life outcomes related to cognition

My sides.

Some right-wingers have responded to the piece, but their responses are mostly “but I like being bad and cruel” - which seems to prove Bulldog’s point.

I think we can do better - that it’s possible to make a case against “slave morality” that doesn’t rely on being pro-badness and cruelty.

Fuck me, you're making me read Slatescott again. I can't wait to see how he will case for badness and cruelty without relying on being pro badness and cruelty.

Skimmed a bit up to the discussion of architecture not being as impressive nowadays or something.

Ok here we go:

Tate has, in some sense, many good qualities. He’s strong, athletic, and motivated. He earned tens of millions of dollars through hustle and hard work. He’s charismatic and compelling and, before his arrest, was one of the Internet’s most iconic influencers. I think master morality has to approve of all these things.

"Hustle and hard work"? That's what we're gonna call being a sex trafficker?

Hand tipped here:

I would like to end up with an overall negative view of Tate. And if I do a simple calculation, (virtues - vices), then it seems like if his nonmoral virtues were strong enough, they could overcome the moral vices. If Tate was a really really good kickboxer, he might still end up in the black. It seems much more intuitive to say that no amount of nonmoral virtues can make up for his moral vices. But now we’re back at the full slave moralist package again! Some “compromise”!

If we accept that there are some vices that cannot be made up for by virtues, we might need to cancel someone. People might need to be held responsible for the things they do. So Scott cannot accept it. There has to be a way to let the baddies in as long as they're actually doing important work.

You can argue “master morality is about being strong and good; slave morality is just about preserving your pathetic little feelings”. But most of life is people’s pathetic little feelings. People have proven over and over again that their decisions - about what to do, what to buy, who to vote for, even what to die for - depend more on what lets them feel dignity and self-respect than on any purely material considerations.

Slight of hand: now slave morality is all about feelings and master morality is about material needs. What the heck? We established that slave morality was based on the idea that masters inflicting real hardships on their peasants was bad, didn't we? You could make the same argument about Scott morality (as described above) because the objective would be to allow you to feel good about supporting people who do bad things as long as they also do good things.

And speaking of slight of hand, this is going to be my pull quote:

Hanania is terrible at being right-wing.

they [nrx and LW] clearly are completely different groups who only party and fuck around together

Does making sure he's transphobic while he's being misogynistic mean this is unfortunately technically inclusive?

It’s a box with a silicone sleeve, cameras and some LED lighting in it, like if the Gom Jabbar pain box from Dune was crafted by a horny gamer.

omg they even called it the right thing (box-o-pain.)

• SubStack
• "Maximum Truth"

can I discard someone's opinion twice?

I can't believe you targeted him 🎯 by googling his name and finding out he's eugenicist scum.

(Seriously, thanks for slogging through the comments to find gems like this.)

Think of how many souls could have been saved if you didn't waste the church's time investigating all those abusive priests! Truly the investigators are sinners on a staggering scale!

I cannot wade through this, so I'm just scrolling around aimlessly.

About 10% of the time was doing laundry, groceries, packing, and cooking - and she has to do many of those things for herself anyways! At least this is on paid time, feels high impact, and means she’s not sitting in front of the computer all day.

Feels high impact wtf.

“First they came for one EA leader, and I did not speak out -- because I just wanted to focus on making AI go well.

Then they came for another, and I did not speak out -- because surely these are just the aftershocks of FTX, it will blow over.

Then they came for another, and I still did not speak out -- because I was afraid for my reputation if they came after me.

Then they came for me - and I have no reputation to protect anymore.”

How very tasteful, a Niemöller snowclone Godwin. Truly people who party on the beach for charity and have hot tub meetings are the most oppressed.

Maybe it was because Alice was microdosing LSD nearly every day, sleeping just a few hours a night, and has a lifelong pattern of seeing persecution everywhere.

What an insane way to talk about a former employee, much less one living with you. Pro tip for real businesses: never do this. If you're going to disparage someone like this, it's a job for your lawyer and he'd better have receipts. Also don't live with your employees and let them take acid on the job.

Wrote this right on the SSC reddit:

Couldn't a very similar argument be made in favor of the Catholic Church though? After all they've founded thousands of hospitals and such. They're very big on charitable giving. Are people unfair by judging the Catholic Church mostly on its religious doctrine and political activism instead of its charitable works?

Please forgive me if I fail to address it in a sufficiently sensitive way, and know that this was not my intention. There is, of course, so much more to say about this, but I wanted to try and keep the post relatively short.

(Proceeds to write 5000 word insensitive essay anyway)

Ok, read their actual pitch. Lmao they think that a one time introduction of a GMO bacteria strain is going to 'just work' because they've also GMO'd it to outcompete other bacteria?

There's a reason we aren't running our cars on yeast-produced gasoline. No matter how awesome your tuned microbe is, it's still subject to mutation and natural selection. If your beneficial changes aren't actually helping it survive, they will not be conserved. And those 'competitive' changes you jacked it up with to make sure it dominates the environment? Well, that might end up horizontally transferred into something you don't like.

About the right amount of 'we humans are smarter than dumb biology' metal-fetishism I'd expect from the folks concerned.