policy position that you think HN readers should cut them from the information diet?
Seems most likely that the public outcry actually influenced this outcome, so I don't see why the nuances of alarmism about it (imminent decision vs fait accomplit) should nix an entire information source.
After a couple years I realized the key part of “As an X I want Y so that Z” is the “so that Z”.
When managing teams these days, the only part I keep is the “so that Z” — what beneficial change in the world does this ticket make?
If the ticket name is just “fix this bug” then I’m not certain the engineer knows why it’s important, and knowing the importance of your work is itself important.
> in Louisiana v. Callais, they wanted to draw racially segregated voting districts.
30 years of jurisprudence since Thornburg v. Gingles disagrees with this framing. That unanimous decision found racial districts a necessarily race-conscious remedy to race-targeted harm: republican gerrymandering of cohesive black communities in the south. Which was the same harm at play in 2026 Louisiana.
If you think a race-conscious remedy is more racist than race-targeted harm, you must also believe that minority communities have no right for representation. If that’s the case, be plain about your beliefs. Either way please stop publicly mistaking cause for effect regarding this topic of “racially segregated voting districts”
> went to the Supreme Court…racially segregated voting districts
How is enforcing the two greatest anti Jim Crow laws (VRA and CRA), somehow, equivalent to returning to Jim Crow itself?
> the administrative state
I’m trying to understand better, but it just seems like you are very opposed to merit based hiring in government and I don’t understand why. I understand your appeal to history, but what could be a better approach than hiring on merit while also making those employees accountable to political appointees? Just replacing the entire ranks of government every 4 years?
The world saw Anthropic take a possibly company-killing risk wrt weaponizing their AI, and are rewarding them for holding to their values, for now at least.
It’s not like anyone owes Sam Altman their business just bc their product has become slightly, perhaps temporarily, better
In broader life, public debate can reveal new arguments to seeking minds, help influence and educate people other than the debaters. It can even grow the debaters themselves if they approach with the right humility.
That said, many do approach debate in the way you describe. For those of us trying to avoid futile debate in favor of productive debate, the best choice is to detect these bad faith actors, acknowledge the bad faith publicly, and pull away