Dogs are a special case. Humans are part of their soil, the soil they evolved in. They must have features (physical, behavioral) to manipulate humans into treating them like part of the group.
Think of the environment dogs evolved in. Small homogenous groups of humans. They aren’t even human, and humans still treated them as part of the in group, while at the same time killing people outside of their clan who looked and acted almost exactly like they did, certainly well within the bounds of what would today be a single nation or region within a nation.
Dogs and empathy towards them are totally compatible with human xenophobia or whatever we call it, there is no contradiction or hypocrisy here.
Do hunter gatherers kiss near-universally? I think that would answer the question of whether it is nature or nurture.
I’m allowing for it to be suppressed at times by culture, but I would expect the instinctive behavior to win the majority of the time unless the instinctive behavior is somehow harmful in an environment different from the organism’s classic environment.
Cancelling aperiodic noise requires time travel to work, doesn’t it? So you could feel what it feels like to be that person on an airplane bare-headed, or next to a fan, or perhaps even beside a river, but beyond that I don’t think the technology is there.
I don’t understand why things like social media are meant to be regulated by the government.
Isn’t religion where we culturally put “not doing things that are bad for you”? And everyone is allowed to have a different version of that?
Maybe instead of regulating social media, we should be looking at where the teeth of religion went even in our separation of church and state society. If everyone thinks their kids shouldn’t do something, enforcing that sounds like exactly what purpose religion is practically useful for.
Well, the more scientific and pluralistic our society becomes the more religion is necessarily sapped of its ability to compel behavior. If you lived in 13th Century France the Catholic Church was a total cultural force and thus could regulate behavior, but the very act of writing freedom of religion into law communicates a certain idea about religion: its so unimportant that you can have whatever form of religion you want.
In any case, one ought to distinguish between "You shouldn't do things which are bad for you," and "You shouldn't do things you know are bad for others." Especially, "Giant corporations with ambiguous structures of responsibility shouldn't be allowed to do things which are bad for others."
13th century France is irrelevant because it was, religiously speaking, a different style of society from America since its founding.
In the past, America, unlike 13th century France, allowed multiple parallel religions who each enforced their own moral codes on top of the secular law using behavioral manipulation tactics including shame.
This seems to have worked up until quite recently. In the early 1900s religion was still massively influential in America. Your view on what freedom of religion means practically is a ret con, because people took it seriously up until universal mass secular schooling and electronic media.
I’m not saying we should return to Jesus or whatever, I’m just saying that there is a receptiveness in the human brain to having behavior enforced in a completely non-violent way where the behavior code is entered into voluntarily and can be abandoned non-violently as well, and hmm wonder if it makes sense to leverage that to solve problems that we are currently leaning for the levers of violence to fix (in the sense that state power enforcement is fundamentally rooted in violence, ie the threat of forced confinement at gunpoint).
On you vs others, I don’t have in mind some kind of religiously enforced corporate regulations, that’s obviously ridiculous. I’m referring to religiously enforced individual abstinence from social media, similar to religiously enforced abstinence from alcohol, or from casual sex, etc, all because they are considered harmful (by the people in the religion) to you, not (primarily) to others. If the abstinence was enforced socially the same way monogamy was in the early 1900s (yes, I know there were some exceptions, blah blah blah, it was basically ironclad relative to today), the social media companies would wither and blow away.
I think that unless we roll back to hegemonic religious values you cannot enforce anything with them. People need to feel an overwhelming social pressure for social pressure to work. As you say, now that things are secularized, I just don't see it happening. That is why the ban on premarital sex doesn't even work within religious communities today: people can see there are other options and (implicitly) they can see that their community is neither inescapable or always right.
I like this state of affairs, frankly, and I genuinely want to see religion swept into the dustbin of history, so I don't find the idea of relying on it to prevent bad outcomes particularly appealing. Maybe a nice secular set of ideas like stoicism could work. I have no objection to the idea of character formation, values, individual responsibility. But I just have no taste at all for enforcing those things with imaginary stories. In fact, its hardly individual character if the behavior is actually socially enforced.
People should not need to be moral paragons, however, to live a good life. If there are systems which are exploiting ordinary human cognitive biases to make profit the state can and should step in.
If you don’t have hegemony you just need isolation. Bans on premarital sex still work for the Amish and largely for LDS AFAIK. If the group is large enough the isolation isn’t socially harmful. Humans aren’t made to each personally interact with thousands of people anyway, from an evolutionary perspective.
I think religion just needs an update. We have found out a lot about the world since the legacy ones were authored, and actually much of that discovery occurred on a foundation of those legacy religions. We have just outgrown those particular religions. We need a new one.
Without an explicit religion, the moral code of the group becomes some fuzzy, lowest common denominator Frankenstein.
Note that I’m not advocating for existing religions, just wondering about the use of religion as a tool (since it is baked into our legal code with an ability to use it for exactly this kind of thing).
> Without an explicit religion, the moral code of the group becomes some fuzzy, lowest common denominator Frankenstein.
Hadn't really thought of it that way, and at least the "lowest common denominator" bit doesn't sound correct to me. What makes you think of it that way?
By that I mean the most common bits between many different individual moral worldviews. I might be using that phrase more literally than it is usually used.
Are you serious? People don't need religion to be moral. If what I see from religion these days is any indicator, I am extremely happy we kept our kids far far far away from it. From all of it. I will concede that not all religion is bad, but quite a lot of it is grift at best and cleverly disguised totalitarianism at worst. Many religious figures have absolutely no problem talking publicly about their "diety-given" right to dominate and control the lives of others for their own personal gain. I don't see how that fits inside any accepted definition of morality.
I am not referring to existing established religions, I am just talking about the construct of religion in general. We are allowed to invent new ones, you know.
Is it possible that autism is like a mode that gets switched on by the environment and in modern day it doesn’t switch off?
In many parts of the world during tribal times, feeling like you didn’t have control and feeling like the world is unpredictable is probably going to lead to death. Hyperfocus on getting things under control (in specific areas) would be useful, for example hyperfocus on shelter before winter if you feel like that is not under control, or hyperfocus on the food supply if that is not under control.
In the modern world it’s plausible to me that the conditions are just so out of control of the individual that the mode never turns off, and you get random seeming intense focus and irritability around lack of control and lack of focus on social fluidity (which in the tribal environment was basically N/A since everyone was basically the same as each other and you didn’t need these flexible protocols for socialization) etc etc.
I’m not diagnosed with autism but I feel like I have a lot of the classic traits and when I pay attention to my environment a lot of things bother me and I feel better when I fix them. But so many things bother me that it’s basically impossible to fix them all and then I disassociate from them. The things that bother me are like “this design is bad, fix it” but I can’t change all the objects around me like one could in a tribal setting where everything was made in house. Same with routine that is impossibly complex compared to tribal life.
> ability to connect w friends is more predictive than observations they made of apparent attachment of parents
So for comparing studies all measuring this^, yes that’s true. But there could be a flaw in the methodology here, where their observations of parents and interpretation thereof may not be predictive even while the totality of parent behavior is.
I had a similar experience growing up to what you describe, but in my adult life I ended up living around all upper middle class and wealthy people and I don’t think my earlier experiences have really been very relevant or helpful. So I think it might depend on what the child’s expected adult environment will be like? Like do we need to be around or interact with the sort of people you need to stay away from or watch your mouth around?
It seems like there has probably been a lot of scope creep in the nursing role due to the artificially induced doctor shortage. Wonder if the de jure/de facto gap there plays a role in this decision and how it’s perceived.
Small government without control of who comes in is borderline anarchy, and they never claimed to be for anarchy. Small government internally requires border controls, and if the border controls failed in the past do you expect them to just shrug? I can see disagreeing with them, easily, I just don’t see obvious hypocrisy like you are suggesting.
We're literally discussing a mass surveillance dragnet throughout the country (not just at the border) here; the kind of stuff that is normally reserved for dystopias in fiction.
To argue that it is somehow okay because it enables "small government" to exist is very much in the spirit of "war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength". When thugs in uniform stop and interrogate Americans on the roads because their movement patterns are "suspicious", there's nothing small about it.
I’m not saying it’s okay, but I am not a small government person. Illogical arguments just bother me. I think small government is impossible for other reasons.
The republicans have been the party of massive military since forever. I don’t really see how this is different.
Small government without [big thing I happen to like] is [bad thing] therefore it's okay to make the government big in [the aspects I like] and I don't see any hipocrisy in that.
Its been proven many times over that the majority of "illegal" immigrants, whether they come US and either overstay their allowance, or manage to skirt by on refugee status, are all predominately doing it for financial reasons, willing to work jobs for lower pay that Americans will never do, which is a huge benefit for economy.
This idea that border control somehow failed is a lie sold to you by republicans. Also Trump killed the CBP funding bill in early 2024 that would have addressed a lot of issues.
> willing to work jobs for lower pay that Americans will never do, which is a huge benefit for economy.
Pushing wages down for low-skilled work is possibly good for the economy, but it's very bad for low-skilled American workers.
> This idea that border control somehow failed is a lie sold to you by republicans.
There are millions of illegal aliens in the US. From 2021 to 2024, several millions more entered the US.
> Also Trump killed the CBP funding bill in early 2024 that would have addressed a lot of issues.
Conjecture. Trump was not in office in 2024. That bill may or may not have addressed some issues, while also creating new issues or making things worse.
“Still, the president conceded that "all indications are this bill won't even move forward to the Senate floor", despite the support of the Border Patrol Union.
"Why?" he asked. "A simple reason: Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump thinks it's bad for him politically."
Mr Biden said the former president had spent the past 24 hours lobbying Republicans in the House and Senate in an effort to torpedo the proposal.
He said Mr Trump had tried to intimidate Republican lawmakers, "and it looks like they're caving".
Mr Biden urged the lawmakers to "show some spine".
The Trump campaign blasted the Biden speech, calling it "an embarrassment to our Nation and a slap in the face to the American people".
Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt called Mr Biden's criticism of Mr Trump "a brazen, pathetic lie and the American people know the truth".
Her statement also said Mr Trump's policies had "created the most secure border in American history, and it was Joe Biden who reversed them".
On Monday, Mr Trump posted on social media that "only a fool, or a radical left Democrat" would vote for the bill. ”
>There are millions of illegal aliens in the US. From 2021 to 2024, several millions more entered the US.
The border bill that Trump killed would have increased funding to CBP to speed up the process of determining who is fit to stay and who isn't because so many people were entering that there wasn't enough staff to process cases quicker.
>Conjecture.
Nice try lol. I know yall LOVE to rewrite history, but that doesn't fly anymore. Everything is on record on why Republicans voted against it.
Illegal aliens operate outside of minimum wage laws obviously.
Yes that is one of the things that bill would have done, along with hundreds of other things which may or may not have been beneficial or detrimental.
And again, Trump didn't kill anything. He was not in office. There were many criticisms of that bill on its merits. The criticisms are on record as you said https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf4EzoWR944
> In this video, several Republican Senators express their blunt dismissal of the so-called "bipartisan" border security bill, highlighting their reasons for opposition and their dissatisfaction with the negotiation process and their leadership.
Just in case it wasn't clear from my last comment, because you don't live the same reality as I do, we can't have a conversation. Trump did kill the bill, no matter what you believe, and you lack the critical thinking skills (or too blinded by ideology), to understand this.
Hopefully, once US economy tanks, and you lose years of your life due to stress and a good portion of your retirement funds, you will understand this because its impossible for you to learn this any other way.
And yet, while a visa overstay is a misdemeanor, assisting someone to stay or work while unauthorized is a felony, that does more damage to the economy, but this administration seems "remarkably" unwilling to prosecute that.
Undocumented Tyson Chicken employees handed over paperwork _from Tyson_ that was given to over 900 of them where the company told them how to fill out government/tax/payroll forms when undocumented so as to stay under the radar... and CBP said that wasn't part of the scope of their investigation into Tyson, and did precisely nothing about that.
Hormel, much the same.
The bitching and moaning about "the economy" by Republicans is so amazingly selective - it's funny how they focus on that, while ignoring how _awfully convenient_ it is to farm, livestock, food production and other employers and businesses it is to have access to that same labor pool.
Producers will either have to increase the price to keep or soften the blow to their margin or stop selling.
Either way, prices will increase - that's just the immediate corollary of having a higher production cost due to higher salaries. Hopefully the Maga distortion field still acknolwges that basic fact. Guess what happens when prices increase. People won't buy more out of patriotic feelings.
The problem you (and others) raise with this point is that Americans don’t want to do those jobs. But if they paid a lot more, they would want to. Okay now the problem on your end shifts. Ohhh but the prices would go up. Okay, and? Yes, the prices go up, and we can discuss whether that is a problem, but it isn’t your original problem, you have performed a squirm maneuver (probably unknowingly since you are probably just repeating essentially a propaganda script you have unknowingly ingested).
You take it as a foregone conclusion that the price increases would be prohibitive. You have provided no basis for this assumption, and nobody ever does because it isn’t obviously true. It depends on a) what percent of the consumer price can be attributed to the artificially low wages and b) the second and third etc order effects of increasing wages on affordability across society, including the domestic workers in these areas. When you dig into it (a) isn’t generally above a few years worth of target inflation, on very specific product categories, and you simultaneously increase wages for low skill domestic workers, which sounds like a win for the left but somehow it isn’t? Pay slightly higher prices to support American workers is a pretty easy slogan.
So the proposal is basically that we knowingly abandon the rule of law in the area of immigration in exchange for 6% cheaper vegetables. Uh, no thank you, I’ll pass on that one.
Immigrants do pay taxes, legal or not, because sales tax exists. Income tax doesn't really apply until you're richer.
The comparison to slavery is quite funny, because you're actually right. But probably not in the way you think - or even, the way most American politics talks about. For example, whenever a state gets a bug up their butt about illegal immigration and tries to actually enforce eVerify[0], the local agricultural sector collapses. Because American agriculture has always been addicted to slave labor, and always will be absent specific interventions to give agricultural workers negotiating power.
Of course, that's not the kind of intervention you're going to see out of Congress anytime soon. The arguments had in Congress, and with Trump, boil down to "how many indentured servants do we bring in, and for how long do they have to work before they get their rights back?" Illegal immigration is solely understood as a fault of the immigrant, not the companies who rely on them. Even the mass deportations are being carried out with the understanding that the slaves are the problem - not their masters.
And to be clear, the slave-like nature of immigration (illegal or otherwise) comes down to the fact that immigrants don't use the same job market Americans use. If I want to poach an H1-B, I have to go through hoops and pay an exorbitant sum to sponsor them. This means they can't demand equivalent salaries - even though the condition of their visa was that they'd be getting paid the same or better. It just doesn't pencil unless the immigrant works for peanuts and you're a huge organization that can swallow the compliance costs.
You can't get rid of slavery by whipping the slave harder. If you want to actually get rid of immigration-as-slavery, you need to hand out visas like candy, green cards to anyone who tells on their employer / trafficker / etc. for violating labor laws, and amnesty to people who have been here for a long time without a rap sheet.
[0] This is the US government service that actually tells you if you're hiring someone who has a legal right to work in the country or not.
If you can’t afford to pay enough, you don’t have a viable business. This is a standard argument for minimum wage, which is reasonable, and it applies here as well, no?
The point is that there isn't a large amount of Americans that are willing to work for minimum wage, because we got used to a standard of living. You aren't going to force people to go to work for minimum wage in positions that are usually taken up by immigrants, because those people already have higher paying jobs - the unemployment (at least pre 2025) was like at an all time low.
For economy to be healthy, money has to exchange hands. The more you do this, the better the economy gets. This is why US was so far ahead of other countries because we had way less restrictions on this.
And being welcoming to people at all income levels is necessarily a part of this, because at the end of the day, even the fanciest car requires low skilled labor to builds roads for.
Dogs are a special case. Humans are part of their soil, the soil they evolved in. They must have features (physical, behavioral) to manipulate humans into treating them like part of the group.
Think of the environment dogs evolved in. Small homogenous groups of humans. They aren’t even human, and humans still treated them as part of the in group, while at the same time killing people outside of their clan who looked and acted almost exactly like they did, certainly well within the bounds of what would today be a single nation or region within a nation.
Dogs and empathy towards them are totally compatible with human xenophobia or whatever we call it, there is no contradiction or hypocrisy here.