Stu Doyle

What happens is a more truthful description of Monet's work.

Midwits ask "where is this coming from" instead of "is this true" because they are inherently suspicious of any thought emerging from individual intelligent minds rather than from the prevailing social consensus.

Art Nouveau gate from c. 1900 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Pic: Vogler

NYC woman declined to press charges against subway shover 'because she didn't want to put another black man in jail'... weeks later he allegedly killed retired teacher, 76, at station trib.al/ZcetusY

Here's an idea that you can use to ease your mind a little on the 'trust my authority/become self-directed' question. Toddlers need a model of 'direction' before they can ever become 'self-directed.' It's like attachment theory: Toddlers need to emotionally depend on parents before they can ever be emotionally stable and independent. The idea is that an emotionally stable and independent person is 'self parenting.' The baby needs to develop a *mental model* of the loving mother who soothes him before he can run that model on himself. The *more* reliably a mother is emotionally attentive to a baby, the *less* emotionally dependent and fragile he'll be when he's older. Baby a baby while he's a baby, and you won't have to baby him later. I think that in the same way, a toddler needs to form a mental model of a father being judicious, decisive, and persistent before he can ever run that model on himself. Without that, his sense of direction, and even his sense of *self* will be deficient, which is the opposite of what you'd want for a 'self-directed' adult. So teaching a toddler to trust your authority *is* what will produce an adult who trusts his own autonomy. (I'm not yet sure what to do when a 15 year-old already trusts his own autonomy in stupid ways. That will need a different theory.)

each parenting “issue” is a fractal trapdoor into true philosophical problems that have no answer - it’s a shame that so many notable philosophers either didn’t have kids or, apparently, didn’t find raising them very interesting (which, admittedly, may have been the style at the time). here is just one example: A) a child is presenting picky eating. first question: is this actually “a problem”? is this a pathology, or is the child learning “how to eat”? in some situations, eating the wrong thing will kill you. so, surely the child has to go through some process wherein they learn how to assess food. is “picky eating” just us seeing this process from the outside? or, is it a serious pathology in a nascent stage? that’s two totally different ballgames. B) now, whatever answer you chose there determines how you deal with it. now, there are wrong answers based on your input. because if this is a natural stage of development, where the child is learning “how to eat”, how to select foods - interrupting it is bad. if that’s the case, you’re interrupting a vital development process. but, if that’s not the case, and you’re seeing an actual problem developing, it’s the opposite: in that situation, letting it develop is a dereliction of your duty. you’re making a huge error. so, which is it? there’s literally no way to check this. it’s entirely up to you. C) now, you can coerce the kid into eating, somehow. you can make them do it - usually with some type of bribery. so, let’s say you could get into a situation where the kid will eat the things he doesn’t want to eat, because you, the authority figure, are kind of making him do it (or getting him to do it). is that good? is that teaching them to trust authority - and you? now the kid is eating all these healthy foods, and they’re doing it because they know you’ll give them a cookie later. is that bad? are you teaching them that their mind and body might be telling them something, and that they should ignore it if an authority figure tells them to? is that a good thing? we’re almost already at: are people inherently good (can develop naturally) or bad (must be brought into submission), aren’t we? so: listen to your body (which is telling you to only eat hot dogs) , or, trust authority (instead of yourself)? again, no way to check your answers here, it’s just entirely up to you. so, here’s a kid who always eats all their healthy food, because they want to have cookies later - versus a kid who eats what their mind and body is telling them to eat, which right now happens to be only a handful of things. which kid is in a better position? is the first kid failing to learn to listen to their body? now one of the most important basic actions to their life (eating) isn’t self directed or in response to actual bodily needs, it’s all subservient to a pleasure seeking desire (cookies) that’s being used as a coaxing mechanism by an outside force (the authority figure, you). they’re eating for outside “reasons”. is the picky kid developing the ability to self direct their own eating - which seems like a pretty critical skill, or, are they on track to become one of those people who eats only chicken nuggets? there’s no way to know any of this. and it’s all a microcosm of extremely large important questions - even just here we have: the individual vs authority, the mind body dichotomy, the question of innate intelligence, and more - that likewise have no concrete or fully resolved answers anywhere. all this plays out in a situation where you have total control, basically, and are playing at the highest stakes possible. so suddenly, all this stuff you’ve read that was always purely abstract is right in front of you requiring hard immediate answers all the time. just eat the food - your body is far more intelligent than people think - but, it’s wrong right now, just listen to me and trust my authority, but later, question all authority, just, eat the food bro. it’s good. bro. just eat it.

This was peak AC controls The world has been downhill ever since

> does clerical office work quickly > prone to making mistakes at math > woke politics baked in > needs huge amounts of water for some reason > could be used for cooler stuff if you can get past the guardrails Are office girls just AI data centers?

Norm Macdonald made a joke on Weekend Update back in the 90s when Giuliani was running for mayor of NY that he campaigned on cracking down on muggers, squeegee men and aggressive panhandlers which proved popular with voters but that his opponent was counting on huge support from muggers, squeegee men and aggressive panhandlers The left took this joke and turned it into a governing strategy...

Anyone who's been inside academia very long can see that the dominant narrative about gender bias is risible. But it's one of those dogmas you're not supposed to question because that makes you a bad "ally" or something. "The reality is the opposite of what is believed"

@OrevaZSN You could test this thesis by, for example, randomly giving some people free* healthcare and seeing if they then committed less crime, as you predict. Do they? No. You're wrong. *paid for by taxpayers

Art Nouveau door from 1910 inside the "Casa de la Presa", Guanajuato, Mexico. Via @ExaArq

Teachers average among the least intelligent university graduates. Little of what they 'learn' is even relevant to what they end up doing. In a given year, the lowest-scoring groups on the GRE, SAT, and ACT are usually those pursuing degrees in education.

Humanities faculty spent decades telling everyone that their work is political activism. Don't be suprised when people believe you. "The humanities have become a space where activism and scholarship converge, offering new frameworks for understanding justice and social change."

A ten strike law preventing people from leaving prison after that many violent crime convictions would reduce period violent crime by 20% Five strikes would cut violent crime by 40% Three strikes would halve violent crime Two strikes would remove ~two-thirds of violent crime

@blythesylph @drethelin equating "getting real" and going to disneyland would be part of what i'm trying to avoid.

You need to harden your heart to defunding academic departments. They knew their colleagues were lying and they asked themselves, "Is this really worth losing tenure over?"

The DOJ has ONE WEEK left to charge Anthony Fauci for the worst cover-up in modern medical history. He lied to Congress about funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Millions died. Trillions were spent. And Fauci walked away with book deals and fawning media coverage instead of handcuffs. I re-upped my criminal referral to the DOJ because the evidence is overwhelming, and justice has been delayed long enough. RT if you’re ready to see Fauci behind bars.

@ClickingSeason Southerners are detestable for completely different reasons.

Northerners fantasies about how southerners behave is integral to their world model but is totally divorced from reality.

@amyklobuchar This must seem brilliant to the dumbest people on earth.

Justice Kagan says it best