Topics

1

Apple Zone / "Atheism+"

« on: November 02, 2012, 11:27:20 pm »

No idea if it's already been mentioned here, but this site is intriguing, and might conceivably be a place for gentle trolling and/or recruiting:
http://atheismplus.com/

Atheism+ is a safe space for people to discuss how religion affects everyone and to apply skepticism and critical thinking to everything, including social issues like sexism, racism, GLBT issues, politics, poverty, and crime.

Heard about it from this vice.com article.

2

Apple Zone / Y'all are gonna wanna see this

« on: October 18, 2012, 08:55:43 am »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlwilbVYvUg&feature=plcp

It's some weird crazy remix of the first presidential debate, with lipdubbing and pure incoherent insanity. I haven't laughed this hard in a while.

3

Apple Zone / Australian parliament smackdown

« on: October 10, 2012, 04:26:30 pm »

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/10/julia-gillards-misogyny-speech.html

 

4

Aneristic Illusions / German Social Democrats "declare war on banks"

« on: September 27, 2012, 11:45:41 am »

Germany’s centre-left Social Democrats kicked off their election campaign with what was described as a declaration of war on the banks, sparking fears in the sector that it could force the conservatives to follow suit.

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120925-45185.html

5

Apple Zone / In which VERBL needs input on his first-world problems

« on: September 24, 2012, 06:23:17 pm »

So as I've mentioned here and there, I'm moving to Israel (where I grew up) for about half a year sometime soon. I figured since there's a few wise and experienced people here, I might get some useful input on a dilemma I have.

The background situation is this:
-I've basically just finished my undergraduate studies here in Germany (getting my degree some time soon)
-I've been DOING SCIENCE for a few months no, writing an article I was supposed to finish months ago, and which I was paid for through July – but the end of the work (which I really want to finish and see published) is finally very close
-It's getting cold here, and I don't want to be here in the cold months
-I'm fairly confident I can get paid working for some NGO or something like that, and if that fails I can almost certainly find lucrative work in high-tech or translation
-Once she finishes her MA thesis, my girlfriend will be joining me in Israel for some of December and most of January,
-Me and the g/f have the apartment we share here until the end of November, and I've agreed to pay my half of the rent (200€/month) until the end, no matter when I actually leave
-I'm basically broke, even though I have some savings here (which I get some government bonus on if I don't break them open until 2014) – but I can borrow money at around 10% p.a. as authorized overdraft, which I expect I can pay off pretty soon (if I can't make enough to do so in Israel, I'll move back here anyway)
-Getting unemployment benefits here is basically a non-option at this point because I'll be gone before they kick in

Right now, I'm finally getting anxious to leave, and starting to look forward to it. But it turns out that as of October 1, when I am no longer a student, I have to sign up for the same socialized healthcare I get now, except it's called "voluntary health insurance" (hint: it's not), costs more, and I have to keep it until the end of 2012 even if I leave the continent – unless I quickly get a job that comes with normal socialized healthcare ("legislated health insurance") – which is any job paying 401€/month or more. I basically have three options now:

1: GET NO JOB, BUT GET "VOLUNTARY" INSURANCE
I can sign up for the "voluntary" insurance starting October 1, which will cost me about 150€/month for as long as I'm here, and which I can't cancel before the end of 2012. The insurance company will only charge me 50€/month for the period of time when I'm out of the country.

Upsides:
Can focus on finishing my research, selling all my shit, packing, and spending time with my friends;
Can most probably be outta here before the end of October;
I'm covered in case something happens.

Downsides:
A few more weeks without an income;
Paying for German insurance while on another continent.

2: GET NO JOB AND NO INSURANCE
I can just let my normal insurance run out and not sign up for "voluntary" insurance. When I move back here, I'll have to pay for the time I was here uninsured, retroactively, but nonetheless, if I need to see a doctor while uninsured, I'll have to pay out of my nose.

Upsides:
Can focus on finishing my research, selling all my shit, packing, and spending time with my friends;
Can most probably be outta here before the end of October;
Don't have to pay for German health insurance while on another continent.

Downside:
A few more weeks without an income.
Could be really shitty and extremely expensive if I need to see a doctor.

3: GET A JOB
In this scenario, I get some mind-numbing work, starting later this week, which lets me keep normal insurance. The insurance runs out the day I leave the job, and if I de-register with the city on the same day then that's that.

Upsides:
Income! Yay!
Don't have to pay for insurance I'm not using;
Get to work in actual blue-collar work, which I've never done and am curious about.

Downsides:
Might still be here come November, since I'll have less time and energy for all the selling and packing and stuff;
Won't get to spend as much time with my friends before leaving;
Higher likelihood of getting stressed out, which tends to trigger my (mild) depression, especially when it's cold and cloudy.


I tend to think I should either get a job, or get "voluntary" insurance – being uninsured is a scary prospect, and I'm pretty confident I can pay away the overdraft even if I don't get a job.

tl;dr / what it comes down to:
Should I do the financially wise thing, get a job, pay less for healthcare, but end up spending more time here while wanting to leave, enjoying that time less or possibly being outright miserable;
OR should I take a risk, pay a bit more for healthcare while continuing to have no income, but spend a few sweet weeks of research, packing, and friends, then work off my modest debt (which will be in the vicinity of 500-1000€) in Israel surrounded by family and friends (and military, threats of war, the occupation, and lynchings)?

COUNSEL ME, O WISEPOPES OF DISCORDIA!

6

Apple Zone / Moral choice blindness

« on: September 21, 2012, 06:06:59 pm »

http://lesswrong.com/lw/elg/new_study_on_choice_blindness_in_moral_positions/

Seems to me this might be a factor in the lack of outrage over politicians not doing what they promised they would after elections. If part of our brain sometimes/often just rationalizes any choice we appear to have made without really remembering the choice,  that suddenly makes a lot of sense.

7

Apple Zone / Fun FB religion discussion

« on: September 17, 2012, 05:00:39 pm »

So I posted a pic that sparked a nice debate about religion on FB.

(My last name, and the last names and pics of all non-pseudonyms are redacted. Which was a total pain in the ass to do.)

First time I ever openly argued from a Discordian perspective on FB, methinks (and only in my last comment.) 

8

Or Kill Me / Cultucide

« on: September 14, 2012, 10:41:20 am »

Sometimes I think about an aspect of ethnic cleansing, a side-effect really, one that pales to utter meaninglessness in comparison to the actual mass slaughter of innocents. But this side-effect, the destruction of the victims' culture, brings tears to my eyes.

I think about the life of Eastern European Jews, in their shtetls and ghettos. I think about the life of German Jews, like my grandmother and her near-dozen murdered siblings – a Jewish culture that was as cosmopolitan and Western as could be; they were even proud German patriots and often refused to the end to accept that this required hating their own kind. I think about the life of pre-Columbian indigenous North and South Americans, dozens if not hundreds of different cultures, interconnected and isolated from the Old World. I think about the Armenians, the Kurds, the Palestinians. There are other "cleansed" cultures I know less about all over Africa and East Asia.

In most of these cases, the cultural cleansing was never total nor complete. Cultures die hard. German Jews laid down the cultural foundations of Tel-Aviv, and those still alive today often meet in groups to talk German and discuss literature and politics, like their parents did in salons that were later expropriated by the Authorities. Armenian ceramics, in their lush colors and fantastic patterns, are a staple of Jerusalem tourist trinketry to this day. On the same tiny fleck of land, Palestinians still make and sell the simple but delicious traditional food their parents and grandparents would make before the Holocaust survivors came with Western trauma and Western guns and expropriated their land and autonomy.

But while cultures rarely disappear without a trace – even when a majority of their hosts have been slaughtered – no culture can survive ethnic cleansing.

The sharp, cynical humor of shtetl Yiddish culture no longer informs a whole literary tradition. It is instead collected in glossy-covered anthologies, with English or Hebrew transliteration and translation, and recited with an American or Israeli accent by young enthusiasts trying to keep it alive.

Drug- and booze-ravaged, impoverished Reservation Indians can only hope to imitate a vague, near-forgotten shadow of their cultural heritage – and forget about the inter-tribal cultural traditions that once connected dozens of cultures in trade, across vast swathes of land and language families.

Palestinians usually don't bother to create anything new anymore – their culture has been reduced to traditional food, a religion they share with most neighboring countries, a stubborn refusal to be starved, and the endless wait for freedom and autonomy. But waiting while reproducing tradition is not culture, in precisely the way that a zombie is not alive.


At the heart of any culture is a grid, a way to interpret reality. Attached to that are a bunch of customs, recipes for food, and for remedies, and for relationships. Also attached are societal hierarchies and memes to support them.

Grids are easily replaced by those the conquerors use.

Old societal hierarchies become irrelevant when your entire society is shattered is subjugated.

All that remains in the end are the customs and recipes, a standing reminder that something beautiful has been lost forever.

9

Apple Zone / The next industrial revolution.

« on: September 13, 2012, 10:19:45 pm »

Umm, this:
http://gizmodo.com/5942294/the-next-industrial-revolution-starts-in-a-20+foot-shipping-container
Pretty damn amazing. 

10

Apple Zone / I just read this headline...

« on: September 13, 2012, 10:18:01 am »

Parents save son by each giving him a hug

I was intrigued, so I clicked through, only to find out I had misread it.

I should probably sleep more.

11

Aneristic Illusions / Pirate Party founder Falkvinge calls for re-legalization of child porn

« on: September 10, 2012, 07:50:46 pm »

Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Pirate Party of Sweden, wrote an essay calling for re-legalization of child porn a few days ago:
http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/07/three-reasons-child-porn-must-be-re-legalized-in-the-coming-decade/
It's long, and very cringe-worthy because of the subject matter, but thoughtful and reasonable.
The TL;DR he offers, from someone's else's Google+ comment:

It’s not illegal to film a murder.
It’s not illegal to possess a film of a murder.
But it’s still illegal to murder people.
And it’s illegal to initiate a murder for the purpose of filming it.
If you have taken part in a murder and have film of it, the film may be usable as proof against you.
I can’t see that Rick suggests anything different here – i.e., I see no suggestions that it should be OK to molest children for the purpose of filming it. That’s good.
In the end it’s as simple as this: it should never be illegal to merely possess information, any information.

The German Pirate Party has painstakingly distanced itself from Falkvinge and he's rumored to have stepped down from something.

I think the Germans are right to do so, because they're a political party and want to have a snowball's chance in hell in coming elections. But I also think Falkvinge is basically right in all of his policy suggestions in the essay, and in the general lines of argumentation (though I have some issues with some of the specifics.)

Discuss.

12

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / The Machine, Stockholm Syndrome, and marginalization – feminist edition

« on: September 07, 2012, 01:53:27 pm »

Just a quick thought I've been having on the backdrop of our recent discussions of feminism etc.

Before I start, let me note that I will be making some generalizations about people, people whose experience I have barely a glimpse of, and I feel kind of uncomfortable doing so. Hence, a lot of attempts at e-prime. And I'm eager to hear the take of people who are more intimately familiar with what I'm talking about, meaning mainly anyone who's not a cis male. (It's not that my opinion is a-priori invalid, it's that I don't have some crucially relevant perspectives.)

It seems that with patriarchy, as with any other form of oppression (or, any other part of The Machine^TM), the dominant group and the memes that justify its dominance have an ally in something probably related to Stockholm Syndrome (you know, the thing where people who are kidnapped start identifying with their captor and feeling positive and dependent about them.)

Sticking to the feminist issue, what I have in mind is this: women, as part of a (relatively) oppressed group, are basically forced to choose, consciously or otherwise, between two lame options. Either they conform with the wishes of their oppressors (not all men, but an abstract The Man), in which case they are giving up on some potential individuality in favor of the comfort of being agreeable to the people in charge; or they refuse to conform, refuse to look and act the way they're expected to, and as a result can maintain individuality, but are both likelier to suffer abuse (from oppressors and conformists alike) and are likely to be stamped off as crazy/weird/bitter/ugly/etc., enabling oppressors and conformists to easily disregard their perspective. "You're just angry because guys don't want you", "don't listen to her, she's just crazy", etc.

This seems to be a pattern so prevalent that it might be useful to think of it as the essence of oppression. Either conform, or be marginalized. The more you conform, the less easy you are to marginalize. But this is where the Stockholmy stuff comes into play. It seems almost obvious, but it's worth pointing out that conformists tend to be the least likely people to realize they are taking part in oppression. I don't know what direction the causality goes in, but everywhere I look, I see conformists who are fine with things as they are and get angry when someone suggests they're part of oppression, and non-conformists who see the oppression and are fucking pissed off for being marginalized by it.

Women who conform to patriarchy, who constantly make huge efforts to be perfect decoration and "playmates" for the men around them, seem to actually want the kind of validation the patriarchy offers them, and look down on women who do not conform as much. And women who are conscious of the patriarchy tend to refuse to conform, at least in some ways, and to look down on women who do conform.

Because patriarchy is still a dominant part of The Machine – which implies that most people carry a bunch of patriarchal memes – and because of the principle that communication can only take place between equals, a majority of society looks down on those individuals who are aware and critical of the patriarchy. Because they look down on them (us), communication is impossible. And so The Machine lives on, and like any attempt to change it, feminism can at most hope to slowly shift the balance away from patriarchy, but never to dismantle The Machine as a whole.

13

Apple Zone / Israel starving refugees to death at its border

« on: September 05, 2012, 03:13:18 pm »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/05/eritrean-refugees-at-israeli-egyptian-border
One of those days when I'm especially ashamed of what my home country does. Not sure if it's mentioned in the Guardian article, but last night some Israeli civilians tried to approach the fence to give the refugees some food, and the army refused to let them through or even pass the food on for them, apparently on official orders.

And people I know are defending this, or at least deflecting it with "yeah but why aren't you criticizing Assad for his atrocities?" or "but isn't Egypt even more responsible for this situation?".

Also, caffeine and nicotine withdrawal. Just kill me.

14

Apple Zone / In which Ireland rips the Tea Party a new one

« on: August 23, 2012, 07:57:09 am »

http://www.upworthy.com/a-tea-partier-decided-to-pick-a-fight-with-a-foreign-president-it-didnt-go-so-we
 
 

15

Apple Zone / Has this guy been sainted yet?

« on: October 12, 2011, 08:09:39 am »

http://www.youtube.com/cveitch

If not, he should be.