Steven Pinker on X - "The Great American Crime Decline seems to be resuming after the regressions of 2014 and 2020. The key in Boston: data-driven policing, focused deterrence, community engagement, & some luck. Boston police, community aim for peace as violent crime plunges"
Boston police, community aim for peace as violent crime plunges
Here’s the story behind the pole-dancing robots everyone’s talking about at CES - "The robots were an obvious gimmick during one of Las Vegas’s busiest weeks of the year — the 50th Consumer Electronics Show, a massive annual tech trade show full of geeky gadgets and gizmos, from touchscreens to cars to fancy electric trashcans. The Sapphire Gentleman’s Club, a strip club right off Vegas’ main drag, paid to showcase the robots as a way to drum up interest from press and customers... The robots look nothing like actual humans, thank God. They had CCTV security cameras for faces, and you could see their metal interiors and wires as they moved up and down the pole. (They were, however, wearing high heels.)"
Philosophers are studying Reddit’s AITA “Am I the Asshole?” - "The researchers found that the most common dilemmas had to do with relational obligations: dilemmas about what we owe to others. Next, they wanted to find out whether certain types of dilemmas were more likely to pop up in certain types of relationships. Will some dilemmas arise more often with your sister, say, than with your manager? So the researchers examined how often each dilemma popped up in 38 different relationships. Surprise, surprise: The likelihood of encountering different dilemmas, they found, does depend on whom you’re dealing with. If you’re hanging out with your sister, you’re more likely to be worrying about relational obligations, while interactions with your manager are more likely to get you thinking about procedural fairness... what does it say about modern philosophy that it’s largely ignored relational context?... “Moral philosophy has for so long been about trying to identify universal moral principles that apply to all people regardless of their identity,” Yudkin told me. “And it’s because of this effort that moral philosophers have really moved away from the relational perspective. But the more that I think about the data, the more clear to me it is that you’re losing something essential from the moral equation when you abstract away from relationships.” Moral psychologists like Princeton’s Molly Crockett and Yale’s Margaret Clark have likewise been investigating the idea that moral obligations are relationship-specific. “Here’s a classic example,” Crockett told me a few years ago. “Consider a woman, Wendy, who could easily provide a meal to a young child but fails to do so. Has Wendy done anything wrong? It depends on who the child is. If she’s failing to provide a meal to her own child, then absolutely she’s done something wrong! But if Wendy is a restaurant owner and the child is not otherwise starving, then they don’t have a relationship that creates special obligations prompting her to feed the child.” According to Crockett, being a moral agent has become trickier for us with the rise of globalization, which forces us to think about how our actions might affect people we’re never going to meet. “Being a good global citizen now butts up against our very powerful psychological tendencies to prioritize our families and friends,” Crockett told me. Utilitarians would say that we should overcome those powerful psychological tendencies, but many others would beg to differ. Philosopher Patricia Churchland once told me that utilitarianism is unrealistic because “there’s no special consideration for your own children, family, friends. Biologically, that’s just ridiculous. People can’t live that way.” But just because our brains may incline us to care for some more than others doesn’t necessarily mean we ought to bow to that, does it? “No, it doesn’t,” Churchland said, “but you would have a hard time arguing for the morality of abandoning your own two children in order to save 20 orphans. Even [Immanuel] Kant thought that ‘ought’ implies ‘can,’ and I can’t abandon my children for the sake of orphans on the other side of the planet whom I don’t know, just because there’s 20 of them and only two of mine. It’s not psychologically feasible.”"
Meme - "This student created his own cozy atmosphere today and I absolutely love it *fireplace video on laptop with earphones and reading book*"
Meme - David Santa Carla 🦇 @TheOnlyDSC: "Q: How does a White woman from Great Britain learn to run faster than all these black women?
A: By living in Great Britain."
THE MATRIX Code is Actually a Sushi Recipe - "Simon Whiteley, the creator of the Matrix’s distinctive code, said that it all came from his wife’s Japanese cookbook. Whiteley scanned the characters from that book and digitally manipulated them until they became the otherworldly coding that appeared on screen"
Man Skipped Work For 6 Years And No One Noticed Until He Won An Award - "For six years, a building supervisor in Spain quietly collected a $41,500 salary from his local government without showing up for work. And he would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for him getting an award for his 20 years of loyal service. Joaquín García, 69, was recently fined $30,000 for the extended paid vacation from a water treatment plant in Cádiz -- the maximum penalty government officials could deliver... Garcia's water company coworkers thought the plant was being overseen by local authorities because they hadn't seen Garcia in so long. Garcia’s attorney, speaking on his behalf, reportedly blamed bullying at his workplace for his absence. He also said there was no work to do. People close to Garcia told El Mundo that he dedicated himself to reading philosophy instead and that he did not report the bullying out of fear that he could be fired. Garcia retired after the allegations came to light, though he denies wrongdoing. In the end, a court sided with the government, recently ordering him to pay the five-digit fine. Garcia has since petitioned to the deputy mayor not to pay the fine and to have the judgment reviewed"
Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Utah Mormon swinger wives are launching a Hulu show after a couple-swapping scandal went viral, leading to divorces. The Mormon mothers first went viral on TikTok years ago. The ringleader, Taylor Paul, admitted in 2022 that the group of dancing Mormon moms and others would have "soft swinging" parties on the weekend where the group of women and their husbands would "party." The large group would stop just short of "going all the way" with each other. That was until Paul left the “party room” with someone else’s husband, breaking the rules. The incident eventually led to a divorce between Paul and her husband who she shares two kids with. The Mormon church must love this."
Alexander on X - "Something that isn’t talked about often in all of the dating discourse (and I am sure a lot of people don’t want to even go there because of racism) is that there are large differences in infidelity across racial groups in the US. The odds ratio for Black women was 2.52 - the second highest predictor variable in this dataset. The highest was childhood sexual abuse with an OR of 2.92. There is a lot of research on how the dating landscape of racial or ethnic groups isn’t always the same. Black women also experience a rate of domestic violence about twice as high as White women. A UK poll a while found that fans of Andrew Tate were also a little more likely to be represented by non-White men in the UK. I have seen people perceive the manosphere as a sort of White male thing, but there is an enormous “Black manosphere.” Research on incels, too, has found them to be a highly ethnically diverse group. Some of the dating discourse, which is largely driven by people’s personal experience, is talking past one another. If you are an affluent White person with a high level of education you are in a demographic that has relatively low rates of divorce and infidelity. But this is not always the experience of many of the manospherians out there nor the kind of environment they have had. They may have been exposed to a lot more dysfunction in romantic relationships, either personally or observed around them."
Meme - Wylfċen @wylfcen: "So, why do people on here call white people inbred? A guy just told me “the only thing your kind is resisting is not inbreeding”—but inbreeding is LEAST common in the West."
E on X - "“We just lost a $110 million air base to a bunch of black rebels in Niger. How could that have happened?” US Army: “hold my hormones”"
Brian S Hall on X - "I’m a conservative and love (most of Star Trek). Always there is order, discipline, an emphasis on the hard sciences, engineering, physical fitness, exploration, and father-mother families. Oh, and every culture is preserved, not blended into some ravenous corporate pig whole."
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry on X - "As I always said, the most unrealistic part of Star Trek isn’t any of the technobabble, it’s that a society with the values of 1968 Berkeley could produce a military officer class with the values of 1890 England."
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry on X - "During the Pilot, Riker asks what happens if Q decides to destroy the Enterprise. "Then, we will do our duty." "To the bitter end?" "Such an end would not be so bitter." Yeah, California faculty lounge politics totally produces men like this."
Alexander on X - "What predicts infidelity? Generally, not physical attractiveness. More attractive participants weren’t more likely to cheat. Meanwhile, high sociosexuality is a much better predictor of infidelity and promiscuity."
Physical Attractiveness: Sexual Satisfaction, Promiscuity and Infidelity
Thread by @johnloeber on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I would love an ELO-based restaurant ranking system Yelp reviews aren’t very useful. Everything is 3.5 - 4.5 stars. Tells me nothing. Same for Google Maps. The 0-5 scale just doesn’t get used properly because of social norms toward high ratings. What would work much better is…
Restaurant reviews simply based on whether one restaurant is better than another. Instead of writing a review, it should ask you which of two similar restaurants is better. That’s all you need to construct an ELO ranking scale. One subtlety that’s nice about this is that it allows the rating to fluctuate every day. Rather than showing a sticky average from 3,000 old reviews, on an ELO scale the rating always changes based on what’s happening recently. Great new chef? It should be reflected immediately."
Sohail Ahmed on X - "I'm just going to stick my head out of the parapet and say the following: It is an inconvenient truth that we Muslims do share *some* responsibility regarding the way we are perceived by the rest of the world. I actively speak out against islamic extremism and the problems in the community precisely because I am worried that hatred of Muslims will intensify. Many Muslims assumed I was 'self hating' and totally misinterpreted my intentions, but I digress. Returning to the topic at hand... for how long have we nurtured anti-kaafir hatred (kaafir = infidel / disbeliever) in our midst? For how long have we nurtured anti-British and anti-white sentiment for perceived past 'colonial wrongs'? For how long have we had a superiority complex, thinking ourselves better than the 'lowly kuffaar'? (kuffaar = plural of kaafir) For how long have we refused to deal with the extremists in our midst? Instead we were more concerned about 'defending islam' so that 'islam didn't look bad' even though everyone could see how rife the extremism was. We all knew radical islam was prevalent in our community but instead of dealing with the issue we were more concerned about PR and how we looked as a community. Which is ironic, because in the long run it made us look even worse. Why did we always deny our problems to the world, acting dishonestly in the process, whether intentionally or unintentionally? I could go on; I've barely even scraped the surface. Perhaps discussing this at this potentially inopportune moment in time is not appropriate, given what is taking place here in the UK. Perhaps I should have waited a while longer before I wrote this. Whatever the case might be, the fact remains that once this all settles down, we need to take some time out to self-reflect. It's high time we were honest with ourselves. It's in our interests to tackle these issues and in the process improve ourselves. We need to take some responsibility instead of blaming others for all our problems. We need to change. Starting now."
Ridvan Aydemir | Apostate Prophet @ApostateProphet: "A few years ago, I contacted a major Coptic Christian organization in Egypt to organize a fundraiser for orphans. The organization asked me not to do it because I criticize Islam, and this could compromise their safety in Egypt. This is how minorities live in the Muslim world."
Meme - Dr. Maalouf @realMaalouf: "Remember Ruth Rashid, a Coptic Christian woman from Egypt, daughter and sister of priests. She was kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered by Muslim extremists. Her mutilated body was found in an abandoned car. Hundreds of Coptic women have the same fate every year in Egypt."
Swati Goel Sharma on X - "This is what’s happening in Pakistan right now
Oli London on X - "🇧🇩As Bangladesh descends into anarchy, hundreds have stormed a Zoo and are attacking animals. A terrified deer can be seen being chased by a mob as they attempt to kidnap the hundreds of animals inside Bangladesh National Zoo."
Visegrád 24 on X - "BREAKING: Islamists are attacking a Hindu temple in Eidgaon Upazila in Bangladesh. The world is watching on in silence"
David Collier on X - "Why is it Hindus can be mob attacked by Islamists in Bangladesh (happening now) Why is it Christians can be slaughtered by Islamists in Africa (happening now) Why is it Jews can be attacked by Islamic terrorists (happening now) But if you say something you are an Islamophobe?"
Concerned Citizen on X - "BBC describe the current Genocide taking place as ‘Euphoria’ as Hindus are burnt & tortured alive. They are now conveniently ignoring all current events unfolding including inhumane barbaric atrocities. Legacy Media don’t reporting accurately what’s happening in Bangladesh"
Protesters rally outside UN over violence against minorities in Bangladesh
Al Jazeera English on X - "‘Islamophobic, alarmist’: How some India outlets covered Bangladesh crisis"
Through the Eye of an ACTUAL Needle: The Fake Gate Theory – Classic Theology - "Matthew 19: 23-24 famously reads: Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”... The second theory is that it is a reference to a gate with the name “the eye of the needle” that was in first century Jerusalem. The gate was so small that anyone that hoped to get a camel through would have to take all of their baggage off the camel, get it down to its knees, and kind of shimmy the camel through the tiny opening. You can see why this is important for Bible readers... After a little research, I wasn’t able to find a trustworthy modern commentary that genuinely advocated for the gate theory. In varying detail, they all disproved it with archaeology, translations from the Greek, interpretive history, and the plain sense of the story. That being said, I didn’t find a single place that really poured out all of the evidence for the reader’s consideration (especially when it came to the history of interpretation). So here we go! This is my attempt to round up all of that evidence and hand it over to you... there’s no record of a gate being referred to by that title until after the year 1000. In first century Jerusalem, there is absolutely no evidence that such a gate existed. Strike one... this guy is absolutely not the originator of the gate theory. Some people just misread his commentary on Matthew. This is why primary sources are so critical: because people don’t always say what others claim they did... Jesus literally says that the point of bringing up the whole camel and needle thing in the first place was to say that it is impossible. He’s intentionally using an absurd image to talk about something that can’t happen! If his words aren’t enough to put the final nail in the coffin of the gate theory, I don’t know what would be."
history - The "eye of the needle gate" today - Christianity Stack Exchange - "The Damascus Gate has been the historic main entrance to the city. The actual edifice, however dates to 1547, and was built on the ruins of a 2nd Century AD gate,"
dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ on X - "Hi @costacruises! Why are you disallowing Jews from your ships?
Grace on X - "nonviolent communicators are like, I hear you, but let’s approach this disagreement in a way that gives me control over the language we use and the perception of morality and rationality because I’m practiced in it. which coincidentally also lends false credibility to my argument
Rob Henderson on X - ""food sharing...appears to be associated with higher mating success...couples who shared food were highly likely to agree to a second date: 93% of couples who shared food agreed to go on a second date, compared to 43% of couples who did not share food" https://t.co/0UjD0iajC5 https://t.co/XGDVm3329T"
Thread by @ronmortgageguy on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The Massive Numbers Of Canada's Government Employees Is Unmanageable. Look at one department: CRA. 59K Employees for 41M population. Comparisons:
Is Wikipedia Politically Biased? - "This work aims to determine whether there is evidence of political bias in English-language Wikipedia articles... To study political bias in Wikipedia content, we analyze the sentiment (positive, neutral, or negative) with which a set of target terms (N=1,628) with political connotations (e.g., names of recent U.S. presidents, U.S. congressmembers, U.S. Supreme Court justices, or prime ministers of Western countries) are used in Wikipedia articles... We find a mild to moderate tendency in Wikipedia articles to associate public figures ideologically aligned right-of-center with more negative sentiment than public figures ideologically aligned left-of-center... We also find prevailing associations of negative emotions (e.g., anger and disgust) with right-leaning public figures; and positive emotions (e.g., joy) with left-leaning public figures. These trends constitute suggestive evidence of political bias embedded in Wikipedia articles. We find some of the aforementioned political associations embedded in Wikipedia articles popping up in OpenAI’s language models. This is suggestive of the potential for biases in Wikipedia content percolating into widely used AI systems.Wikipedia’s neutral point of view (NPOV) policy aims for articles in Wikipedia to be written in an impartial and unbiased tone. Our results suggest that Wikipedia’s NPOV policy is not achieving its stated goal of political-viewpoint neutrality in Wikipedia articles."
Meme - Jonatan Pallesen @jonatanpallesen: "Illustrating the left-wing bias of Wikipedia Sentiment analysis from @DavidRozado"
Coddled affluent professional on X - "I’m just a grunt down in the mines writing my grant applications and research manuscripts, but my general impression is that smart people are increasingly shying away from important institutional leadership positions and the people who are taking them are less and less accomplished and talented. With a lower profile, very often you can make more money, do more interesting work you enjoy, avoid tedious administrative responsibilities and toxic politics, have more free time, and frankly many of these places are coming more and more to resemble insane asylums. The leadership roles are increasingly thankless so why would you dedicate a decade or two of your life to a place that is going sideways anyways? Disincentivizing leadership is a very big problem at scale yet there’s a presumption that talented people (parent-like adults who will bear any abuse) will still take these jobs."
Jonatan Pallesen on X - "A large proportion of East Asians have mutations in alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase. Alcohol is broken down in a two-step process: alcohol -> acetaldehyde -> acetate Acetaldehyde is toxic for the body and causes Asian flush. The mutation in alcohol dehydrogenase makes the enzyme more effective, leading to a faster breakdown of alcohol to acetaldehyde, and consequently, increased acetaldehyde concentrations. The mutation in aldehyde dehydrogenase makes the enzyme less effective, leading to a slower breakdown of acetaldehyde to acetate, also resulting in increased acetaldehyde concentrations. Combined mutation in both enzymes leads to even higher acetaldehyde concentrations. The unpleasantness caused by this condition means a far reduced risk of alcoholism. It is believed that the spread of both mutations stems from the advent of farming, and the reason for the high frequencies in East Asia is due to their long history of farming. They have had more time to adapt to the threat of alcoholism than many other populations."
"Hello again! Thank you so much for your interest in setting up a fundraiser for us. However, I believe that since your channel is a bit controversial, I fear that hosting a fundraiser for us may cause problems, especially considering we operate in Egypt. We really do appreciate your generosity and thank you again so much for considering us! Sincerely,"
-A Christian man is accused of blasphemy of Islam and is almost lynched while mob is discussing whether he was the real target of their lynching at all
-Mob vandalises shoe shop of the Christian family while their leader tells them to not take the shoes home
- The entire colony where the Christian family lives - Mujahid colony in Sargodha - is vandalised and a church targeted"
Damn Islamophobia in India!
Razib 🥥 Khan 🧬 📘✍️📱 on X - "in most Muslim majority countries minorities have literal reason to be Islamophobic"
Anything that makes Muslims look bad is Islamophobic
American conservatives get upset when you point out the fake news about this. One claimed that the gate was the Damascus Gate, which still exists today, and that Matthew was written in the 2nd century AD and claimed that since the Encyclopedia Britannia said Matthew was "believed" to be written in 70 AD, that meant that he was right
So 140 Jewish vacationers booked a cruise and paid in full. They had purchased an extra $22,000 in kosher product. You accepted. But just before you suddenly renegged. Why did you send a letter — two days before the cruise — encouraging all your Jewish passengers to cancel? The tour operated had also already procured the kosher certifiers. They were cleared, medically checked, and ticketed to accompany the trip and perform the ritual supervision that kosher cooking requires. And the kitchen was confirmed to have the necessary ovens, utensils and equipment. Yet you reneged last-minute. The passengers show up anyway. No matter what they wouldn't let Jew-hate spoil their vacation. But when they showed, some found their reservations had automatically been cancelled — without their consent. I know a magazine reached out to your for comment. But you chose not to comment. Because you do what Jew-haters do best: Attack and hide. Well, there's no hiding on X. I can't wait to see how many views and shares this post about your malicious bigotry receives. Did it bother you that accommodating a kosher cruise would require allowing traditional Jewish guests to share space and vessels with the rest of the passengers, mixing with the general clientele and staff? We would love to know. If you don't answer, we can only assume that is the reason. So we'd love to know what Costa Cruises and your parent company @CarnivalCruise has to say in response.
Sincerely, That Jew
P.S. I know to you it may feel like 1939. But it's actually 2024. There are many ways to easily communicate now. Including online. So if you don't respond, we know it's a choice. To be on the wrong side of history."
nvc is a good tool for people who would benefit from distance from their own overwhelming emotions in conflict so they can empathize better, but it’s easily co-opted by ppl who want to control conflict. if you can avoid HR language in emotional relationships you probably should"
90K Employees US IRS for 341M population
19K Employees Australian ATO 26M population
56K Employees Japan NTA 125M population
There are some differences between the responsibilities of each of the Tax organizations in these counties but NOTHING that would explain the Mind Boggling size of Canada's CRA. This is just one example: the size of the Canadian Public sector is massive. The Biggest Worry:
These are effectively permanent employees & we fund the Government payroll by super high taxation & even worse: Canada BORROWS to make the Government payroll. Yeah, we BORROW at interest to pay our employees. This is a sure path to economic destruction. What's the answer? Clearly FAR FEWER EMPLOYEES is the answer
If we reduced the CRA employee group by 20K people would taxes STOP being collected? Clearly NOT. But would service to Tax Payers deteriorate radically? How could it get worse? Ever call CRA? How fast was that call picked up? Once you got through to CRA were you passed on to another department for another 30 minute wait? And once you got through & explained your problem were you ever told that was STILL the wrong department? Look there are some excellent professional people working at CRA. But the way they operate the department is insane. How the hell could CRA ever justify having likely the largest group of people on EARTH to collect taxes that are 75% collected AUTOMATICALLY through payroll deduction, GST at purchase level & duties collected on some imports. 59K people working at something that's 75% purely automatic? And most outrageous: Canada BORROWS money to make that payroll. It's insane"
The left wing cope is that this reflects reality and that right wing politicians are really just bad. Of course, if the results found that "minorities" were similarly presented in such a light, it would be proof of racism, sexism, homophobia etc
