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[2018-11-29 09:56:54] - how many days are the two dates apart? you said "this year" and "next year", are they more than a few days apart? ~a
[2018-11-29 09:56:29] - paul: but on your side, i mean, you do get the money into *your* portfolio eventually, even if we were to divest all of our equities on december 31st. ~a
[2018-11-29 09:55:50] - paul: i don't know. whichever the usual finance sites use as the "date"? check to see what google finance and yahoo finance use. i could see an argument either way: the payout date is the date you could actually reinvest it. and if we're looking at the "balance" of your portfolio january1-january1, your un-paid dividend isn't much different than an "invoice": basically meaningless. ~a
[2018-11-29 09:38:51] - a: When do you log dividends for the stock market challenge? Is it the ex-dividend date or the payout date? I ask because Disney's ex-dividend date is this year but the payout is next year. That could make a meaningful difference in our competition... -Paul
[2018-11-28 13:56:42] - but no matter what you're bidding, if your total ever higher than the total of the winning bids you've received from a specific player, there's a nonzero chance you're putting yourself in last place. whether the first player starts by offering you $7 or $1,000 or $25,000,000 it's all kind of arbitrary, it doesn't affect their chances of losing except that technically some numbers are more convenient for humans to write down - aaron
[2018-11-28 13:54:56] - paul: in QE, yeah it's weird -- if i bid on your item, (let's say i bid 1.492*10^381,493) then you know what I bid, but nobody else knows. they only know "aaron won paul's item". and then for the next few rounds, we might bid $200, $250 on their items... and then when you bid on mine, you might bid 6.135*10^185,493 because you know it doesn't matter, it's chuck e cheese money compared to my bid - aaron
[2018-11-28 13:51:10] - aaron: Doesn't the fact that there is imperfect information fix the game? Like, you don't know who has spent the most money or how much that is. -Paul
[2018-11-28 13:50:38] - aaron: QE sounded like a neat concept, but it also felt like it shouldn't work for some reason that I couldn't quite put my finger on in the few minutes I thought about it. -Paul
[2018-11-28 13:47:41] - Daniel: Also, you can't. Integer values only. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-28 13:38:06] - aaron: Oh, probably another one. Hanza Tuetonica? Whatever one where you "bump" people and there is one "best" starting strategy. I basically stubbornly never bumped anybody to teach them to stop blocking me in future games. -Paul
[2018-11-28 13:37:22] - I definitely thought about awarding infinite points but that seems to just break the game right off. -Daniel
[2018-11-28 13:27:23] - Because of it's name, the player could reasonably assume that even if having the most points is the 'goal' GIVING the most points may actually be the optimal strategy. And since numbers are unbounded, the optimal strategy is strange as it approaches infinity. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-28 13:20:23] - worded differently: depending on how you decide the "winning strategy" of the niceness game, i think your strategy will change. ~a
[2018-11-28 13:14:59] - aaron: so i'm not how to technically measure "optimal". for example: i'm not sure tit-for-tat beats every strategy. tit-for-tat will lose against always defect. if you measure "optimal" a certain way, then i think that itself might change the "optimal" strategy. ~a
[2018-11-28 13:10:22] - a: but what about things like iterated prisoners dilemma... where the equilibrium is technically "always defect" but an optimal strategy is tit for tat? maybe it would be like that - aaron
[2018-11-28 13:09:34] - paul: yeah, this discussion was literally sparked by QE because i read the rules and was like "uhh, can't people..." and a million people were like "yeah technically, but..." and that's basically the entirety of the discussion, ahhaha. but sometimes people need more than 3 words to get those points across, so there was a big discussion - aaron
[2018-11-28 13:09:25] - aaron: minimax playing the niceness game, nobody would ever award points. the game would end tied. 0 for everybody. ~a
[2018-11-28 13:07:58] - https://boardgamegeek.com/article/30604986#30604986 here is my boardgamegeek post with the comprehensive (lol) rules of the niceness game since you guys are surprisingly touching on points which were less ambiguous in my post - aaron
[2018-11-28 13:07:03] - i think it's a very psychological game, where you'll find king-makers . . . and memory that gets passed between games? ~a
[2018-11-28 13:06:53] - a: no, no, you don't lose points. for my "niceness" game you just all have 0 points. and then if you give paul 50 points, he is winning 50-0. it is not zero sum - aaron
[2018-11-28 13:06:17] - paul: tash kalar? the 2-player game? or are you thinking of a different one - aaron
[2018-11-28 13:05:56] - i didn't realize that when you award points, you lose those points yourself. everybody starts off with the same number of points i assume. ~a
[2018-11-28 12:51:16] - Aaron: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1296268806/qe-an-auction-board-game-with-unlimited-money?ref=b67haz&__s=2awyzxfvirqqqpbmfhcs Also, your game reminded me a bit of this, which I just learned about yesterday. -Paul
[2018-11-28 12:50:20] - aaron: "should you ever deliberately make yourself lose a game, if you think someone will maybe deliberately make you win later, by playing suboptimally" Isn't that how I played Taj Kalar (or however you spell it) last time?
-Paul[2018-11-28 12:47:55] - (for the record i'm literally in both camps, i think the game is fine because people will play it correctly, and i think it's broken because the optimal strategy is to not bid. but i play a lot of silly broken games. you just have to not break them) - aaron
[2018-11-28 12:46:43] - and it leads to this philosophical question of -- should you ever deliberately make yourself lose a game, if you think someone will maybe deliberately make you win later, by playing suboptimally. and people are actually really heated about this, a vast minority think the game is broken and nobody should bid, and most people just think the game is fine because people will play it correctly - aaron
[2018-11-28 12:46:02] - so in other words, if we have 60, 50, 24, and 12 points, but the guy with 60 points spent all his money -- the guy with 50 points wins. so the question arises of, "wait, so wouldn't you ALWAYS try to tail right behind the guy with the least money? and wouldn't you never, ever, ever bid until you knew you couldn't lose?" - aaron
[2018-11-28 12:44:47] - it came up because there was this auction game where the rules are basically -- each round, a card comes out which is worth some number of points. everyone bids money on that item, until someone wins it. you keep doing this over and over, and the high score wins! but whoever finishes with the least money loses - aaron
[2018-11-28 12:44:15] - i guess it could be a timed game. ~a
[2018-11-28 12:43:58] - maybe the game ends once someone asks how the game ends? if that's the case, then i think aaron won with 10 points. ~a
[2018-11-28 12:43:37] - aaron: how does the game end? ~a
[2018-11-28 12:43:10] - paul: any positive integer or 0! you're thinking of "the meanness game" - aaron
[2018-11-28 12:43:00] - daniel: i award you 634 points. ~a
[2018-11-28 12:36:54] - I like pie. -Daniel
[2018-11-28 12:35:36] - Daniel: Thank you. I award you 3.14 points. -Paul
[2018-11-28 12:34:36] - Now I feel like Dumbledore. -Daniel
[2018-11-28 12:34:21] - Paul: I award you two hundred and thirty three points. Though I don't know if we are in the same game as aaron/adrian or not. -Daniel
[2018-11-28 12:33:28] - Xpovos: No, I have no solutions here. Just expanding on Adrian's mention of a "force" in the gov to try and keep things simple. I don't know that I have any solutions for the problem of tax code complexity. -Daniel
[2018-11-28 12:30:39] - aaron: Any number of points? Even negative points? -Paul
[2018-11-28 12:27:13] - (you didn't describe how and when the game ends) ~a
[2018-11-28 12:26:50] - aaron: i award you 10 points. ~a
[2018-11-28 12:25:35] - (oh and you can not award yourself points. you must choose another player other than yourself) - aaron
[2018-11-28 12:25:13] - i want to play this game some time - aaron
[2018-11-28 12:25:06] - i invented a new game: the "niceness game". each player takes one turn; on your turn you award any player any number of points (including 0). the highest score wins - aaron
[2018-11-28 12:24:52] - Daniel: So your solution to the government creating things that are too complicated is a government created group to lobby for simplicity? Or a government created group to government-splain why it's complex and maybe how to try to take advantage of that complexity? -- Xpovos
[2018-11-28 12:20:53] - (for approximately five minutes) -Daniel
[2018-11-28 12:20:41] - DOWN TIME?! I"M LEAVING THIS MESSAGE BOARD! -Daniel
[2018-11-28 12:15:51] - sorry message board was down this morning. a downed tree hit a power line near my house. ~a
[2018-11-28 11:54:31] - I don't disagree with you guys that things could be simpler. I'm fine with consumer advocates for simplicity. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but for our taxes? I just don't think the end result will ever be "simple". It can be simplER. -Daniel
[2018-11-28 08:52:08] - But that complexity is also inherently favorable to certain players, and they do push to maintain that complexity. Intuit, money market managers, banks, etc. They all make profit off complexity that the government requires. That's the real cost of complexity, and it needs to be appropriately weighed against the cost of not incentivizing things. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-28 08:50:28] - Daniel: In my opinion the issue is in the incentivizing. It *may* be in the government's interests to incentivize longer-term investing rather than day trading, but using the tax code to do that incentivizing is inherently making the taxes more complex. There's a tradeoff, and that's a choice. It's certainly not required. Now, maybe the fallout from unrestricted day trading is too great. So we just put up with complexity. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-27 18:26:35] - i mean . . . i do know why. CPAs and intuit pay contractors to legally-bribe (lobby) lawmakers. ~a
[2018-11-27 18:25:25] - daniel: many countries have you file in reverse: the tax agencies sends you your taxes and asks you to amend it with any changes. why we don't do that i have no idea. ~a
[2018-11-27 18:10:41] - daniel: i'm with paul/xpovos on this one. there's no force in the government who's job it is to keep simple things simple. and there needs to be. ~a
[2018-11-27 16:51:42] - Daniel: Like, if I told my kids they could have one piece of candy on 2nd Thursdays and 2 pieces on days with full moons... that seems like it's overly complicating things even if I had my reasons (uh.... astrology?). -Paul
[2018-11-27 16:50:38] - Daniel: Sure, I understand that the government (sometimes) has reasons for why it does these complicated things and that they're trying to incentivize certain behavior... but I don't think that changes the fact that the government is taking something simple (a company wants to pay their shareholders some of their profits) and makes it complicated (different tax tiers!). -Paul
[2018-11-27 16:34:24] - My point was that the world is a complicated place with lots of actors doing lots of things and when you try to account for everything and incentivize the stuff you want it ends up reflecting the complicated world around. I wouldn't argue that the tax code couldn't be simpler. I'm just not sure it will ever be simple. -Daniel
[2018-11-27 16:33:11] - Paul: We are super quickly going to get out of my depth on this. However I'm pretty sure that there are different capital gains rates to incentivize stock holders to hold on for awhile which I think the theory goes that is better for the company. No idea on dividends vs CD's though. One is guaranteed and one isn't? /shrug -Daniel
[2018-11-27 16:30:17] - Daniel: I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, but why can't all dividends be taxed at the same rate as CD interest? Or why are capital gains rates different from income tax rates? And why are there different types of capital gains rates? I don't think these things are inherently complicated. I think government makes it so. -Paul
[2018-11-27 16:27:18] - Daniel: Of course not. Dividends and interest are two different things. That's complicated. Deciding that they deserve to be treated differently is complex. And maybe appropriate. But definitely complex. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-27 16:26:10] - Xpovos: Now I think you are being too simple! I mean your statement is part of it but also I think the world just isn't simple. -Daniel
[2018-11-27 16:18:33] - Daniel: Things aren't simple, but the government loves to make it more complicated. Taxes don't have to be complicated. "We're the government, give us some money." But it gets complicated because it lets powerful people play favorites. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-27 16:11:18] - Paul: Because things aren't simple. I don't think thats the gov's fault. -Daniel
[2018-11-27 16:03:22] - a: Maybe? I tried doing some research on my phone and I saw stuff about how dividends can be taxed differently and some were at capital gains rates and then I mostly just quit because I was frustrated. Why can't the government just make things simple?
-Paul[2018-11-27 15:52:41] - according to fool.com (google actually pointed me here): "qualified dividends . . . are taxed at the same rates as long-term capital gains". maybe that's what you mean? ~a
[2018-11-27 15:50:57] - paul: i don't think dividends are long-term or short-term. are you're confusing 1099b with 1099div? or maybe qualified vs non-qualified? ~a
[2018-11-27 15:42:01] - Except I guess dividends are sometimes taxed at a higher rate than CDs? Maybe? It's not quite clear to me since I read about capital gains taxes on dividends but how can a dividend be long-term or short-term? -Paul
[2018-11-27 15:40:55] - And while I'm on the topic: Man, taxes are annoying. I've largely not had to worry about them since mostly I deal with tax advantaged retirement accounts, but recently I was wondering about CDs with an APR between 2-3% and a (relatively safe, in my opinion) stock with a dividend yielding around 7% and thought the stock was a no-brainer... -Paul
[2018-11-27 15:25:23] - Maybe? That's an interesting level of flexibility I've never seen on a CD before myself. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-27 15:16:18] - I'm assuming it doesn't make sense to remove interest early to put into a savings account because then I am not getting future interest on that money at the CD rate (which is higher), right? -Paul
[2018-11-27 15:15:22] - I was poking around the Synchrony Bank FAQ (new 2.80% APR for 14 month CD) when I saw this: "Can I withdraw my interest from a CD? Any amount of interest paid during the current term of the CD can be withdrawn at any time without penalty. Interest can be transferred internally to a Synchrony Bank Money Market or High Yield Savings Account, or to a registered external account." -Paul
[2018-11-27 13:08:41] - paul: yeah, as long as i keep all the winnings, you can win all of the challenges after the fact
~a[2018-11-27 12:26:58] - a: Not only am I sneaking up on you in the 2018 challenge, but I added a column to keep tracking the 2017 challenge. Thanks to bitcoin's recent collapse, I'm getting pretty close to you there too (60% to 77%). -Paul
[2018-11-27 11:54:32] - yeah i was about to complain before i read this part. "Likely at the behest of the autonomous vehicle companies" you're right, but i don't think they worded it poorly on purpose because of liability. IMO, they worded it poorly on purpose because they don't want there to be a driving test, because they don't want the driving test to get in the way of their sweet sweet profits. ~a
[2018-11-27 11:21:13] - a: I'm probably OK with some kind of driving test. I think the lawmakers are too, they just worded it incredibly poorly. Likely at the behest of the autonomous vehicle companies in an effort to mitigate liability. So it's all BS. But it's largely all BS because we're such a litigious society. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-27 11:19:21] - xpovos: i agree that the optimal time isn't knowable. (this may be surprising considering stuff i've said in the past, but) i also agree we should take the risk now. but, i disagree with most of the rest: basically any part that suggests the law shouldn't include a driving test. ~a
[2018-11-27 11:04:44] - I do not know if we're at that inflection point yet, but I feel like we're close. And because I very much want autonomous vehicles and the benefits they will provide (including far fewer deaths long term) I'm willing to take that risk now, even if it might not be the optimal time. I don't think the optimal time is knowable. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-27 11:03:35] - a: I'm using it to point at why (probably) I'm more tolerant of some of these problems. I'm not convinced that sb1885 is a good or a bad law. I do believe that autonomous vehicles will kill people, and that many of those deaths could be prevented if we eliminated autonomous vehicles entirely, or required more safety testing. I also believe that at a certain point safety testing becomes impractical and you need real world data. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-27 09:48:14] - aaron: Sandwich > poopy fart. -Paul
[2018-11-27 09:28:03] - xpovos: can you state your thesis? i understand that cars can strike bicyclists doesn't matter to you until it's too late. but you use this to believe what? that sb1885 is a good law? that we don't need a law that states cars must pass driving tests? to prove they won't hit wheelchairs and pedestrians and other road-users? ~a
[2018-11-26 21:04:54] - paul: https://i.imgur.com/k8aSMFU.jpg
- aaron[2018-11-26 16:48:21] - oh yeah, you're right, i forgot. apti and rht. i guess knew that . . . i sold some of both recently. ~a
[2018-11-26 16:41:26] - a: I thought Apptio was bought out... -Paul
[2018-11-26 16:38:47] - paul: i had a company that was bought out? if you're referring to acb, i think they just changed their exchange? that's what i thought anyways. ~a
[2018-11-26 16:35:48] - a: That's closer than I thought. This one just might come down to the wire after all. Crazy how close we are considering the market volatility and the weirdness with our portfolios (both having companies bought out). Heck, this might be a time when we have to double check the dividends because it could be meaningful. -Paul
[2018-11-26 16:30:58] - paul: we're neck-and-neck (4.12% to 4.12%). ~a
[2018-11-26 16:20:38] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-apple-microsoft/microsofts-stock-market-value-catches-up-with-apple-idUSKCN1NV2GQ Not trying to derail the conversation, but I just wanted to drop in with two interesting facts: (1) Microsoft briefly topped Apple as the most valuable company today and (2) I passed Adrian in the 2018 stock market challenge today. -Paul
[2018-11-26 16:14:25] - Climate change is a predictable and abstract risk. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-26 16:01:34] - can a threat be predictable and abstract? i feel like if something is predictable, it quickly stops being abstract. ~a
[2018-11-26 15:59:51] - daniel: "it still has to be tested at some point right" that depends. are we counting sb1885? or not? ~a
[2018-11-26 15:58:15] - In other words, I'm willing to go much further to save a single specific life than I am to save an aggregated 1000 lives from a real, predictable, but abstract threat. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-26 15:57:31] - I can say, in aggregate, that something like autonomous vehicles will result in +Y% bicyclist incidents which results in Z more fatalities. But I can't say: this car will strike this bicyclist and kill them. That lack of specificity matters, even if it shouldn't. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-26 15:56:39] - a: But yeah clearly ought to be better than "a sense of". -Daniel
[2018-11-26 15:56:28] - a: I value human life pretty highly. So much so that I'm willing to, by force of law, greatly inconvenience women (and men, but mostly women) and more. Yet, at the same time, I'm comfortable with hypothetical trade-offs. Freedom of speech vs. incitement to violence. Freedom of entry vs. terrorists crossing our borders. Etc. The difference is the hypothetical. -- Xpovos
[2018-11-26 15:46:56] - a: I mean at some point they have to go through testing. Even if its years from now and the software is "better" it still has to be tested at some point right? -Daniel
[2018-11-26 15:42:14] - daniel: "Are they just still there for testing?" no. also, even if that was true, which it isn't, it is irrelevant: cyclists have literally died during said testing. ~a
[2018-11-26 15:35:42] - a: On the other hand I'm not sure how many automated vehicles are on the road? Are they just still there for testing? Going from one to ten ( a tenfold increase!) maybe wouldn't be the end of the world. Though for that lady in AZ it was... -Daniel
[2018-11-26 15:34:48] - a: "a sense of" is hilariously vague and does make it seem super dangerous. Yikes! -Daniel
[2018-11-26 15:20:02] - a: Totally dumb. I want my driverless cars to prove that they can run over at least 2 cyclists a month. *Mic Drop* -Paul
[2018-11-26 15:18:20] - daniel: *** did you just say driverless cars morals?!!! i just got this email and it's about biking, so i'll mostly just leave it alone, since that's probably still a sore subject . . . but thought it was interesting that the current (proposed) laws don't require self driving cars to pass a driving test that proves you won't run over too many people. we can agree that's dumb? ~a
[2018-11-26 15:17:44] - Daniel: Speaking of which, my fantasy football teams are all favored to make the playoffs. *NotSoHumbleBrag* -Paul
[2018-11-26 15:13:50] - So I don't blame Paul. More just the nature of the discourse as its evolved. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 15:13:30] - It feels like tooting our own horn but I think its harder to be mentally lazy and active on our board. We talk less about fantasy football or thanksgiving recipes and more about cyclists rights, driverless cars morals, and transgender issues for example. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 15:07:18] - I blame myself for people leaving. I don't quite know what it is about me, but I suspect I've played a starring role in pretty much everybody who has left. -Paul
[2018-11-26 15:06:07] - Xpovos: Huh, no. I must've missed it the first time. I'll try to remember to watch at home. -Paul
[2018-11-26 15:05:21] - a: I feel like everybody is always more harsh on me than I am to them, but maybe that's because I'm always the one who is wrong.
-Paul[2018-11-26 15:04:37] - a: Probably not? What do you think it stands for? I'll re-link the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bbINLWtMKI -- Xpovos
[2018-11-26 15:04:07] - daniel: "Not everyone's cup of tea" yeah i think that's probably it. ~a
[2018-11-26 15:02:59] - uhhh . . . i'm guessing CP doesn't stand for what i think it stands for. ~a
[2018-11-26 15:01:05] - Paul, did you watch the CP video I linked... three weeks ago? -- Xpovos
[2018-11-26 15:00:29] - On the subject of the message board - we don't do a good job of keeping it casual
We debate things fairly in depth? Not everyone's cup of tea. That would be my first guess. Also if you get busy with other stuff and get out of the habit of checking. Thats my second guess. -Daniel[2018-11-26 14:58:43] - Paul: If I was having a debate about pronouns and got into it with an activist I would probably stick to 3rd party - they/them to avoid the issue while having the debate. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:58:02] - aaron: it's also not a new thing. paul posted something like "one month". it was his prediction about how long until mel would leave the message board fourteen years ago. he was way off, but she did eventually leave. ~a
[2018-11-26 14:56:22] - aaron: "it's why there's only like five of us left on the message board" as an example i'd say i've been more harsh to paul than he's been to me. that being said, i do often wonder why people leave the message board. ~a
[2018-11-26 14:51:45] - And in this case, the hypothetical me used the wrong pronoun intentionally. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:51:21] - Daniel: Like, maybe I post an article that goes viral and this person responds saying it's offensive. I refer to them by the "wrong" pronoun. I could easily see how that could get me banned, right? -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:50:31] - Daniel: "These seems like radically different things to me." Sure, but you can obviously see how it can be tied together on twitter, right? Let's say I believe a man is a man, so a prominent trans activist and I get into an online debate where I refer to them as their birth sex (or whatever it's called). Is that harassment? -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:48:19] - Daniel: Random tangent, what do you think about somebody who refers to a transgender woman as: "A man who thinks they are a woman"? Is that just rude or is that like unforgivably abusive/offensive? -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:47:46] - and if for some reason a transgender person is offended by the discussion, then don't worry. you've offended tons of people before. it's why there's only like five of us left on the message board.
- aaron[2018-11-26 14:47:00] - Debating gun control won't get you banned. Harassing a specific person over time might. These seems like radically different things to me. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:46:25] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_gender_distinction Gender vs Sex. People can pick pronouns without changing their body parts. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:46:01] - Daniel: I hope not, but like I said before, this isn't about this issue, this is about the next issue. I worry that next we'll be told that... I dunno.... merely being against gun control is abusive and worth a ban. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:45:12] - Debate the issue without going up to a specific person Jane and calling her Jack repeatedly over time and after being informed that she wants to be called Jane and you're good. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:44:58] - Daniel: I don't think there is anything inherently evil or bigoted or trollish about somebody believing that a person's sex is the genitals they were born with (or the chromosomes they have or whatever they choose to define it as) and not just something that a person can choose to associate as. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:44:41] - Paul: I don't think you are being abusive or malicious here. I don't think twitter would ban you for this conversation if it had all happened there. Because you aren't harassing or abusing anyone. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:42:47] - Daniel: Look, I totally don't have a problem using preferred pronouns and don't want to offend anybody, I just get a little uncomfortable with the idea that disagreement, no matter how civil, is abusive and malicious. I didn't like it when it came to the discussion about differences between the genders. I don't like it here. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:41:28] - I agree with the idea that gender is not biological sex and therefore I don't get to pick gender for someone else either. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:40:36] - Paul: I don't view it as a desire to please you. I don't think I get to pick your name. I'm not sure I would treat you like a cat except I guess to shoo you away if you really insisted? -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:39:10] - Daniel: Okay, so what if I wanted you to treat me like a cat? I mean, I know I'm way off the reserve here, but I'm curious how far you'll take this desire to please me before you admit that maybe some requests are just too odd to indulge.
-Paul[2018-11-26 14:37:21] - aaron: I don't know who Kim Petras is, but yes, I do know that transgender women don't all look like biker dudes. I'm also not sure how that's relevant to anything. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:36:31] - -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:36:29] - If it really offended you to not be called FFGP then I don't know. I'd think about it? Why do I get to pick your name? -Danoiel
[2018-11-26 14:36:06] - I don't think you seriously want that to be your name but if you honestly thought that your name was Frank and that was the name you felt like you should have then I would call you Frank because otherwise it would just be being a jerk. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:34:35] - Daniel: Because at some point it becomes ridiculous? If you honestly think that it would be unkind of you from this point out to not refer to me as Fantasy Football God Paul, then I guess we just fundamentally disagree here. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:33:56] - if you meet kim petras in concert and you call her "tim" and tell "him" you've always loved "his" music, yes, that's bizarre. i'm sorry. that is really errant behavior and i might need to consult your human card because there's a serious not-joking chance you might be a space alien. that is just baffling unsettling behavior which no ordinary human would do - aaron
[2018-11-26 14:32:59] - Daniel: I mean, I think it's fairly obvious that not all cases of "I want to be called X but you keep calling me Y" are equal. Should Sean Connery from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade have been banned from Twitter for calling his son Junior when he kept insisting on being called Indiana?
-Paul[2018-11-26 14:32:45] - paul: you might have a weird misunderstanding of what a "transgender woman" is. it's not like, some biker dude with a full beard and plumber's crack who uses female pronouns as a trick question. they typically have breasts and long hair and you'd never know they were born male unless they told you - aaron
[2018-11-26 14:31:25] - Yeah FFGP - I don't get how that shows that someone isn't being unkind by calling someone a name that they don't want to be called. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:30:53] - Daniel: I'm not sure what example you're referring to. Are you referring to the question I asked you twice that you haven't answered?
-Paul[2018-11-26 14:27:59] - Paul: I don't understand how your example shows that its not unkind to call Jane Jack after she has told you she wants to be called Jane. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:26:31] - Daniel: Which is why I think a blanket policy which tries to enforce black and white in an area of grey is wrong. I don't know if that's what Twitter is doing here, but it sounds like maybe they are in some aspects. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:25:05] - Daniel: So, yeah, if somebody was born a female named Jane and I call her a man named Zeus that's just bizarre and wrong. I think it's less bizarre and wrong to call somebody XY with a penis a man even if they prefer to be called a woman. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:24:08] - Daniel: I think there's a legitimate conversation that can be had, and there are areas of grey and it's not all black and white. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:23:20] - Daniel: Because of the example I gave. I know it's an extreme, but that's how we're rolling today.
Is it unkind if you refuse to call me Fantasy Football God Paul? -Paul[2018-11-26 14:22:54] - paul: i put "possibly irrational" not referring to daniel or transgendered folk, but more that you could write "the earth is round" and someone could still take offense. it doesn't say anything negative about you or them. and if you post that message on flatbook.com they might ban you. nothing wrong with that either, maybe not the best choice of venue for that message - aaron
[2018-11-26 14:20:56] - Paul: I think Aaron stated this earlier - if you want to talk about how in general you think people are the gender they are born then sure thats a discussion you can have. However if Jane tells you her name is Jane and you refuse to call her that and only call her Jack how can you defend that as not being unkind? I don't understand how thats anything other than unkind. Someone said here is my name. And you say no, your name is X. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 14:20:23] - maybe today it's "real women have vaginas", 10 years ago it was "two men can't raise a child", 20 years ago it was "black people and white people learn at different speeds". it doesn't mean you can't say it. it means certain networks/newspapers/websites might refuse to carry your message... that seems OK to me - aaron
[2018-11-26 14:20:10] - aaron: Right, maliciousness is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. Does that make Daniel a possibly irrational person if he thinks it's malicious?
-Paul[2018-11-26 14:15:42] - if your point is "you can't voice an opinion without offending a (possibly irrational) person" then yeah, alright. i don't think anybody disagrees with that point. if you express an opinion, easily offended people will be offended. so what? again, https://twitter.com/WBCSaysRepent - aaron
[2018-11-26 14:10:34] - Daniel: So if you believe "a man is a man" (or whatever shorthand we want to use) or "men and women are different" or other things, there is literally no way to voice your opinion without it being considered offensive. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:09:31] - Daniel: And I guess that goes back to the crux of my concern. It seems like there's a number of issues where simply disagreeing is not equated with being inherently abusive/malicious/offensive/etc and there literally is no way to disagree in a "civil" manner. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:08:24] - Daniel: Maybe "malicious" isn't the right word. I guess if you believe that calling somebody a name/gender that they don't wish to be called is inherently abusive/malicious, though, then that's where our disagreement lies. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:05:12] - aaron: Right, and I've seen claims of that on twitter. I have no idea if they are getting banned for stuff that is truly that benign or not, but I imagine it probably does happen sometimes, even if just by mistake. That's what worries me. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:04:50] - hmm nevermind that's not really as ambiguous as i initially thought, now that i've read more context - aaron
[2018-11-26 14:04:00] - Daniel: Okay, so if I ask you to call me "Forever Fantasy Football God Paul" and you consistently don't, is that malicious? -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:03:01] - aaron: Well, I think the problem is that benign and abusive is in the eye of the beholder. There's plenty of stories out there about people getting their accounts suspended for pretty mild things and yet if you look at comments directed at people like the NRA spokewoman, there are often things that border on direct threats of violence. -Paul
[2018-11-26 14:00:01] - paul: https://thefederalist.com/2018/11/25/twitter-permanently-bans-feminist-writing-men-arent-women/ hmm doing a little research it looks like that kind of stuff does happen, and people are actually suspended for tweeting stuff like "women aren't men" although the tweets in question are more targetted towards specific people so i don't know, kind of a grey area - aaron
[2018-11-26 13:59:53] - I think Adrian could make rules about calling people who are cyclists idiots and you could still debate him about the merits and safety of cycling as long as you didn't call him an idiot? -Daniel
[2018-11-26 13:58:52] - Paul: "Caitlyn Jenner as Bruce consistently, but not maliciously" - if she makes it clear to not call her Bruce then I'm not sure your statement is possible. If you know she wants to be called Caitlyn and choose to call her Bruce then I think that is by definition malicious since you are not respecting their wishes. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 13:54:21] - Daniel: Maybe my side of the argument which was fine before and (I hope) not abusive now suddenly seems like I am "consistently and abusively harassing" Adrian about being a cyclist. Now maybe even though we're both heatedly arguing in good faith with each other, I get banned and not him. -Paul
[2018-11-26 13:53:01] - Daniel: I'm having a hard time explaining, so let me try an example. Let's say the message board has rules against abusive behavior. Let's say one day Adrian implements rules against consistently and abusively harassing cyclists. Let's say Adrian and I have another debate about cyclists vs drivers that always ends well.
-Paul[2018-11-26 13:52:20] - paul: if https://twitter.com/WBCSaysRepent still has their twitter, and other less inflammatory users have their accounts shut down beacuse they benignly express the belief that biological gender trumps gender identity, then that will be a baffling universe indeed. i'm not saying it would never happen, but i'd be incredibly surprised - aaron
[2018-11-26 13:51:19] - Daniel: I've seen people already make that claim, that they weren't being abusive but were banned because of deadnaming. Now, they could absolutely be lying. But I think it's also pretty likely that they just got into heated debates online where somebody didn't like his line of argument and reported him for being abusive (I am using male pronouns here for sake of simplicity). -Paul
[2018-11-26 13:47:26] - Daniel: And I worry that this will be used as a weapon to silence them. Abusive behavior seems to already be against the TOS, so if somebody is being a jerk and trolling trans people, they can be banned for that reason alone. This seems to push the line more towards banning legitimate non-abusive conversation. -Paul
[2018-11-26 13:46:23] - Daniel: And I can easily see a scenario where somebody believes that and refers to Caitlyn Jenner as Bruce consistently, but not maliciously (ie, not trying to be a troll, just using the term they think is most accurate). -Paul
[2018-11-26 13:45:34] - Daniel: "You seem to be worried about these one off or "honest mistake" scenarios" You're right in that that's usually what I am worried about, but here I am worried about something else. I think it can be a legitimate and non-abusive viewpoint that people are born a certain gender and that is their gender forever more. -Paul
[2018-11-26 12:47:25] - paul: while i agree that in general, twitter needs to be more careful about restricting free speech than a private discord server -- i don't think consistent and repeated misgendering and deadnaming targetted at a specific person is required for political discourse. it's required for being an ass - aaron
[2018-11-26 12:47:17] - Paul: You seem to be worried about these one off or "honest mistake" scenarios. I don't think thats what aaron (or twitter) is trying to police. If you see someone and refer to them as a he and they "go oh by the way I'm a she" and you go "oh ok cool" then I don't think anyone is going to ban you or go crazy. There is a repeated and deliberate element here. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 12:46:00] - paul: the end result of the change was that when people had arguments about like, "he's being unreasonable" "no, he's being unreasonable" the transgender members of the server could point to the rules and then the offenders were either like "ugh fine, i'll be more PC" or "i'm leaving, this place sucks now". it's rare that we banned people over it and the people we did ban were trolls trying to be funny - aaron
[2018-11-26 12:31:47] - aaron: Also, I think I would have a different opinion depending on the forum in question. I don't know about your flash game, but I would assume it's less of a free-for-all-public forum that twitter is. Maybe that discord channel isn't the proper forum to discuss larger political issues. I would hope twitter is, though. -Paul
[2018-11-26 12:30:00] - aaron: Did it change how you banned people? Like, did you ban somebody who wasn't being a dick because he made an honest mistake but still called somebody by the wrong pronoun? Was it a change in policy or just a clarification of what being a dick means? -Paul
[2018-11-26 12:22:39] - otherwise i mean, the other situation that can happen -- is a person on twitter is like, "please call me 'she', i'm jane now" and 50 different people keep making that pronoun mistake because she looks like a guy. and they eventually say, "look he's being a dick about this whole gender thing can you just ban him" and it's like, well yeah. 50 people have all said you're a pain in the ass, so we'll ban you for being transgender. - aaron
[2018-11-26 12:20:20] - "rule 1. don't be a dick" "rule 2. if think someone's a dick for pretending to be a gender they're not, and they think you're a dick for repeatedly calling them by the wrong pronoun, you're a dick." so it just sort of solidifies twitter's position whose side they're on, and who's being the bigger dick in this (surprisingly frequent) situation - aaron
[2018-11-26 12:18:23] - and you're right, i agree that in general if someone was systematically going through 100 beanie baby fans on twitter and tweeting, "hey beanie babies suck, move out of your mom's basement" then maybe they'd get banned from twitter too. having a rule is largely just symbolic more than anything, and just shows, (and this might arguably be a bad thing) - aaron
[2018-11-26 12:16:17] - so after some discussion yeah we had to set in stone like, "this constitutes harrassment, this is where the line is." which i was against at the time, since my opinion (which still persists) is that dicks are going to keep being dicks and you can't really make a general rule against being a dick. but, i do think having a few hard definitions for, "this is definitely not OK" helps people understand what's over the line - aaron
[2018-11-26 12:14:32] - paul: it more came down to explicitly defining harrassment. if someone just says, "hey i don't get it, if you can call yourself a female, can i call myself an attack helicopter" is that harrassment? if someone just posts a bunch of memes about "mfw a guy tells me to call him jenny" is that harrassment? if someone refuses to use the word "transgendered man" and only calls people "dickgirls" and "trannies" is that harrassment? - aaron
[2018-11-26 11:34:28] - aaron: That's really interesting. I did think you had some strangely strong feelings on this matter whereas it seemed like a few years ago you didn't feel quite so strong. I'm a little confused, though, how is your policy different from just banning people who are dicks? Are you also banning people who inadvertently harassed trans people? -Paul
[2018-11-26 11:32:26] - a: I still find twitter pretty useful, much like how I find Google pretty useful despite a number of decisions of theirs I don't agree with. Why would any of this indicate Twitter may not be for me? -Paul
[2018-11-26 11:31:20] - aaron: Right, to Adrian's point, I would think what that person is doing is against the abuse rules already without a need to lay out a specific deadnaming (or whatever else) policy. Still, it seems like a lot of work by one person to just annoy a lot of people once... -Paul
[2018-11-26 11:31:04] - paul: but, i thought you might find it interesting that last years our views probably would have like 80% aligned on this topic and now it's more like 10% aligned. it was a weird year for me - aaron
[2018-11-26 11:30:37] - and personally i was just in the camp of, "well, can't people just not be dicks, and if they're dicks i'll ban them," and after a few lengthy discussions i changed my mind and we put those kinds of rules into place. while the community is arguably better for it, it's the kind of decision which -- either decision you make, will drive away "the other kind" of people so it'll become more cohesive, so that's more anecdotal than anything - aaron
[2018-11-26 11:28:57] - about 7 months ago i released a flash game which attracted a reasonable-sized discord community (about 1,000 people) and most people got along well. but, a small percentage of transgendered people were being (sometimes inadvertently) harrassed and wanted rules put into place, whereas a small percentage of free-speech advocates demanded that the place should stay lawless. - aaron
[2018-11-26 11:27:38] - paul: also i will add that this whole "right to inadvertently harass people" is something i probably have different thoughts on than i did last year... - aaron
[2018-11-26 11:22:38] - paul: parroting aaron here, maybe twitter isn't for you. would you really care if you couldn't (or decided not to) use twitter ever again? aaron: isn't targeted harassment already against the rules? ~a
[2018-11-26 11:19:22] - (sorry, in that context i meant, until he's banned from their account; i.e blocked. poor word choice. i'm still going along with the hypothetical PaulBook where admins won't globally ban people for harassment) - aaron
[2018-11-26 11:18:22] - paul: what if the next day and the next day and the next day the asshole keeps going and keeps just specifically targetting transgender women and harrassing them until he's banned? a ban is an OK tool if one guy is, for an arbitrary reason, picking on you. it's a poor tool if one guy is, for a systematic reason, picking on a group of people (e.g transgendered people, fat people, irish catholics, etc) - aaron
[2018-11-26 11:16:35] - paul: if you have 10,000 transgender women on your social network, and an asshole just goes through 18 of their twitters and posts to their feed saying hormone therapy is sacrilige and they'll always be a man, what do you think is going to happen next, after those 99 users ban them? - aaron
[2018-11-26 11:06:24] - aaron: Or, I guess, they see the tweet in the news or something. I guess it could show up in moments, but stumbling across somebody saying that he thinks women are women or whatever seems like a far cry from the repeated abusive tweets. -Paul
[2018-11-26 11:05:34] - aaron: "if someone's being a jerk to you, coincidentally, because they don't believe transgendered women are real women, then umm." Wait, I don't get this point. Why can't you still block them? People won't see their tweets unless they follow them or that person directs their tweet directly at somebody... -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:59:38] - paul: i think if you want a social network that is just 100% unregulated, or which reflects the consensus of free speech advocates, it would need to be driven by something other than money, because it would not be as profitable as a regulated social network - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:58:21] - paul: there are social networks that are more open to free speech. twitter is an incredibly popular social network, which is why its TOS sort of reflects the (worldwide) consensus on what a fair TOS implies for the wealthiest people (obviously, because they want to maximize the amount of ad revenue) - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:56:48] - paul: if someone's being a jerk to you, specifically, because of a personal problem then yeah blocking makes sense. if someone's being a jerk to you, coincidentally, because they don't believe transgendered women are real women, then umm... either a ban, or a weird technological solution where they're magically banned from transgendered women's accounts only - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:56:41] - aaron: You need to reach some sort of critical mass before a social network becomes viable (nobody wants to be the only person on a social network) and there isn't really much of an alternative to twitter right now. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:56:00] - aaron: Sure, it's absolutely not a government issue and the companies are free to do whatever they want. I just wish they would do something different. I'm not calling for any laws or anything. I just wish twitter was a little more open to free speech. It's easy to say that people will gravitate to another social network, but that's easier said than done when it comes to social networks. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:54:09] - I mean, Twitter has mute buttons and you can block people. If somebody is really being a jerk just block them, right? -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:53:41] - i'm sort of putting on my "paul hat" but i don't think this is a problem that requires government involvement; there are tons of social networks with different TOS and people will gravitate to the ones that benefit them most. that's why so many of them (e.g tumblr, 4chan) carry stereotypes. the biggest downside is the whole echo chamber thing but it doesn't seem that harmful and i think it's an ecosystem that can self regulate - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:53:14] - aaron: Nah, I don't think there is a perfect solution. I know the more "free speech" you allow, the more you allow evil people to voice abusive viewpoints and whatnot. I just wish we would err more on the side of free speech and less on the side of protecting people. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:52:13] - aaron: Because abusive behavior can be adjudicated on its own without having to have it encompass all deadnaming. Now, we're saying that maybe your stubborn uncle who is a good person and doesn't mean any harm but believes Jack was born Jack and is still Jack is being forced to hang out with unsavory people in the dark corners of the web. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:51:49] - paul: they're not "evil people" they're just people who don't believe in twitter's arguably heavy-handed TOS. now, some of those people are racists or homophobes and some of those people are just free speech advocates but i'm not sure what the fix is there. ...maybe you'd like a social network with "medium-handed" rules which abolish some forms of free speech, but somehow keep the "evil people" out? - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:50:45] - aaron: Where you either have to be entirely on board and supportive of transgender rights or you're some evil troll whose viewpoints are invalid and shouldn't be heard. I think there should be some middle ground where people can talk about it and hash out their differences. I think this twitter move doesn't help that but hurts it. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:49:33] - aaron: I think there's a ton of people out there who aren't evil and aren't bigots and aren't into harassing people or being abusive who are a little uncomfortable with being forced to address people by terms that they think are wrong and it seems like we're trying to force this binary viewpoint on them. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:48:22] - aaron: And I'm not so sure that's a good thing. I think engagement with these ideas and trying to change minds is better than saying, "You're just an evil person with evil viewpoints, go hang out with other evil people". -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:47:35] - aaron: Eh, I think you're slightly conflating things. Their 1st amendment rights won't be lost because that's limited to government, but I don't think there's any doubt that certain viewpoints (yes, largely obnoxious ones) are being pushed out of the mainstream in terms of Facebook/Twitter/Google/etc. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:46:46] - paul: that's up to you, and it's up to twitter. twitter's line is, "that constitutes harrassment" and i guess it's something like a 2-strike system where they warn you and then you're banned. that seems OK to me in the "mike" example. "hey dude i'm sensitive about my weight, don't call me fat or i'll kick you out" "hey ok i mean get out of my house what the hell, did you think i was joking" - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:44:41] - i don't know what's made 4chan go to hell over the past 10 years but i'm guessing it's a lot of those types of people being pushed out of mainstream social networks, and that's OK, i have no problem with that. people can get pushed out, they can pick new social networks. people who literally just a social network where they can insult transgender people or fat people will find one, their 1st amendment rights won't be lost don't worry - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:44:24] - I'll believe twitter can handle this even handily when they stop giving passes to behavior from people like Sarah Jeong and Louis Farrakhan. - mig
[2018-11-26 10:43:13] - paul: yeah, i think companies are free to make decisions we disagree with as individuals, and we're free to pick different companies. reddit banned a subreddit, "Fat People Hate" and they literally moved to voat or 4chan because their social network of choice no longer let them post pictures of strangers and pick on them for being fat - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:41:57] - aaron: Ugh, sorry, I wanted to end this and I just got pulled back in. I guess we agree to disagree. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:40:17] - aaron: Right, but once again, you're picking between two incredible extremes. What if I tell Mike he's overweight like 3 times? Or what if I wanted to be called Batman and somebody called me Paul 10 times? Do I get to ban him? -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:38:51] - aaron: I feel like we've had this debate before, and I suspect we just won't get anywhere with it. I'll just say that this makes me a little uncomfortable and I worry that this is setting a precedent that we're going to regret in the future. Hell, I'm already regretting it because I wanted James Gunn to direct GotG3. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:38:42] - paul: then that would be weird. - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:38:33] - you can decry america for having an obesity epidemic, not harrassment. you can specifically pick one fat guy, mike, and tell him over and over he's so goddamned fat that he's personally responsible of america's obesity epidemic. harrassment. i can give more examples if this doesn't make sense - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:36:16] - aaron: I mean, what if twitter decided to ban people saying that abortion is a right? Or Black lives matter? -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:36:10] - paul: you can express your beliefs in general. you can express that people should be burned at the stake if they're unfaithful to their wife. not harrassment. you can tweet bill clinton every week that he should be burned at the stack for being unfaithful to his wife. harrassment. seems simple to me - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:35:06] - paul: yeah exactly. if he repeatedly and specifically targets that person, and calls them by the wrong pronoun, and you tell them not to, and they keep doing it, then yeah. that's harrassment. it doesn't seem like harrassment to you? - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:34:47] - aaron: I don't think people are wondering, "What did I do?". I think they're saying, "I shouldn't be banned for expressing my beliefs". -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:33:59] - aaron: That would be consistent and repeated misgendering and deadnaming, but not necessarily joking about it or anything. I think you can be against abuse and let it stand there. I don't think just repeatedly deadnaming somebody in and of itself is abusive. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:33:15] - aaron: Right, but what if I keep doing it? Maybe I shouldn't use me as an example. Let's say we have another friend who thinks Jane is a man and keeps referring to them as such. Not in any specifically abusive way, but just whenever it makes sense to use their name, he says "Jack" instead of Jane. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:32:27] - paul: if again, you repeatedly call everybody else by the right name, and we tell you, "her name is jane, not jack" and you keep doing it, and we tell you "this is your final warning, if you call her jack one more time i will kick you out of my house," and you keep doing it -- would you really throw up your arms and wonder, well what did i do!! - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:31:39] - paul: i'm not sure if you are getting "repeated, targeted misgendering and deadnaming". what you've described is not repeated, targeted misgendering and deadnaming, it is just making a mistake once - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:31:03] - twitter's not banning the belief that people are born with one gender, and they're not banning the belief that you can't change your name... if you want to post on your twitter about how naming is sacred, and if you're born with one name, that's your name, damn it! well... that's fine that's not really harrassment - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:30:13] - aaron: But you're talking about two extremes. What if you introduce me to your friend, "Jane" and I found out she was born Jack and I am totally civil to that person EXCEPT that I refer to them as Jack. Maybe that's a little rude, but I'm not sure I would necessarily say it's targeted and abusive. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:29:16] - paul: is there a way to believe that someone's marriage isn't a real marriage, without "maliciously calling them by their maiden name over and over?" i think you can think of a way. again, we're talking about choosing a specific person, addressing them by the wrong name/pronoun, being told to stop, and doing it over and over again. you really can't think of another way? - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:28:07] - it is the difference between going to a married couple's house and inadvertently calling someone by their pre-married last name. versus an ex-lover repeatedly and deliberately calling them by their pre-married last name over, and over, and over, and making jokes about how their marriage isn't real. if you did that, i'd expect you kicked the fuck out of their house, wouldn't you? - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:26:04] - aaron: "i can't maliciously insult his sexuality" Is there a way to believe that people are the gender that they were born without "maliciously insulting their sexuality"? -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:26:00] - paul: no, that's not abusive, and twitter doesn't think it's abusive either. twitter believes repeated, targeted misgendering and deadnaming is abusive which is very different - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:25:06] - a: i agree with that, categorizing something is the first step to banning it. twitter bans harrassment. what's wrong with a social network banning harrassment? do you think you have a first amendment right to harrass a specific person on your social network of choice? i don't think you should - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:24:51] - aaron: So you would be on the side that merely believing that a person is the gender that relates to their chromosomes (or however it should be phrased) is abusive behavior? -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:22:12] - aaron: "just categorizing abusive and harmful speech as abusive and harmful" i thought about bringing that up with paul, but i just don't agree. categorizing something is the first step to to banning it. for a (ridiculous) example if we decided that categorizing "liberal lies" as a category for reporting speech, on say fox news's forum website, i think that would be fox news's first step to banning the "liberal lies". ~a
[2018-11-26 10:21:51] - or in other words, it's false equivalences made by people who *literally* don't understand the difference between homophobia and theology, or why they have college courses on comparative religion and polytheism, and no college courses on homo fags must burn. which, are arguably the same thing, but maybe they're not really the same thing - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:19:31] - but based on what i see it's mostly like, "hey how come he can question my political views and i can't maliciously insult his sexuality," and "hey why can he say the zanclaen flood accounts for what i believe is an act of god, but i can't tell him he's going to hell for raising a child with two fathers" - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:18:11] - Daniel: But it's almost irrelevant. If pro-life people truly believe that abortion is murdering a baby, isn't the death penalty a reasonable thing to advocate for (assuming you also believe in the death penalty)? -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:17:25] - i mean, i'm not 100% in line with twitter's policy on bans. if people picking on transgender high school kids with "hey nice makeup, but last i checked chicks don't have penises" is getting banned, and poeple picking on other high school kids with "hey nice MAGA hat, if you're so pro-2nd amendment why don't you go shoot yourself in the head lol" aren't getting banned, well, that's certainly tilted - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:17:09] - Daniel: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kevin-williamson-the-punishment-i-favor-for-abortion/2018/04/25/5001c6cc-48c5-11e8-8b5a-3b1697adcc2a_story.html?noredire I don't know too much about the issue, honestly, but apparently that isn't his true position. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:15:42] - What issue is twitter not being equal on? If someone wants to be called he or she and someone else repeatedly won't do it after being told the correct pronoun, how is that anything other than being a jerk? -Daniel
[2018-11-26 10:15:06] - someone could previously reply to every one of caitlyn's jenner's tweets and say, "wow bruce looks great in this picture! HE'S really lost a lot of weight" and just shrug and say, hey! it's not harrassment! doesn't his birth cerficate say he's a man? i thought bruce was his name. what am i doing wrong? any idiot knows what he's doing wrong, so now it's explicitly defined - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:13:31] - Paul: I'm not sure that the general debate about abortion is the same as wanting to hang those that have abortions. -Daniel
[2018-11-26 10:13:30] - To be clear, I don't necessarily subscribe to any of these views. This is more of a "first they came for the..." reaction. It seems like more and more often that both sides of issues aren't being treated the same way. One side is allowed to make their case and the other side is considered inherently offensive. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:13:21] - if someone hops on trump's twitter and replies to every tweet with "hey carrot face nice hairpiece, say hi to putun for me" or hops on tom brady's twitter and replies to every tweet with "hey wow, surprised you didn't fumble the wine glass" "nice selfie, and you didn't even fumble the camera" that obviously constitutes harrassment/abusive speech and i'd expect them to be blocked or banned from twitter if they were previously warned - aaron
[2018-11-26 10:11:39] - Daniel: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dissent-concerning-kevin-williamson/484052/ The Atlantic hired a writer to be their conservative voice, but ended up firing him after there was outrage over comments he had made about abortion. -Paul
[2018-11-26 10:10:56] - sorry i don't really see the other side on this one, sorry. this isn't an infringement of free speech, this is just categorizing abusive and harmful speech as abusive and harmful - aaron
[2018-11-26 09:56:18] - Paul: I'm not aware of abortion being in the same category as those other two? Or how is it in the same category as the other two? -Daniel
[2018-11-26 09:40:12] - a: And this is one more step in a trend where it seems like even discussing certain non-liberal issues merits a ban/firing/etc. Maybe it's the changing times, but I'm a little uncomfortable that we have established precedents that even discussing things like abortion or gender differences or transgenderism is essentially not allowed unless it's from a certain viewpoint. -Paul
[2018-11-26 09:37:27] - a: I think what concerns me is the (to me) blurred line on what is abusive. I get that some people are offended by deadnaming, but I personally don't really see anything inherently abusive about it and I believe it's even a little controversial in the trans community. -Paul
[2018-11-26 09:36:12] - a: Sure. I think I'm not too far off from that. I think I would generally prefer that companies like Twitter and Facebook err on the side of free speech, but I can see why they would want there to be limits. -Paul
[2018-11-25 17:27:37] - paul: hmm, interesting. i can definitely see both sides. on the one side you have total uncensored "free" speech, and on the other side you have limiting abusive speech: it's probably hard to strike a balance. maybe i think i'm both uncomfortable with this and i also welcome it? is that allowed? ~a
[2018-11-25 17:11:33] - https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2018/11/social-media-divided-on-twitter-s-ban-of-misgendering-and-deadnaming.html This is the first I've heard of this policy. Wonder if anybody here is uncomfortable with this or if it's a welcome move. -Paul
[2018-11-21 10:16:20] - http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2091477,00.html slow down! why some languages sound so fast - aaron
[2018-11-20 13:53:25] - a: I think part of the bond-vs-cd equation is what I am looking for. Generally, the money I put into CDs I want more safety from (and maybe even for it to be less linked to how the market is doing). So, yeah, you might be right that on average and over the long run bonds are better, but I guess I am willing to sacrifice that possibility for a "safer" return. -Paul
[2018-11-20 13:26:57] - paul: agreed on both. the best part of your "if you lost your job AND your emergency fund got cut in half" situation is they are causally linked
if the market got cut in half, your chance of losing your job does go way up. your bond-vs-cd thing: there's some interesting trade-offs in both directions. in the long run, i think you can generally make much much more money with bonds though. ~aprev <-> next