Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[silverspawn]

Ah, that's what you're getting at. Yeah, I retract the stronger claim. He could be good at chess. It would just not be likely.

[silverspawn]

Rest in Pieces USA

[silverspawn]

It used to be that I think the way to behave was to emphasize compassion and respect for both political parties. But seeing as one of the two parties supports a guy who didn't commit to a peaceful transfer of power, this is all moot now. There are so obviously bad guys now in the USA that you just have to hope they don't win. You can show compassion for supporters, but not for Trump himself

I kind of also think that the people who said it was alarmist to think Trump was uniquely dangerous have been proven wrong

[silverspawn]

I mean sure, we weren't exactly right about how he would be bad. I was mostly worried about the increased risk of nuclear launches and I'd guess that most people were mostly worried about policy. We have very weak evidence on the former and it turns out he's too much of an idiot to get policy passed. But you shouldn't have to get everything right to get credit. Big picture is, yes Trump is bad, no he's not just another republican, no he doesn't just have different values.

[silverspawn]

The 2016 Republican primaries went the way any nominative determinist would have predicted. The guy named Walker left early. The guy named Bush got mowed down. The guy named Rand ran as a libertarian. The guy named Cruz (Latin, meaning “cross”) ran on a platform of evangelical Christianity. The guy named Marco (Latin, meaning “warlike”), ran on a platform of neoconservative imperialism. The guy named Benjamin (Hebrew, meaning “son of my right hand”) ran on a platform laid out in his book Clever Hands.

And the guy named Trump beat all of them.

[Awaclus]

Rest in Pieces USA

Metaculus is currently predicting a 20% chance: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/5717/will-trump-be-elected-potus-in-2024/

[Awaclus]

Ah, that's what you're getting at. Yeah, I retract the stronger claim. He could be good at chess. It would just not be likely.

Based on my experience, it's more likely than him being a wizard.

[faust]

Ah, that's what you're getting at. Yeah, I retract the stronger claim. He could be good at chess. It would just not be likely.

Based on my experience, it's more likely than him being a wizard.

IDK, all children born to two wizard parents that I know are also wizards!

Which reminds me of a fundamental flaw in the racism allegory presented in the Harry Potter books. As far as we can tell, in the Harry Potter universe, wizarding ability is a recessive gene. If that is the case (and it is definitely the case that wizards have a much higher chance of spawning a wizard than muggles do), then the "pure-blood" ideology... kind of makes sense.

[silverspawn]

Rest in Pieces USA

Metaculus is currently predicting a 20% chance: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/5717/will-trump-be-elected-potus-in-2024/

Probably I'm more sympathetic to that, but 20% is still absolutely horrifying

[silverspawn]

Ah, that's what you're getting at. Yeah, I retract the stronger claim. He could be good at chess. It would just not be likely.

Based on my experience, it's more likely than him being a wizard.

IDK, all children born to two wizard parents that I know are also wizards!

Which reminds me of a fundamental flaw in the racism allegory presented in the Harry Potter books. As far as we can tell, in the Harry Potter universe, wizarding ability is a recessive gene. If that is the case (and it is definitely the case that wizards have a much higher chance of spawning a wizard than muggles do), then the "pure-blood" ideology... kind of makes sense.

In hpmor, Harry hypthesizes that it could be based on exactly 2 genes (or chromosomes?). So each person has 2 wizard genes, they either say "magic" or "no magic". If both say no magic, you're a muggle. If it's split, you're a squib. And if it's magic/magic you're a witch or wizard. If two people have kids, each kid gets one gene from each parent randomly. So two wizards get 100% wizard. Wizard/Muggle always get squibs. And Squib/Squib have 25% muggle, 50% Squib, and 25% wizard. They find that this fits the data.

That's one way where the ideology wouldn't make sense, at least insofar that Hermione has no disadvantage compared to malfoy. If on the other hand it depended on 100 genes and more wizard genes make more wizardy wizards, then it would make sense. Two parents with n/wizard genes each where n > 50 would have kids with an expected number of genes m with m > n.

But in the universe, the data seems to be prett clear on it not making a difference. If anything mudbloods tend to be stronger.

[faust]

Ah, that's what you're getting at. Yeah, I retract the stronger claim. He could be good at chess. It would just not be likely.

Based on my experience, it's more likely than him being a wizard.

IDK, all children born to two wizard parents that I know are also wizards!

Which reminds me of a fundamental flaw in the racism allegory presented in the Harry Potter books. As far as we can tell, in the Harry Potter universe, wizarding ability is a recessive gene. If that is the case (and it is definitely the case that wizards have a much higher chance of spawning a wizard than muggles do), then the "pure-blood" ideology... kind of makes sense.

In hpmor, Harry hypthesizes that it could be based on exactly 2 genes (or chromosomes?). So each person has 2 wizard genes, they either say "magic" or "no magic". If both say no magic, you're a muggle. If it's split, you're a squib. And if it's magic/magic you're a witch or wizard. If two people have kids, each kid gets one gene from each parent randomly. So two wizards get 100% wizard. Wizard/Muggle always get squibs. And Squib/Squib have 25% muggle, 50% Squib, and 25% wizard. They find that this fits the data.

That's one way where the ideology wouldn't make sense, at least insofar that Hermione has no disadvantage compared to malfoy. If on the other hand it depended on 100 genes and more wizard genes make more wizardy wizards, then it would make sense. Two parents with n/wizard genes each where n > 50 would have kids with an expected number of genes m with m > n.

But in the universe, the data seems to be prett clear on it not making a difference. If anything mudbloods tend to be stronger.

Yes I was less talking about the "mudbloods are bad" side of things and more about the "we must preserve our pure bloodlines and mustn't mix with lesser men" side. Which is at least in part intended as an analogy to the Nazi ideology - but in Harry Potter, the Nazis are right.

[faust]

Also side note but: it seems pretty clear that two wizards can produce a squib, right? Though one could take the stance that any such occurrence is due to either infidelity or mutation. (Or - since transmutation is a thing -  due to a roleplaying kink of the parents )

Also, is there a distinction between squib and muggle?

This is now my favourite fan theory: squibs are the result of wizards conceiving under the influence of polyjuice potion.

[silverspawn]

There was a distinction between Squib and muggle. Squibs can see Dementors and I believe mix potions or something. This is also canon; Mrs. Fig in book 5 says she can see Dementors. Minister Fudge didn't know it.

The wizard producing a squib thing was addressed somehow in hpmor, but I forgot how.

You're not wrong about the nazi analogy, but in the books, the pure bloods *also* clearly believe that Muggleborns are weaker at magic.

[faust]

You're not wrong about the nazi analogy, but in the books, the pure bloods *also* clearly believe that Muggleborns are weaker at magic.

They might still be right; after all there is a selection bias. Any child of wizards will be trained in magic, but muggleborns with only a weak magical ability might never get noticed by the wizard "talent scouts" and never get sent to Hogwarts.

[silverspawn]

Good point

[Dylan32]

The 2016 Republican primaries went the way any nominative determinist would have predicted. The guy named Walker left early. The guy named Bush got mowed down. The guy named Rand ran as a libertarian. The guy named Cruz (Latin, meaning “cross”) ran on a platform of evangelical Christianity. The guy named Marco (Latin, meaning “warlike”), ran on a platform of neoconservative imperialism. The guy named Benjamin (Hebrew, meaning “son of my right hand”) ran on a platform laid out in his book Clever Hands.

And the guy named Trump beat all of them.

This... I can't believe how well that all works... lol

[silverspawn]

Courtesy of Unsong (before anything thinks I made it up myself, though I wish I had).

[silverspawn]

On some level, I still think it's weird not to be younger than everyone else. I still remember thinking how odd it was that there could be people who were 50+ years when 10 years are already such a ridiculously long time.

[silverspawn]

Every time some public person I like is not older than me, I'm like ew what is this

[silverspawn]

Netflix Run #4.

I'll retroactively include the show I just tried

1/n Between. I'm wondering -- I think I may have never seen a well written TV show that starts taking place in school with the lone exception of Control Z (and of anime). I would love to say that the vampire diaries is an exception but unfortunately it's most definitely not.

2/n Love Death Robots. I feel like I've seen this recommended a gazillion times but always refused to click on it.

[silverspawn]

If Kate was optimized for me to like it, this show is optimized for me to be like eww. Best part about this was pressing the downvote button.

I won't say optimized for me to hate it because only Rick&Morty deserves that title

3/n Ragnarok. (Haven't I clicked on this before?)

[silverspawn]

No definitely; I must have also refused to click on it.

And the opening was strong, could it be over at #3?

[silverspawn]

My knowledge of languages is really poor, but to my ear based on this and one other show I remember, Norwegian sounds crazy similar to Swedish. It's like very ugly on a fascinating way, and makes me marvel that people actually talk like this. (Despite calling it ugly, I enjoy it a lot more than e.g. Arabic or Chinese, which just sounds like nothing to me.) Probably Norwegian is more similar to  German?

[silverspawn]

okay no. The writing got predictable very quickly. but damn those wide angle landscape shots are beautiful.

4/n Oats Studios

[silverspawn]

Those were the edgiest four minutes I've ever seen in my life Jesus Christ

Wow

5/n Another Life