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Cake day: August 3rd, 2024

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  • They wrote that whole ass article and never stopped to consider that time may be both an illusion (in the sense that it is an emergent rather than a fundamental property of existence) AND necessary for the evolution of life (in the sense that other hypothetical configurations of physical laws which do not feature an emergent arrow of time may not produce life).

    In regions of the set of all possible universes where the physical prerequisites of evolution were not present, nobody would be there wondering about why that is. In this region, conditions are right for life to evolve, so somebody is here to ask the question. It’s just the anthropic principle.







  • He does this because - it may surprise you to hear, but it’s true - America does not have a parliamentary system of government. Here, everybody left-of-nazi is forced to pretend like they are all members of the same party. If America’s system de facto allowed for more than two parties, then the progressive party could actually choose whether or not to form a coalition with the centrists, conditional on policy concessions. Since we do not, the centrists offer is “we get what we want or else you get nazis.” Then make the progressives out to be the bad guys if they call the bluff, which isn’t a bluff, because the centrists today genuinely would prefer 4 years of nazis over conceding anything to progressives.

    So, exactly like the top level comment described. Weird take.










  • I tried to explain this near the time of the event, back when I was on reddit. For this I received mass downvoting, and a universal consensus that misgendering is perfectly appropriate as long as the target has done something evil. Even from trans people. “We don’t claim her!”

    It would be one thing if these same people also misgendered any given cis person who did wrong. But they don’t, and that double standard is transphobia. “Of course I would never misgender Hitler. He was AMAB. He earned it. You’re not AMAB? Then your right to be a man is contingent on your behavior. I’ll decide if you’ve been good enough to deserve it.”

    We’ve got a long way to go culturally before people recognize that there is literally one and only one valid criterion for entitlement to a certain gender identity: claiming it.


  • “Should of” instead of “should have.”

    “Me and her went” instead of “she and I went.”

    “Flustrated” instead of “frustrated.”

    “To who” instead of “to whom.”

    “For all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes.”

    “Aks” instead of “ask.”

    “Literally” to mean “figuratively.”

    “Shoe-in” instead of “shoo-in.”

    A semicolon instead of a colon.

    Using a preposition at the end of a sentence.

    Splitting infinitives.

    Starting a sentence with a conjunction.

    Each a simple “error” to remember. But there are thousands of them. None make an appreciable difference in understanding. None would ruin a business deal or a meeting except in terms of lost social standing for getting it “wrong.” This category of errors is what I believe to be meant by “improper English.” This is in contrast to “incomprehensible English.”

    As I said, successful transmission of the message is the only true test of linguistic legitimacy. You’re absolutely right. People are instinctively aware of when their dialectical quirks are going to cause a problem communicating with outsiders, and they code switch. They simplify. Ironically, the less familiar the interlocutor is with English, the more “improper” a native speaker’s English might become. “My name? John. Your name?” Yet in so doing, they become more compensable because they’ve dropped the complex cultural dance which they are so often required by the powerful to perform.