simoj

@eigenrobot Metaphorical or literal? They’re actually reptilian but they are wise and benevolent

lizardmen run the earth

@Duderichy “quality fabrics” - very sus to have ever learned which fabric is better than another Like, there’s nothing inherently racist about knowing FBI crime statistics or acing ethnoguessr, but Why and How do you have this knowledge

@Duderichy The ladies subconsciously long for a non aesthetic man. You should not know what you are wearing at any time

anyone who says dressing well is low status is full of shit. dressing formal might be uncalled for, but wearing nice clothes built from quality fabrics that look nice, go together and fit well is never bad.

@poiThePoi @KelseyTuoc Huh, not my experience with NJ Hindus

@KelseyTuoc From my experience, it's much less likely that Hindus assimilate in the important ways than Muslims. Which is really fascinating because the text of Islam is that you should never assimilate to most American norms.

I think the discussion around this keeps unhealthily conflating two different things. America was founded by weird Protestant splinter groups fleeing oppression, and protecting religious freedom is in fact fundamental to what it means to be an American. There is very little more American than deciding everyone else is doing religious practice wrong and moving out to the middle of nowhere to do it according to your own deep principles. I think that many American groups that are not specifically Christian (or whose Christian-ness is contested) should be understood as inheritors of this tradition. But this commitment to religious liberty and to pluralistic tolerance of a wide range of different practices only functions if there is a bedrock, shared governing ethos that allows us to navigate these object-level disagreements. That ethos - the defining thing that it means to be American - includes freedom of religion, the commitment that everyone else's right to their beliefs must also be defended, and defended even at significant personal cost; freedom of speech, an understanding that you have the right to offend and no right not to be offended, a deep suspicion of state exercises of power; commitment to equality under the law and to the idea that much of virtue must be defined and pursued outside the law. It makes no sense to demand people assimilate in the food they eat or the clothes they wear. It is downright unAmerican to insist that people assimilate by adopting an existing American church instead of by following in the deep American tradition of freedom of conscience. But it is absolutely necessary that everyone adopt - 'assimilate to', if you'd like - the underlying commitments that make America the world's most successful pluralistic society. Nothing I've said here disagrees with Hamid's column; I think in many ways it's the exact same point he's making. The examples he gives of not assimilating are examples of not secularizing - for example, not accepting gay marriage, or not thinking that it's good for women to work outside the home. Those are the kinds of disagreements the American project can endure and does endure every day. But I think that people often talk past each other when it comes to assimilation, in a way that makes "we should stop expecting assimilation" a statement that'll sow enormous confusion. I think there's some of this confusion in Hamid's observation that Muslims say 'homosexuality should be discouraged by society' at a much higher rate even than Republican Americans. Does every American have the absolute right to practice a faith that teaches their super loving perfect god will torture me eternally because I have a wife? Yes. I will defend their right to do so, whether that faith is Christian or Muslim. Do they have the right to try to use the state to impose that view - say, by making it harder for me and my wife to own property, get custody of our children, leave our possessions to each other, etc.? I would argue that they do not! I know a lot of people opposed to gay marriage. Some of them are deeply and fundamentally committed to the American vision of pluralism, and some are not. The ones who are not are far, far scarier. If someone is a sincere pluralist, it is not threatening at all for them to believe that homosexuality is gravely evil; if they're not, then it's really quite a big deal. So the more that immigrants assimilate on the important stuff - the conviction that they may not use the state to impose their religion and it would be abhorrent to try, that other people have the right to believe differently, that people have the right to deconvert - the less of an issue it is if they have different views from mine on the object-level stuff. But when someone says "immigrants don't need to assimilate", I don't know whether they mean "immigrants do not need to agree that it is the absolute right of every individual to deconvert from Islam and go around vociferously criticizing it in a strident and offensive way" (immigrants, like all Americans, do need to agree on that) or if they mean "immigrants do not need to agree on whether homosexuality is sinful" (certainly true). Or more generally, whether people talk about the importance of assimilation some mean, "you need to have the same views as me", and some mean, "you need to be essentially persuaded of the pluralistic American project and willing to sacrifice to protect it where it protects views you disagree with". The first is bad and the second is just true. Now for the good news: The data says that in fact Muslim-American immigrants are assimilated in the important sense - opposing political violence at higher rates than other groups, believing in freedom of speech and religious liberty. Hamid references that very data! But he should say clearly "this is good" rather than "this is unnecessary", and then point out that this (good) assimilation is why we can all graciously live alongside one another while our views vary greatly, and why we are able to sustain a society in which it is not an emergency that my neighbors think my lifestyle is sinful.

@signulll These days, I don’t think higher horniness predicts more kids

i was talking to someone who was on a glp-1 & she had completely lost her libido. does that mean ozempic is basically a sterilization vehicle for the human race?

@lily___digital i'm eating the almond tree seeds to stop the almond trees from reproducing. i'm a hero

if u eat almonds but are against ai u are dumb i am sorry <3

@Ruesavatar what's the gender-reversed analogy? something stereotypical that a majority of men enjoy, that women generally know is stupid and a constant temptation to error, but nevertheless learn to tolerate for the sake of love? idk... sports betting?

I don’t understand all the astrology hate. Its just a silly plaything. Like sure, planning your life around it is ill advised, but most people don’t take it that seriously. I am a cancer, I like the beach and sex ♋️ so, it fits! In China I am a fire rabbit- pyro and sex! It fits!

@RuxandraTeslo He was fun with his crazy driving and nuclear war advocacy

Why has the internet developed an obsession with Von Neumann and not say Euler or Gauss? And from early 20th century someone like Dirac?

@tenobrus Canonically, Carlos is Venezuelan

wait roon isn't mexican??? wtf

@a_musingcat Gonna take care of our parents and invent new types of water you can’t even imagine

@HorsePuler8000 @southphxceleb @Aella_Girl But did he contribute to data visualization?

@southphxceleb @Aella_Girl That doesn’t seem like a nice thing to say. Also, you know who else spent time in a dark dark dark place of despair, right?

Never forget that this whore is in a dark dark dark place of despair and should not be taken seriously, just appreciated for her contributions to data visualization

@kitten_beloved @sporadica

@sporadica I'm not sure we are

The only certainty is that we are entering incredibly uncertain times.

From knowing some guys at labs, I have gotten the impression that military industrial complex deep state people are actually pretty serious and thoughtful patriots But… ultimately the wackos of the “shallow state” do in fact get to make the big decisions

@Barrowwight @Noahpinion @davideoks Babies extract a lot of value so they must be producing something!

@Noahpinion @davideoks Babies seem remarkably unproductive, to be honest.

@davideoks Call me Wokey McWokerson, but I will always bet against the notion that any large group of humans is just fundamentally incapable of producing economic value

@tautologer I can imagine a world that muddles on to a new cybersecurity equilibrium with more air gaps and more presumed vulnerability etc But 8 seconds in the future it’ll be clear cybersecurity is far from the only vector for harm, so…

I want so badly for this not to be true, but I really don't see any strong argument against it

Help simoj out guys

@Romy_Holland “your punishment for having a knife when they searched you would be very different from the thief’s. For him to have a knife was mere misbehavior, tradition, he didn’t know any better. But for you to have one was ‘terrorism’”

i’m really confused about how laws work here. if i tried to go camping in a public park tonight i’d likely be told i cannot, because it’s illegal. i’ve been cleared out of parks for stargazing after hours. a judge just ruled that berkeley has to give homeless people larger sidewalk spaces for camping than was previously determined. who qualifies for this? could i go stake out a piece of sidewalk?

@tszzl thanks can i also have permanent high status?

everybody, welcome to the permanent upper class. enjoy your universal high income

@Romy_Holland Lots of upper class people pair off in their 20s

saying this woman should have been married at 22 if she’s family-oriented is largely a class tell. upper class people generally don’t get married at 22. even if this woman had wanted that, there would have been nobody suitable for her to marry.

@lookingforgames @KelseyTuoc These folks have much, much, much better things to do with their time and risk budgets than cybercrime

@KelseyTuoc Yeah I get that but I also find it interesting that they aren't abusing the exploits secretly. Or are they?

An underrated feature of this situation: a private company now has incredibly powerful zero-day exploits of almost every software project you've heard of. And Hegseth and Emil Michael have ordered the government not to in any capacity work with Anthropic.