• 1 Post
  • 55 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 1st, 2023

help-circle
  • It’s illegal unless there’s a bonafide occupational qualification that your disability prevents you from performing. Like you couldn’t apply for a job as a furniture mover if you’re a quadriplegic and cry discrimination when they don’t select you. And the employer can ask things like “this job requires that you lift heavy objects of up to 600lbs with the assistance of another person and a back brace. Do you have any medical or other reason you could not perform these duties?”.

    Now if that weren’t a real occupational qualification, that’d be discriminatory. Like if they said you had to be a man for that moving job - there’s no reason you have to be a man, you just have to be able to move 600lb things.



  • I don’t like calling plantations labor camps. While they were labor camps in part and needed forced labor on the premises to exist, they were also quite distinct from labor camps in many ways. Similarly, we don’t refer to Auschwitz as a labor camp, typically we’d say that it was a death camp - a specific type of concentration camp, which is an important facet not present in “Labor Camps” more broadly.

    Plantations also typically had large manor houses on their grounds and used slave labor not only to achieve economic goals but also to maintain the slave-owner’s house. Additionally, they often had small-scale economies and cultures where slaves were either issued tokens to trade for essentials or bartered among themselves. I see plantations as a farm-labor camp with a slave-owning family’s home present on the premises and elements of village life for enslaved workers. Plantations were typically too large to contain the slaves in locked barracks or in a walled/fenced section, so their imprisonment was enforced by a system of bounty hunters, legal enforcement for the return and punishment of runaway slaves, and other legal and cultural mechanisms that made escape difficult and dangerous rather than (typically) by physical confinement. Those are features not adequately captured by “Labor Camp”.



  • Learn what you need to do to follow recipes, and then you’ll learn the rest over time. Cook things you like to eat.

    Don’t get a bunch of junk for your kitchen. You only need basic things and can buy them as you go.

    • Knives - you only need a chef’s knife (8" or 10") for most kitchen tasks and a paring knife for small things. Optional: bread knife (i just use a chef’s knife), filet knife, boning knife, cleaver.
    • Pots and Pans - get all stainless steel and/or cast iron/enameled cast iron. Don’t buy aluminum or nonstick. Frying pan. Saucepan. Big pot and/or Dutch oven (can use as a soup pot on the stove or in the oven for other things, enameled recommended). Baking sheet (and a silicone matt for nonstick).
    • Other: peeler, box grater, garlic press (way easier than mincing garlic), citrus juicer, steamer insert for a pot, measuring cups and spoons, cutting board (plastic is OK - bamboo is another good budget option, one for meat and one for plants recommended)
    • Know what it means to steam, boil, simmer, sautee, bake.

    • Keep your knives sharp.

    • Learn the basic cuts (dice = .5 - 2cm cubes, mince = very tiny little pieces, julienne/batonnet/chiffonade - strips of stuff of various sizes).

    • The key to cutting anything is to break it down into manageable, regular pieces that you can easily turn into cubes or rectangles.

    Since you have difficulty tasting:

    • Don’t over-salt. You can always add more, but you can’t remove it.

    • Acidity and fat are important to make food taste good. Vinegar is often a hack to make food taste better.

    • Adding MSG to your food is also a great way to make it taste better.

    • Learn what herbs and spices belong in different kinds of food. Some can go in a lot of different cuisines and dishes - like salt, pepper, garlic, onion, parsley, and chives. But others have more niche uses, and some combinations are very typical of specific cuisines. Buy individual spices, not spice mixes. Dry spices are stronger than fresh spices, so if substituting dried for fresh, you will use less than you would use if they were fresh.

    The head chef of Alethea (3 star michelin restaurant) totally lost his sense of taste for years and still ran one of the best restaurants in the world.


  • Was travelling with some friends in Istanbul. They were pretty inexperienced abroad, so I figured out public transit there, told them what tickets to buy, and we all walked to the ticket machine. There was a big line/crowd, and a guy up front was taking cash and giving people tickets, which he got by scanning a card at the machine. I went first hoping to show my friends what to do - bought my ticket for like €5 or so and ignored the scammer. They all gave the scammer guy like €20 for him to scan his pass and buy them a €5 ticket. Their reasons were “he seemed official” and “I knew it was a scam, but I figured it was just easier to go along with it”.

    I did fall for a taxi scam in Peru though and ended up staying at a hotel run by some mafia types. They were cool, though, so it turned out OK - just cost me a little extra money for an interesting story.



  • Finance-wise, have an emergency fund and well-diversified portfolio. This is not financial advice, and I’m not a professional, but this is what I’d do with retirement funds and personal stock accounts:

    Emergency fund: if you already have this handled, then look at your investments. If you dont have an emergency fund, do everything you can to save up at least 3-6months of living expenses - ideally in a high-yield savings account to protect your money from inflation.

    US stocks: Don’t be over-exposed to US stocks, especially riskier ones. Historically, bonds and foreign stocks have been recommended to balance your portfolio, but many people have ignored that in recent years due to the dominance of US large-cap stocks, especially the tech sector. Ensure you’re diversified in accordance with your risk tolerance/retirement time-horizon.

    Non-US Stocks: It would be good to have a non-US ETF or index fund with developing and emerging markets. It may not perform as well, but can potentially hedge against US market volatility. The counterpoint here is that US stocks are globally interconnected enough that getting non-US stocks would overexpose you to that part of the market. Caveat emptor, do research.

    Bonds: bond ETFs/funds, I-bonds (inflation protected securities, you can buy $10k per year), and automated bond ladders can give you steady returns. Remember buying bonds directly is fairly illiquid - your money will be stuck in the bond for the duration of the bond’s term.

    Cash: Inflation isn’t crazy right now. Probably wouldn’t be bad to have more cash than normal sitting in high-yield accounts (earning around 4% APY right now) since the market is likely to dip. Maybe consider liquidating some investments that are riskier than you’d like. I wouldn’t really advocate trying to time the market, but also it doesn’t seem like a bad time to be a little heavier on cash imo.

    Check out Boglehead 3 fund portfolios and their variations. Imo it is time to be safe and boring. If you have a long time until retirement, don’t panic - ride it out and consider rebalancing your portfolio to the standard, oft-recommended asset mixes. If your retirement timeline is short, make sure that you aren’t over-exposed to risky investments like stocks.






  • If you’re actually serious, literally just google voter turnout numbers in texas. Also look at how close some races were and compare that to the nonvoting registered voter population. I’ve seen several analyses of that recently

    Here is the TX government record of voter turnout: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/70-92.shtml

    Here is the TX government reporting of election results: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/presidential.shtml

    2020 Presidential: 66% turnout, 52% of the VAP (voting age population) voted. Trump won by 600k votes, 4.5M of VAP was not registered.

    2018 Gubernatorial: 53% turnout, 42% of VAP turned out. Abbott won by 1.1M, 4.1M of VAP was not registered.

    2016 Presidential: 59% turnout, 46% of VAP turned out. Trump won by 800k votes, 4.2M of VAP was not registered.

    2004 Presidential: 56% turnout, 47% of VAP turned out. Bush won by 1.7M, 3M of VAP was not registered

    Why people aren'tregistered source 44% do not care, 27% intended to register but didn’t, 11% are paranoid about voter roles, 9% say it isn’t convenient (and Republicans sure have made it inconvenient), and 6% literally don’t know how to register. From that same article and polling data, 35% of unregistered voters do not believe their vote will affect the political process, and 30% don’t think it’ll change election results. AND 40% of these care who wins political races, but don’t vote.

    These races are not close compared to the number of non-registered VAP. Young people are more left-leaning and show up to the polls at shockingly low rates. Minorities are typically more likely to vote Dem, but turn out at lower rates (partially due to disenfranchisement). If the non-voters voted, like 30+ years of political races would’ve been close or Dem.





  • I don’t think he’s ever had a plan - so while that’s his schtick, I don’t think it’s like a smokescreen or anything. He’s just some dumbass who wanted to start a show to interview interesting people and smoke weed. But, when you’re interviewing fringe political figures, racists, snake oil salesmen, etc. you have a journalistic duty that Joe Rogan: dumbass, was not prepared for and didn’t understand. Now he’s in over his head. People take him seriously, and he agrees with some of the crazy people he’s brought on because he’s a dumbass




  • Nope. I’m actually being good faith. Genuinely. Check my post history if you want. You can disagree with someone and acknowledge they aren’t arguing in bad faith. Like I think you’re good faith even though you’re coming across with a bunch of ad hominems and stuff, but I think you believe what you’re saying.

    And I’m not being condescending. I think people can absolutely understand my point. Otherwise, I wouldn’t waste time trying to communicate it. I’m saying I think people are mischaracterizing my position.

    Literally, all I’m saying is: when we make criticisms of the other side, those criticisms are usually stronger in the long run if they’re based on the actual positions they take rather than straw-manned ones. And I think this is a strawmanned critique. That’s my whole point.


  • The implication is pretty clearly “the immigrants are coming to take your jobs, black people”. Especially when said to a room full of black people. Especially given that that has been standard republican messaging for well over 50 years for all ethnic groups.

    That is still racist. It is still manipulative. It is still scummy and bad. It just is pretty clearly not logically equivalent to “immigrants are coming to take the jobs segregated for black people”.

    And obviously state of residence is not equivalent to race. It is an example. It is the same logical form of argument. They’ve done the same thing (about race, specifically) to rural white folks since literally the trans-continental railroad, but then about Chinese immigrants mostly. In modern times, the meaning has never been “only x race can have y job”. It has always been about the threat of the outsider (immigrant) “stealing” jobs from non-immigrants as a way of causing an us-vs-them dynamic. That is still a racist dynamic. But it is not the same as saying only x race can have y job.