>Presidents and their appointees come and go. The people pushing the regulators[1] are not subject to US election cycles.
While true, it’s also true that presidents and their appointees can vary wildly in their susceptibility to those “people pushing”. Both sides might be bad, but one’s very obviously worse.
All AI generated art feels somewhat masturbatory to me, but AI generated music is the most baffling of them all. It's like what if someone thought Muzak had too much soul.
Would you define Russia not nuking Ukraine as "strict pacifism"? Because every modern country and army seems to have some basic standard of ethics and morals that restrict them from waging total war even if you want to argue that's purely for diplomatic or PR reasons.
There are a whole lot of decisions that need to be made to get from "strict pacifism" to total war, so I don't know why we need to flatten this into a binary.
> Would you define Russia not nuking Ukraine as "strict pacifism"?
Nobody reasonable would. Russia started a war of choice. That's the opposite of pacifism.
Strict pacifism would be Ukraine refusing to fight after being invaded. Someone saying all war in all circumtances is evil and should not be contributed to, directly or indirectly, is sort of endorsing that view. The folks calling for nuclear disarmament, or no first use policy, are pretty far away from that.
>Nobody reasonable would. Russia started a war of choice. That's the opposite of pacifism.
Yes, that was my point. The person I replied to stated a nation taking actions off the table "will inevitably become subservient to a despotic regime". As a response, I pointed to a country that many would call "a despotic regime" who seems to operate with at least some consideration towards the ethics of war even if that is due to external pressure.
This isn't about the nations taking actions off the table, it's about:
> Serious question: should companies not participate in contracts from their country's defense department?
I contend that unless you want your government to be toppled by a foreign invader, companies contributing to your nation's military capabilities is something you should generally be in favor of.
>As for "someone else will do it if i don't".... (aka your argument). That's true of a lot of things, and I sleep great at night choosing not to steal from people even though I know others will choose to steal. It turns out I don't have the ability to choose their actions for them, only my own.
This is from your response:
>It's more like "if I don't do it then I better hope somebody else will, otherwise my whole country will inevitably become subservient to a despotic regime".
Are you now claiming that all those "I"s are really "companies"? You think you were having a conversation about how "[companies] sleep great at night"?
The "I" a person. If a company has no employees, it ceases to exist in any meaningful sense, so if you refuse to work for such companies you better hope somebody else will do so in your place.
Just to be clear, the conversation so far:
> beloch: It's also completely fine to say, "I don't want to deal with moral grey zones" and refuse to work for companies that do military work.
> JumpCrisscross: Idk, there's something unethical in outsourcing ethical grey areas [working for defense contractors] to other people while reaping the benefits of the peace (or war far from your home) it brings.
> sophacles: "someone else will do it if i don't".... (aka your argument)
> me: That's not the argument. It's more like "if I don't [work for defense contractors] then I better hope somebody else will. [Because strict pacifism isn't tenable.]
You then somehow interpreted this comment as me saying "a nation taking actions off the table "will inevitably become subservient to a despotic regime"", which wasn't at all what I said, so I jumped back in correct that. Then the whole conversation went off the rails.
You and other people who replied removed nuance from beloch's comment. The "moral grey zones" were not merely a question of working for a military contractor or not. Just from a basic grammar perspective, the use of the plural "zones" should indicate this isn't a singular question. I read that as a reference to the moral and ethical issues described in the three previous paragraphs.
Yet by the time you replied, those three paragraphs of nuance were flattened. It was no longer a question of which military programs and actions can be morally and ethical justified, it is now simply a question of whether they are done or not. And once it is flattened into a binary yes or no, all that nuance of potentially unjustifiable uses of the military in beloch's comment fall into the "yes" category. Making it into a binary reduces the issue to pacifism versus total war.
I think saying you "refuse to work for companies that do military work" because you "don't want to deal with moral grey zones" is a pretty binary choice with not a lot of nuance, but whatever. I think both our positions have been made pretty clear at this point and I'm not that interested in continuing to debate the semantics of previous comments.
Maybe I'm slow , but how is that relevant to the point? Can you expand? Am I understand is that defense is important because sooner or later someone else may choose aggression.
You might put your life savings on the street in front of your house for a day or two without someone stealing it, but sooner or later someone unscrupulous is likely to come along based on the evidence we have
The person I replied to stated that a country refusing to develop military tech for moral reasons was destined to fall to a country that ignores morals and develops that tech. I pointed to an example of an aggressor nation that is refusing to use all the military tech at its disposal. Modern society has decided that ethics don't go completely out the window in war and by and large nation states at least pretend they agree.
I'll be as straightforward as possible. Ukraine does not have a nuclear deterrent and yet Russia is deterred from using nuclear weapons ergo Ukraine didn't need its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent to prevent Russia from using nuclear weapons. And when even the "despotic regimes" like Russia are refusing to use a weapon, it no longer becomes a credible threat for the ostensibly good guys to threaten to use.
Weapons can only act as a deterrent if your opponent believes you're willing to use them and there are some weapons that no one is willing to use. And if no one is willing to use them, it's probably a waste to develop them in the first place.
> Ukraine does not have a nuclear deterrent and yet Russia is deterred from using nuclear weapons
Ukraine giving up its Soviet nukes in the 1990s was, with the benefit of hindsight, a mistake that has cost over a hundred thousand Ukrainians their lives. Even if Ukraine just had the missiles in a basement, the possibility that it had cracked the control system–or shortened the runway to reprocessing the warheads for a domestic platform–would have likely deterred war.
Do you think Ukraine would have used nuclear weapons against Russia? How do you think Russia would have responded to that? Do you think that would cost fewer than a hundred thousand Ukrainian lives?
Once again, nuclear weapons can only be a deterrent if your enemy believe you will use them and everyone knows that no nation state has the stomach to use them. Russia doesn't have to fear MAD and yet it is still deterred from using nuclear weapons. What makes you think that Ukraine would choose MAD over their current predicament? Because if Russia doesn't believe Ukraine is willing to commit to MAD, Russia can still invade. It certainly changes strategy, but over the years many nuclear powers have been involved in arm conflicts without using nuclear weapons, including in conflicts against other nuclear powers.
How is that an argument that demilitarized pacifism is a tenable national policy. This was the point you started arguing against. Russia hasent nuked Ukraine so nobody needs defenses or arms?
>How is that an argument that demilitarized pacifism is a tenable national policy.
I never made that argument. My original comment was refuting the idea that taking a singular option off the table is equivalent to pacifism. Ukraine didn't feel the need to develop a nuclear program, that doesn't make them pacifists.
> It's more like "if I don't do it then I better hope somebody else will, otherwise my whole country will inevitably become subservient to a despotic regime". Basically, the question is whether strict pacifism is a tenable national policy in the real world.
This person equates not "do[ing] it" with "strict pacifism".
"It" is having some level of military capability. I agree with Ajedi32 that not doing it is strict pacifism.
beloch and jump- advocated for some level of national defense as a practical necessity
sophacles- stupidly thought this was an "If I dont, someone will" argument
Ajedi32- clarifies "the question is whether strict pacifism is a tenable national policy in the real world"
The point is some level of defense is required. This point is completely compatible with not taking a maximalist approach to military. It is also compatible with the fact that even Russia doesn't take a maximalist approach to military.
The whole point of the chain is that citizens should not fixate on if companies or people participate in the military-industrial complex because it is good an necessary, but rather what those actors actually doing.
>"It" is having some level of military capability. I agree with Ajedi32 that not doing it is strict pacifism.
>beloch and jump- advocated for some level of national defense as a practical necessity
I don't think this an accurate summary of the nuance contained in beloch's comment. I'll specifically highlight what I think was lost by the people who replied:
> People working for companies that do defence work have a moral obligation to observe how their labour is used and refuse to give it if the results are unethical. It's no different from soldiers having a moral duty to refuse illegal orders.
>To answer your question, I'd say that participating in the defence industry can be justifiable if you remain guided by ethics, and unjustifiable if you abandon them for money.
Once the choice is either a yes or no, this nuance is lost. If you set up the choice as between pacifism and military capability, you're tacitly endorsing any form of military capability including nuclear weapons.
Why do you reject the idea or possibility of yes to military capability, but with ethics or restrictions?
It seems obviously possible, and your arguments support it.
Where is this tacit endorsement you see coming from? It seems like nobody thinks that way with respect to their employment or support.
Anyways, this seems to be more about semantics than substance at this point, if you are arguing it is not binary, and I'm arguing that nobody said it was
Russia not nuking Ukraine had nothing to do with ethics or morals. It's more pragmatic than that. Putin wants to take Ukraine largely intact to control its population and resources, not turn it into an irradiated wasteland. And he knows that use of WMDs would invite economic sanctions from key neutral trading partners such as India.
Also, it's questionable whether Russia's nuclear arsenal would even work reliably. The USA and other nuclear powers spend enormous amounts every year just on nuclear weapons maintenance and testing. Those munitions can't just be stored in a warehouse indefinitely like rifle cartridges and pulled out when needed; they require periodic remanufacturing in order to remain operational at all. Russia is a relatively poor and highly corrupt country so I suspect many of their nukes wouldn't deliver the rated yield if used today. From their perspective an attempted strike resulting in a fizzle would be even worse: all of the diplomatic disadvantages for no military gain.
> Putin wants to take Ukraine largely intact to control its population and resources, not turn it into an irradiated wasteland
Nuking Kyiv, Odessa and Lviv would probably force Ukraine to surrender.
> use of WMDs would invite economic sanctions from key neutral trading partners such as India
This is the real constraint. There is still the credible threat of being economically isolated by America, Europe, China and India. (Neither China nor India wants the normalisation of nuclear bombardment normalised. They both have border disputes with nuclear-armed neighbours.)
>Nuking Kyiv and Lviv would probably force Ukraine to surrender.
Or if we want to take nuclear options off the table because Russia values infrastructure, they aren't attacking population centers with bioweapons.
>This is the real constraint. There is still the credible threat of being economically isolated by America, Europe, China and India. (Neither China nor India wants the normalisation of nuclear bombardment normalised. They both have border disputes with nuclear-armed neighbours.)
Ethics enforced by external pressure are still ethics in action. The comment I replied to was basically arguing that we have to do this unethical thing because if we don't our enemies will. Well here is an example of our ostensibly unethical enemy not doing something because of ethical pressure. So why would this pressure work for nuclear weapons and not this new military tech?
> if we want to take nuclear options off the table because Russia values infrastructure
Putin doesn't care about infrastructure in Kyiv. He wants the natural gas and resources in the east. A nuked rump Ukraine isn't a threat to his power.
> why would this pressure work for nuclear weapons and not this new military tech?
Because the normalisation of nuclear weapons has global consequences in a way conventional warfare does not. The most problematic aspects of Trump's Iran war for India and China are that it raises oil prices.
Reddit has strangely trained me to be skeptical of this form a privacy protection in a way that I'm not on any other platforms. If someone on Reddit has one of those default two words and a number usernames and then hides their history, I'll block them for the slightest reason. If someone has an intentionally chosen username and doesn't hide their history, it's much easier to tell they aren't a bot or troll account which automatically gives them a significant benefit of the doubt in my mind.
Nobody makes intentional accounts any more because they get banned so easily (ex: if you imply Israel did a bad thing) and you need to remake accounts a lot.
To put numbers to this for those who aren't aware, LA was zoned for roughly 10 million people in the 1960s and by the 1980s it was zoned for roughly 4 million. It's part of the reason the city has had population growth slow to a crawl. It was decided some 40 plus years ago that LA should stay under 4 million people, so it has even til today. But the number of people who want to live in LA is constantly growing, so housing prices continue to rise and as a result lower income people are slowly but surely being pushed out of their homes and out of the city entirely.
That 10M is a theoretical back of the napkin number. The city would have had to make multiple major infrastructure improvements, including major public transportation improvements, as well as secure major new sources of water for that to occur. To even accommodate the current modern number of people, there had to be fairly aggressive public water conservation regulations and campaigns - which amazingly did keep the water consumption fairly static. But if you were to more than double the residents, it's really not clear where the water would come from.
That infrastructure was still built, just out in the Inland Empire, at a far far higher cost per capita than if LA had stuck to its "theoretical back of the napkin number." (That's how zoning works, it's theoretical back of the napkin numbers that block buildings.)
Densification of existing land use is exceedingly cheap. People use far less water, fewer miles of sewer, fewer vehicle miles, fewer miles of wire and pipe, all while having access to a far greater set of amenities. That's what downzoning took away from everyone.
Yes, but I would hypothesize that in the Inland empire there was a net reduction of water use transforming agricultural acreage to suburban acreage. Water rights drives a lot of california development, anyone suggesting oh just divert water from x to y doesn't understand or is glossing over the massive fights historically and in coming up over water- as climate change has shrunk the historic supply
Do humans without lawns consume that much water? Have you worked on something where this problem came up in some unexpected way? Yes pipes need to be updated if a lot of tall complexes are built, but is total water that much at all?
I asked Claude to do the math, and it claimed reducing alfalfa use (not all use, just alfalfa) by the Colorado river by 1% per 1 million people who move from a place not already supplied by it.
I think when it comes to water a really important mental model everyone needs to have is that a human without a lawn or pool uses really tiny amounts of water at scale directly.
Any tips for how you planned your landscape to work this way? I’m slowly trying to convert mine but have already gotten burned by not matching plants to the right soil or sun exposure level and it’s taking longer to get right than I expected.
I just told the landscaper don't put any pesticides or herbicides and let nature do its thing. My landscaper just takes care of the front lawn, shrubs and the road verge and is cheap enough to pay for the twice month trim and clean up. My yard is a wild jungle where I do basic clean up and pull all the rag weed. I do want to plant a lot of native wild flowers at some point.
My impression of LA when I got there was that I would never live there, even in the nicest spots. Which confirms my intuition that the richest have no taste.
Also it’s an American city made for cars so it doesn’t help me to like it.
I've lived in LA on and off for over a decade cumulatively. If Woodland Hills, Tarzana, Burbank, North Hollywood count as "L.A." :)
I love the climate and nature there, besides the fires. Ocean, lakes, mountains, deserts, all within 1-3 hour drive.
It is a dehumanizing city to commute in, and is expensive, but it's the best one I have lived in (NYC, Brooklyn, NJ cities, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Miami) and I want to return when finances allow.
Interesting, I did not know that. Sure helped create the massive urban sprawl that LA is today, I mean it's basically one city all the way to San Bernardino, almost 100 km to the east.
Especially with this sort of map regarding this specific city. For example, Beverly Hills is a separate municipality contained entirely within the borders of Los Angeles. It appears here like an empty black space no different from the ocean, lakes, mountains, and parks also scattered around the city. The styling of this map makes it impossible to tell if an area is truly undeveloped and if so, why. Throw in the way there appears to be arbitrary selection criteria for some buildings outside city limits that make them appear as lone buildings in undeveloped space, and I think it adds up to potentially give people a wrong picture of the area.
Great, I'm sure getting more data for a complete picture of the area is a huge undertaking, but simply switching to the light map that shows the geography more clearly is a big improvement.
"The general scam of unrealistic promises then under-delivering" is how the richest man on the planet amassed his wealth. OP is doing the exact same thing he's accusing other people of doing, focusing too much on identity.
Holmes surely used her gender as a tool the same way all these striving psychopaths will use whatever is at their disposal, but if it wasn't her gender, it just would have been something else. And singling out her gender as uniquely responsible will do more harm than good as it will be used as a cudgel against all future women founders in a way someone like Musk or Sam Bankman-Fried won't for men. Or maybe this early xkcd[1] put it better.
Which is why everything should be open for robust questioning and debate, and individual cases made on their own merit — not based on whatever favored group characteristic happens to put someone or something beyond debate.
The current administration is in a class of its own regarding corruption -- it is the principle driver of everything they do. The nazi stuff is just bonus for them.
This type of populist message seems like such an easy path to popularity for an aspiring politician. You don't have to be a leftist like Bernie Sanders to be a trust buster. Just acknowledge that almost every large corporation has seemingly made it their mission to make life worse for the citizenry in the name of profit and vow to fight it.
Anyone running with that type of message will be squashed by said "every large corporation". They will finance their opponent(s). They will run deep fakes against them. Until "every large corporation" is prevented from spending unlimited money, things will not change.
What would limiting corporations from contributing more than the total of max donation per employee? I've never seen numbers from that, but I've heard people discuss it.
So next time around they point to every instance of this, post it all somewhere and link to it everywhere, and make a big point about how they are actually scaring them enough that maybe they can make a difference this time.
I do agree that we need to limit spending, but I don't know how to get there without a candidate like this getting traction. Sort of a chicken and egg thing.
While true, it’s also true that presidents and their appointees can vary wildly in their susceptibility to those “people pushing”. Both sides might be bad, but one’s very obviously worse.
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