Gabriel Bodeen @gabe@qoto.org

@olives
That could be very nifty. What's an improvement it could use in your opinion?

@pluralistic
That's a really strange criterion. Whose rights are they if they're not human rights?

It should be! (Though I don't know how the courts have ruled.)

I'm tempted to call my representatives about this case. They're all GOP, I don't believe they care, but their staff will at least politely listen. 🤷‍♂️

Dream sequences in TV shows are invariably extremely bad. Dream sequences in movies are usually also bad.

Bad writing of dreams treats them as "easy mode": anything goes, there are no consequences, and it doesn't even make sense. But in good writing, dreams are "hard mode"! Most importantly, the writer needs to justify the dream's inclusion in the story by making it achieve something in a way that's better than a lucid scene could provide. Then additionally, the writer needs to creatively supply their own limits, consequences, order, and coherence, which is genuinely difficult.

Season 2, episode 1 fell flat.

Much of it was wasted on a meaningless dream sequence with everyone's least favorite character (Seldon's broken ghost). Someday I hope that TV writers will realize dream sequences are self-indulgent and invariably *suck* for audiences, but sadly that day has not yet come.

The remaining scenes were better but still didn't make any progress or develop any characters. It felt like they were just rushing through a few obligatory scenes to get to something more important. Whatever it is that's more important to the story though, that also has not yet come.

Foundation, the TV adaptation of Isaac Asimov's famous sci-fi books, had a surprisingly moving and beautiful first season. It departed from the books in many ways, but it worked. Its intimate arc about the Emperors was especially well crafted. Overall: a strong show, highly recommended.

This summer so far I enjoyed a Facebook group for nostalgic memes from our youth. Sadly it got taken over by two people (out of thousands) having a bitter political argument on an unrelated subject that started in various comment threads, as Internet arguments often do.

It's not the first time I've seen the admin role on Facebook groups get infiltrated & taken over. It makes me wish they had a democratic system. (Though they might have to limit it to users they've managed to authenticate are real human beings.)

Yes it's a trivial issue. But it's also kind of a funny way to be reminded of the power of democracy to better guard against self-serving leadership. 🙂

@henryfarrell
The discussion of adversarial collaboration and its uses reminds me of an activity I facilitated this week at a philosophy meetup. Two volunteers with quite divergent views agreed to discuss under the following rules:

• They took turns proposing statements that they thought the other person would agree with. Each turn, the other person first clearly indicated whether or not they agreed, then they moved on to a natural discussion for a little while explaining themselves and asking questions.
• When they found a statement they both accepted, they wrote it down on a shared piece of paper as one of their points of agreement. The goal of this discussion was to get as many interesting & valuable statements on the list as possible.

I wanted to see whether this could lead to greater convergence of opinion in philosophy than we normally see. It did not! As an observer I was disappointed. But the volunteers, in contrast, said it was wonderful and insisted on doing it again next time.

Despite the dearth of interesting & valuable points of agreement, it appears the process of thinking together was qualitatively different than trying to be persuasive about one's own view. We didn't test this method on political arguments but I'm keen to do so soon.

@freemo
Applying Charity: Did I say he should give away his money? No, I said he should have done good with it. So clearly I couldn’t agree with your rephrasing as any part of my accusation, let alone my sole accusation.

I guess I was hoping for a degree of precision in thought & text that I’m not finding today. 🫤

@freemo
(Applying charity: Would I agree that that’s all I meant? Obviously not.)

He used some of his unearned wealth for charity, but kept $360 million. He, like each of us, is blameworthy for not doing the good he could have done, and in his case that good he could do but chose not to do was vast.

@freemo
No, my assertion is not “he inherited money”, which I view as morally neutral, it’s “he chose personal wealth over meritocracy”, and, No, not that “he didn’t make himself poor”, which I view as a prudent choice, but that “he didn’t use his great wealth for similarly great good”.

I’d strongly encourage us all to use the principle of charity! If your conversational partner wouldn’t agree to your rephrasing, then that rephrasing is uncharitable and wrong.

@freemo
Happy to share the two biggies in more detail, though I already referenced them. From what I’ve seen if your political persuasion, I doubt you’ll agree with their moral valence, but that’s a separate matter. (Also, I believe inaction to be equally morally relevant as action. You’re free to agree or disagree with that, IMO this isn’t the thread for that argument.)

• Shahzada Dawood’s wealth was inherited from the Dawood Group – quite literally unearned by him. It was his choice to accept it for personal benefit rather than to support a more meritocratic system.

• Shahzada’s net worth was estimated to be around $360 million. He could have used a large fraction of that money for good; he did not. He made that choice every day.

He’s currently in the public eye due to his own actions (the Titan sub fiasco), so comment on him is justified, including angry judgment of his moral failings.

@freemo
Those reasons can apply to most rich people, but interpreting it that way was your imposition into the text, not supported by the text, which as you’ll note literally indicates its subject as “the individual billionaire”. You misread; we all do from time to time.

You also make a number of statements about my knowledge of the individuals, perhaps supposing I haven’t read the news about them. I’m very chill about such things, but for general quality of discussion it’s better to avoid attempts at mind-reading. 🙂

@henryfarrell
Ah, apologies for missing that. By force of habit from old days working in security I don't usually click on tinyurls!

@freemo ,
Indeed it was fictitious, as it was neither my words nor implied by them, but rather I explicitly contradicted that fictitious reason in my first comment on this thread.

I wonder whether you're mixing me up with other people (that is to say, blaming me as an individual for arguments of other people you consider similar).

@freemo
> Except you arent blaming a rich person for their own actions beyond the act of simply being rich

Please do not put fictitious reasons into my mouth after I have explicitly given different reasons. 🙂 I understand it's easy to do unconsciously because the fictitious reasons are more emotional.

I don't think it's "out of touch" to blame someone for their bad actions, even if they've also done good actions.

(and being angry at those who are morally blameworthy in large public ways is a reasonable emotion!)

@freemo , I'd reject the analogy of course, since blaming one black person for the actions of others of the same race is morally invalid, but blaming one rich person for their *own* actions is entirely appropriate.

The individual billionaire could have done much good with their wealth; they did not. They could have supported a more just economic system that gave them less unearned wealth and better protected the rights of the weak & poor; they did not (indeed they did the opposite). These choices deserve moral blame, especially since they are now individually in the public eye.