Tuesday topics
We now know that 10 dogs died in the flash flood at District Dogs yesterday, while 20 were saved. The day-after news coverage and, of course, Twitter rage have focused on the known history of recent flooding in that part of DC, wondering why the city hasn't done more to improve drainage there, and why the business owner hadn't moved to a safer location. A few people, but only a few, commented on the relationship between climate change and worse flooding. Many people were mad at the city and the business owner for the deaths of these innocent dogs.
You can blame the city, you can blame the business owner, but when weather events are becoming exponentially worse all around the world, it isn't reasonable to expect cities and business owners to have prepared for what used to be a rare or impossible event. We're all learning in real time that what used to be rare or impossible events are now normal ... except I'm not sure we've all learned yet that they're going to keep getting even worse, even faster, such that there is no longer any normal. It's impossible to plan for our climate future, because the planet is now warmer than human civilization has ever experienced. We're now "out of sample" as the statisticians say. Climate scientists are trying to model our future, but they have no way to validate their models (I tried, sigh).
So, the people in Hawaii want to blame their power company for the deadly wildfires there -- there's a decent chance that Hawaii Electric will go bankrupt now -- like California Electric did after wildfires became worse in California. Many wildfiles are sparked by faulty electric equipment, yes, but it isn't the power company's fault that wildfires are getting so much worse.
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2023 was to be the year of the Ukrainian offensive in their war with Russia. So far after two months Ukraine has recaptured about 300 square kilometers. This is not even 1/20 of 1% of Ukraine's total area, at the cost of about 70,000 combined Russian and Ukrainian military deaths during this offensive ... so ... I think we're looking at trench warfare similar to that between Germany and France during WWI.
It's horrible. But this war is still a limited war. Russia isn't throwing all of her might at Ukraine, and Ukraine is mostly sticking to a limited front and leaving Russian territory alone.
I read an article recently about how the anti-war left in the US is mostly quiet about this war, not protesting US aid to Ukraine, whereas opposition on the right is more obvious. This could be simple partisanship, the left supporting Biden, the right opposing Biden. But on the left, I think we feel torn between what appears to be a big country bullying a small country, and our desire for shrinking the US military budget. I've written that if I were in Congress I would abstain from votes on aid to Ukraine rather than voting against (or for), this is because I feel torn. I'm not going to send military aid to Ukraine, but I'm not going to stand in the way of those who do.
But the amount of cash and other assistance the US is throwing at Ukraine isn't even 10% of our total defense/foreign aid budget. We've been supporting this war on the cheap, not exposing US soldiers to risk, and not mobilizing our economy and tax revenues enough to actually win.
Again, this is a limited war. So far. Neither side is willing to bet a large enough sum to jeopardize the global economy or stock market or world trade. Although US imports from Russia are down 80%, they aren't at zero. Nobody in the US has been asked to ration or sacrifice in any way.
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I came across a claim that a now-dead relatively-famous anarchist was a pedophile. Why did I even read this claim? Of course there are pedophiles among every group of humans, regardless of political or religious identity.
But this claim was unusual for a couple of reasons. First, there was no claim of actual sex with minors. Not even any rumors. Nope. Second, there was a claim that certain anarchists, including this one, support types of anarchist thought that encourage and validate pedophiles.
I was curious enough to try to read more about this claim and similar claims.
Let's step back a second. Generally anarchists believe that we don't need a state apparatus and/or that the state apparatus is mainly used to harm not to protect. So some anarchists believe that state regulation of sexual behavior is always wrong, even when the state tries to regulate sexual behavior between adults and children.
Kicking the state out of your bedroom isn't the same as condoning or encouraging rape and pedophilia. But it is a particularly sticky example of "How do people regulate nonconsensual behaviors without a state apparatus to create and enforce rules?"
The main way we regulate sexual behavior between adults and children is via a legal system in which children under a certain age are not allowed to consent to sex with adults over a certain age. We simply say, in my own state of Maryland, that a 15-year-old cannot consent to sex with a 19-year-old. Period. But a 15-year-old can consent to sex with an 18-year-old.
It's weird how your ability to consent to sex as a 15-year-old depends on whether your partner was born on August 15, 2004 or August 16, 2004. If I point out this weirdness, am I a pedophile? But when the 15-year-old turns 16, he can have sex with somebody my age, if he consents. If he was born on August 15, 2007, he can have sex with me. If he was born on August 16, 2007, he cannot have sex with me for another four hours.
To me it is obvious that your ability to consent to sex doesn't depend on the age of your sex partner or whether today is your birthday. Your ability to consent depends on your cognitive development. But instead of trying to figure out whether an individual has developed to the point of readiness to consent, we apply arbitrary age criteria.
And these age criteria change when you cross jurisdictional lines. Cross from Maryland into Delaware and you'll find yourself under an entirely different set of age criteria. You're the same person with the same cognitive skills whether you are in Maryland or Delaware, but now the test is different.
It is similar to age requirements for voting, for smoking tobacco, for drinking alcohol, for driving vehicles -- anytime we impose an age requirement on younger people we are telling them, "We don't care about your actual skills, your actual knowledge, your actual track record, you are not an individual. You are a date of birth."
To some people, by merely pointing out these irrationalities I'm supporting pedophiles. I'm saying I don't care how old you or your sex partners are, I care about whether everybody involved is actually consenting, and part of actual consent is having the capacity to consent. I don't think that every 16-year-old automatically has the capacity to consent by virtue of turning 16. What I'd rather see is a sexual licensing process for people of all ages that requires demonstrating the capacity to consent, knowledge of sexual activities, mastery of safer sex procedures, and regular testing for sexually-transmitted diseases. But this doesn't sound like an anarchist at all LOL.
With respect to my own sex partners, I don't care what age you are, I care whether you know what you're doing. But I will respect the "age of consent" laws in whichever jurisdiction because I don't want to go to prison.
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I haven't written as much about my Global Green Communism game lately because I'm all caught up for 2023. I'm slightly over budget in my giving this year. I'll write about it more in 2024 because I'll have to figure out how to punch up my giving again.
Meanwhile, I'm pretty much despairing at moving toward either Green or Communist goals in the US because even people on the so-called left rarely agree with me over what would truly be necessary to fix the planet and share the remaining wealth.
Mainly I look around at 8 billion people engaged in a frenzy of production and reproduction and I wonder how I can GTFO. I'm starting to admire homeless people, although I imagine most of them are not consenting to being homeless, they're just stuck there.
To get the bare minimum food, water, shelter, clothing, health care that a person needs in this culture/economy they either have to join the labor force and all its requirements, or hitch yourself to some person, family, or organization that will provide for you. I permanently left my family's provision in 1992, to join the labor force. I've been with the same employer since 2001. The only way I can see to GTFO is to wait another 49 months so that I can retire, but this only means that an organization will provide for me by making a bunch of other people remain in the labor force.
Few people are willing to even have a conversation about how we might organize our societies differently. Those who are willing to have conversations about politics are generally stuck inside much narrower topics.
Degrowth, depopulation, universal basic income, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, it's not a popular agenda in the US.
-----
2,000 US adults were polled about their favorite news stories of 2022.
1. The Will Smith and Chris Rock slap
2. Elon Musk buying Twitter
3. Trump announces he is running for President 2024
4. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation case
5. Super Bowl halftime show with Dr Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Mary J Blige, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent
6. Nasa successfully crashes a spacecraft into an asteroid
7. Nancy Pelosi announces her retirement
8. The soccer World Cup taking place in Qatar
9. Kanye getting dropped by Balenciaga and Adidas and his year-long meltdown
10. Midterm elections
11. Tom Brady announces his un-retirement, 40 days after retiring
12. Joe Biden falling off his bike
13. Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee
14. Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill becoming the most popular song in the world
15. Winter Olympic and Paralympic games in Beijing
16. Bennifer 2.0 - Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck love story
17. The release of Top Gun: Maverick
18. The new series of Stranger Things
19. The release and interesting case of Inventing Anna
20. 'My money don't jiggle jiggle' went viral on Tik Tok
You can blame the city, you can blame the business owner, but when weather events are becoming exponentially worse all around the world, it isn't reasonable to expect cities and business owners to have prepared for what used to be a rare or impossible event. We're all learning in real time that what used to be rare or impossible events are now normal ... except I'm not sure we've all learned yet that they're going to keep getting even worse, even faster, such that there is no longer any normal. It's impossible to plan for our climate future, because the planet is now warmer than human civilization has ever experienced. We're now "out of sample" as the statisticians say. Climate scientists are trying to model our future, but they have no way to validate their models (I tried, sigh).
So, the people in Hawaii want to blame their power company for the deadly wildfires there -- there's a decent chance that Hawaii Electric will go bankrupt now -- like California Electric did after wildfires became worse in California. Many wildfiles are sparked by faulty electric equipment, yes, but it isn't the power company's fault that wildfires are getting so much worse.
-----
2023 was to be the year of the Ukrainian offensive in their war with Russia. So far after two months Ukraine has recaptured about 300 square kilometers. This is not even 1/20 of 1% of Ukraine's total area, at the cost of about 70,000 combined Russian and Ukrainian military deaths during this offensive ... so ... I think we're looking at trench warfare similar to that between Germany and France during WWI.
It's horrible. But this war is still a limited war. Russia isn't throwing all of her might at Ukraine, and Ukraine is mostly sticking to a limited front and leaving Russian territory alone.
I read an article recently about how the anti-war left in the US is mostly quiet about this war, not protesting US aid to Ukraine, whereas opposition on the right is more obvious. This could be simple partisanship, the left supporting Biden, the right opposing Biden. But on the left, I think we feel torn between what appears to be a big country bullying a small country, and our desire for shrinking the US military budget. I've written that if I were in Congress I would abstain from votes on aid to Ukraine rather than voting against (or for), this is because I feel torn. I'm not going to send military aid to Ukraine, but I'm not going to stand in the way of those who do.
But the amount of cash and other assistance the US is throwing at Ukraine isn't even 10% of our total defense/foreign aid budget. We've been supporting this war on the cheap, not exposing US soldiers to risk, and not mobilizing our economy and tax revenues enough to actually win.
Again, this is a limited war. So far. Neither side is willing to bet a large enough sum to jeopardize the global economy or stock market or world trade. Although US imports from Russia are down 80%, they aren't at zero. Nobody in the US has been asked to ration or sacrifice in any way.
-----
I came across a claim that a now-dead relatively-famous anarchist was a pedophile. Why did I even read this claim? Of course there are pedophiles among every group of humans, regardless of political or religious identity.
But this claim was unusual for a couple of reasons. First, there was no claim of actual sex with minors. Not even any rumors. Nope. Second, there was a claim that certain anarchists, including this one, support types of anarchist thought that encourage and validate pedophiles.
I was curious enough to try to read more about this claim and similar claims.
Let's step back a second. Generally anarchists believe that we don't need a state apparatus and/or that the state apparatus is mainly used to harm not to protect. So some anarchists believe that state regulation of sexual behavior is always wrong, even when the state tries to regulate sexual behavior between adults and children.
Kicking the state out of your bedroom isn't the same as condoning or encouraging rape and pedophilia. But it is a particularly sticky example of "How do people regulate nonconsensual behaviors without a state apparatus to create and enforce rules?"
The main way we regulate sexual behavior between adults and children is via a legal system in which children under a certain age are not allowed to consent to sex with adults over a certain age. We simply say, in my own state of Maryland, that a 15-year-old cannot consent to sex with a 19-year-old. Period. But a 15-year-old can consent to sex with an 18-year-old.
It's weird how your ability to consent to sex as a 15-year-old depends on whether your partner was born on August 15, 2004 or August 16, 2004. If I point out this weirdness, am I a pedophile? But when the 15-year-old turns 16, he can have sex with somebody my age, if he consents. If he was born on August 15, 2007, he can have sex with me. If he was born on August 16, 2007, he cannot have sex with me for another four hours.
To me it is obvious that your ability to consent to sex doesn't depend on the age of your sex partner or whether today is your birthday. Your ability to consent depends on your cognitive development. But instead of trying to figure out whether an individual has developed to the point of readiness to consent, we apply arbitrary age criteria.
And these age criteria change when you cross jurisdictional lines. Cross from Maryland into Delaware and you'll find yourself under an entirely different set of age criteria. You're the same person with the same cognitive skills whether you are in Maryland or Delaware, but now the test is different.
It is similar to age requirements for voting, for smoking tobacco, for drinking alcohol, for driving vehicles -- anytime we impose an age requirement on younger people we are telling them, "We don't care about your actual skills, your actual knowledge, your actual track record, you are not an individual. You are a date of birth."
To some people, by merely pointing out these irrationalities I'm supporting pedophiles. I'm saying I don't care how old you or your sex partners are, I care about whether everybody involved is actually consenting, and part of actual consent is having the capacity to consent. I don't think that every 16-year-old automatically has the capacity to consent by virtue of turning 16. What I'd rather see is a sexual licensing process for people of all ages that requires demonstrating the capacity to consent, knowledge of sexual activities, mastery of safer sex procedures, and regular testing for sexually-transmitted diseases. But this doesn't sound like an anarchist at all LOL.
With respect to my own sex partners, I don't care what age you are, I care whether you know what you're doing. But I will respect the "age of consent" laws in whichever jurisdiction because I don't want to go to prison.
-----
I haven't written as much about my Global Green Communism game lately because I'm all caught up for 2023. I'm slightly over budget in my giving this year. I'll write about it more in 2024 because I'll have to figure out how to punch up my giving again.
Meanwhile, I'm pretty much despairing at moving toward either Green or Communist goals in the US because even people on the so-called left rarely agree with me over what would truly be necessary to fix the planet and share the remaining wealth.
Mainly I look around at 8 billion people engaged in a frenzy of production and reproduction and I wonder how I can GTFO. I'm starting to admire homeless people, although I imagine most of them are not consenting to being homeless, they're just stuck there.
To get the bare minimum food, water, shelter, clothing, health care that a person needs in this culture/economy they either have to join the labor force and all its requirements, or hitch yourself to some person, family, or organization that will provide for you. I permanently left my family's provision in 1992, to join the labor force. I've been with the same employer since 2001. The only way I can see to GTFO is to wait another 49 months so that I can retire, but this only means that an organization will provide for me by making a bunch of other people remain in the labor force.
Few people are willing to even have a conversation about how we might organize our societies differently. Those who are willing to have conversations about politics are generally stuck inside much narrower topics.
Degrowth, depopulation, universal basic income, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, it's not a popular agenda in the US.
-----
2,000 US adults were polled about their favorite news stories of 2022.
1. The Will Smith and Chris Rock slap
2. Elon Musk buying Twitter
3. Trump announces he is running for President 2024
4. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation case
5. Super Bowl halftime show with Dr Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Mary J Blige, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent
6. Nasa successfully crashes a spacecraft into an asteroid
7. Nancy Pelosi announces her retirement
8. The soccer World Cup taking place in Qatar
9. Kanye getting dropped by Balenciaga and Adidas and his year-long meltdown
10. Midterm elections
11. Tom Brady announces his un-retirement, 40 days after retiring
12. Joe Biden falling off his bike
13. Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee
14. Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill becoming the most popular song in the world
15. Winter Olympic and Paralympic games in Beijing
16. Bennifer 2.0 - Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck love story
17. The release of Top Gun: Maverick
18. The new series of Stranger Things
19. The release and interesting case of Inventing Anna
20. 'My money don't jiggle jiggle' went viral on Tik Tok