English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Vikas

01:51

@jlliagre Oh that was it.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus LOL

CowperKettle

02:53

Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (Eng) - FULL AudioBook 🎧📖

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CowperKettle

03:30

Henry Ford vs Karl Marx. Epic Rap Battles Of History

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CowperKettle

03:41

"Ford fährste Heim läufste"

Cerberus

That is intelligible as an expression.

A German dialect?

CowperKettle

Yes, from a comment to this video above

CowperKettle

04:19

@Cerberus A joke meaning "Go there in a Ford, come back home on foot"

Similar to an old joke that FORD stands for "Fix Or Repair Daily"

Cerberus

04:38

@CowperKettle Oh, I thought it meant fort, as in, away.

Xanne

Connections
Puzzle #598
🟪🟪🟩🟪
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Wordle 1,320 6/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
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Vikas

@Cerberus I wonder why cameraman wasn't absorbed.

Xanne

05:03

Strands #332
“Show of hands”
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🟡

SmokeDetector

11:14

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad phone number in body, potentially bad keyword in body, potentially bad keyword in title (196): How to cancel my Jio Fiber connection?‭ by Mkihgy Njugg‭ on english.SE

HippoSawrUs

12:09

Hey, what's the opposite of the same?

Just wondering

Nvm

Geez

Vikas

Unsame

HippoSawrUs

Definitely

HippoSawrUs

12:27

What's the antonym of 'I'm tired of antonyms,' that is to say 'I'm not fond of them' but with like or dislike being a ridiculous proposition in the strata of -nyms in any case, neither here nor there.

Or would that be stratum?

OK, I'm done.

Zzzz…

jlliagre

@Vikas He didn't get close enough to the horizon.

GratefulDisciple

12:55

FWIW, below is the result of my "meditation" this morning in finding correlation with the IT problem stated in the OP (that I can definitely relate) with Aquinas's analysis of human's search for happiness.

0

A: How to describe assigning undue importance to an instrumental goal?

The examples you provided help a lot and as someone who works in software development, I can relate. So let me first summarize them here, even though I may not come up with the exact word / phrase you're looking for: Enshrining a proximate means/goal (the "via"), perhaps even losing sight of th...

@alphabet I wonder whether a raccoon is plagued with similar problem :-)

Robusto

#travle #777 +0 (Perfect)
✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅
https://travle.earth

Robusto

13:19

#WhenTaken #337 (29.01.2025)

I scored 717/1000🎗️

1️⃣📍1.0K km - 🗓️14 yrs - 🥈142/200
2️⃣📍2.5 km - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇200/200
3️⃣📍637 km - 🗓️36 yrs - 🥉81/200
4️⃣📍5.2K km - 🗓️6 yrs - 🥉112/200
5️⃣📍440 km - 🗓️5 yrs - 🥇182/200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,320 5/6

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Robusto

13:36

Connections
Puzzle #598
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Geezis that was a hard one.

GratefulDisciple

Yes, once I thought of the blue, I need Google to help me.
Connections
Puzzle #598
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Robusto

Strands #332
“Show of hands”
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Daily Octordle #1101
8️⃣4️⃣
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Score: 64

Daily Sequence Octordle #1101
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Score: 64

Daily Extreme Octordle #1101
5️⃣8️⃣
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Score: 66

GratefulDisciple

14:19

@Robusto While getting acquainted with Confucian+Marxist way of governing via the articles I linked above and reading various Wikipedia articles (such as this), it turns out "democracy" has a lot more variation than what I thought is synonymous with "liberal democracy".

There are native Chinese terms translated as "consultative democracy", "socialist democracy", "whole-process democracy", etc. in use in China while they characterize the West's "liberal democracy" as "Western procedural democracy" and disparage it as "performative." Reminds me of Pancasila principle #4 that I had to memorize as a kid: "Democracy guided by the inner wisdom in the unanimity arising out of deliberations among representatives."

It seems there is a spectrum of options containing some measure of Paternalism and Libertarianism; found a paper titled Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron.

Of course I'm more predisposed to Liberalism, but would consider well-intentioned paternalism as a good corrective to 100% individual autonomy and the inclusion of both "distributive justice" and some measure of "tutelage" as necessary. There is an interesting paper Liberalism and (how to avoid) paternalism covering the above.

jlliagre

15:09

#WhenTaken #337 (29.01.2025)

I scored 708/1000🎗️

1️⃣📍1.7K km - 🗓️5 yrs - 🥈152/200
2️⃣📍770 m - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇200/200
3️⃣📍128 km - 🗓️27 yrs - 🥉121/200
4️⃣📍5.2K km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥉106/200
5️⃣📍3.8K km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥈129/200

https://whentaken.com

@Robusto Ha ha, something definitely wrong with #4 :-)

Robusto

@jlliagre Yes. I already submitted a complaint.

Apparently we both were in the right place, though.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple North Korea also claims that its government is a democracy, so I wouldn't put much stock in the CCP's claims.

@GratefulDisciple I don't think "paternalism" is the right word for sentencing anyone who starts a political party to over a decade in prison.

Or police routinely extracting confessions through torture.

And as Reporters Without Borders puts it:

> The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the world's largest prison for journalists, and its regime conducts a campaign of repression against journalism and the right to information worldwide.

> In the eyes of the regime, the media’s function is to be the party’s mouthpiece and to impart state propaganda. Independent journalists and bloggers who dare to report “sensitive” information are often placed under surveillance, harassed, detained, and, in some cases, tortured. To receive and renew their press cards, journalists must download the Study Xi, Strengthen the Country propaganda application that can collect their personal data.

> Independent journalists can also be legally placed in solitary confinement for six months under “Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location” (“RSDL”) in China’s “black prisons”, where they are deprived of legal representation and may be subjected to torture.

These aren't the actions of a technocratic government seeking the best outcomes for the people. These are the actions of a gang of petty tyrants trying to maintain their own power by any means necessary.

Robusto

15:40

@alphabet And, unfortunately, not so very petty.

alphabet

16:03

@Robusto Yes, poor choice of adjective.

MetaEd

16:58

morning campers

jlliagre

evening.

Wordle 1,320 5/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨🟨⬛🟨
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟨🟨⬛🟨🟩
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Daily Octordle #1101
🕚4️⃣
9️⃣8️⃣
5️⃣7️⃣
3️⃣🔟
Score: 57

Daily Sequence Octordle #1101
4️⃣5️⃣
6️⃣7️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
Score: 64

Daily Extreme Octordle #1101
5️⃣7️⃣
6️⃣🔟
8️⃣4️⃣
9️⃣🕛
Score: 61

MetaEd

17:19

Wordle 1,320 3/6

⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
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MetaEd

17:36

Strands #332
“Show of hands”
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🟡🔵🔵

Connections
Puzzle #598
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩

Cerberus

18:32

@Vikas Perhaps he was able to send these recordings home just before he was pulled in.

Connections
Puzzle #598
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It is funny how I was staring at this yesterday and couldn't see anything, when I was sleepy or perhaps in the wrong mood. And now I saw it all fairly quickly (of course not blue, which is a stupid category).

@Robusto That's funny, I didn't find it so hard.

MetaEd

18:51

@Cerberus that happens to me often with crossword puzzles. look away for a quarter of an hour and then suddenly a word is obvious which was impossible before

Cerberus

@MetaEd It is true.

Though a day is often better than an hour.

Robusto

19:40

@Cerberus Possibly because you see fewer associations in English? shrugs

@Cerberus That could mean something in my case as well. I was up at 4:30 this morning.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet The difference between NK and China is that the latter is a lot bigger country and the ideas are discussed both internally and by outside Western academics (thus more transparent). Whether reality on the ground reflects the theory is a matter for political scientists & philosophers to evaluate after decades of data. Same goes for the track record for liberal democracies in America and Europe.

@alphabet When evaluating a position, as a matter of principle we need to use the "normal" working case, not their anomalies. I don't think paternalism on its own are responsible for political persecution, but due to corruption, cover-up, human sins, etc. From the little that I know, Singapore for instance, is a paternalistic democracy, but it works WITHOUT the level of repression of journalism in China, although it's not totally free either.

At any rate, I already said above that in both cases CCP's actions cannot be justified / whitewashed, and the constant censorship shows not the problem with paternalism but with human sin for NOT wanting to acknowledge crimes committed. It would be better if they apologize like the Japanese after WW2, or Germany about the Shoah, or America about dropping the atomic bombs or on Guantanamo.

Historical examples also allow us to see whether some measure of paternalism works. Ancient Roman Empire since Augustus (i.e. post the Republic) has good rule of law YET paternalistic (not liberal democracy). Jesus and Paul and other martyrs got their proper trials under the law (not counting Nero's craziness).

About Singapore (after a short googling): Singapore: Tough Love in the Nanny State.

Robusto

20:23

If All This Sounds Delusional, That’s Because It Is

> Put another way, the American system of government is not one in which the people imbue the president with their sovereign authority. He is a servant of the Constitution, bound by its demands. Most presidents in our history have understood this, even as they inevitably pushed for more and greater authority.
Not Trump. He sees no distinction between him and the office, and he sees the office as a grant of unlimited power, or as he once said, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

> The freeze, then, is Trump’s attempt to make this fanciful claim to limitless power a reality. He wants to usurp the power of the purse for himself. He wants to make the Constitution a grant of absolute and unchecked authority. He wants to remake the government in his image. He wants to be king.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto It's quite worrisome that American democracy managed to elect him, knowing full well of the signs that he will go in this direction. Like the bartender video you shared, it's truly the electorate's fault. News of his un-Christian actions keep coming (there's another article today from Christianity Today: Yes, Jesus was a Refugee. I really hope USA institutions survive.

Robusto

@GratefulDisciple We are on a razor's edge now and for the next 4 years.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto The silver lining is that if those institutions survive, then USA will be stronger as a result and the history will teach us a lesson, maybe even help us tweak the system to prevent this anomaly from occurring again.

Robusto

@GratefulDisciple Inside this particular silver lining there's still a dark cloud.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto Yup, premature to say it's a "silver lining". I'm also worried that the moderate and sensible politicians like Mitch McConnell and Romney are getting marginalized.

Robusto

20:40

Mitch McConnell is no "moderate and sensible" politician. He's the one who refused to let Obama have his POTUS pick, and deferred that one to Trump (Neil Gorsuch). He approved of Trump's other two picks as well, and now we have the worst Supreme Court in the nation's history.

M.A.R.

21:03

@GratefulDisciple moderate and sensible? raises eyebrow

Those clowns were the earliest flies on the shit that is Trump.

They made him as powerful as he is today.

They just didn't like it when he put a leash on them and asked them to get on all fours and bark for treats.

@GratefulDisciple of course they'd disparage it as "performative". The local CCP committee would be very disappointed otherwise.

CCP has not been paternal ever since its foundation. Unless father murder their kids.

They know they can get away with it, and they do.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto and @M.A.R. OK, okay, he's an enabler, yes. And I shouldn't have put McConnell in the same category as Mitt Romney and John McCain. I was just saying he has a lot more respect for institutions and see in the bigger picture on what's good for America, closer to being a "moderate". I hope by now he realized what he and Mike Pence realized what they had done, and how they were abominably used.

M.A.R.

21:19

What you're describing -- I would use the phrase "authoriation democracy" instead -- describes Turkey. Or used to until Erdogan kinda 'baptized' himself of his rivals in Godfather fashion in the 2016 'coup'.

Or, yeah, Singapore

GratefulDisciple

@M.A.R. All I was saying is that there are other flavors of democracy out there than US "liberal democracy" and as a newbie in political philosophy I want to take the time to study them academically, to look at scholar-vetted histories of their overall "achievement" rather than either dismissing them outright or gulping their propaganda-serving idealist historiography (as Whig historians do for Britain, for example).

GratefulDisciple

21:35

@M.A.R. So you think what Xi Jinping has been doing in China for the past 10 years or so is similar to what Erdogan is doing in Turkey? Both acting like Godfather? Sounds plausible, and yet both seem very different than how Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore and how Suharto ruled Indonesia (a period that I and my parents have lived). It was a surprise to me that Suharto was portrayed very different from outside Indonesia.

BTW, I didn't imply that Suharto is in the same league as Lee Kuan Yew. From what I heard, Lee Kuan Yew was much more enlightened and was close to be a philosopher-king, while Suharto was an opportunist but yet managed to advance Indonesian economy while fattening his own coffer to a degree that I didn't expect when I lived there.

Mitch

22:38

Woohoo! I thought it was 6:30 when really it was 5:30 so now I have a full hour that I didn't think I had.

I will now put that magical new full hour to responsible use and...

watch youtube shorts of cats intimidating dogs.

Robusto

@Mitch A wise policy.

Mitch

@Robusto You learn things that way that you can't learn any way else.

Robusto

@Mitch nods sagely

Mitch

I mean people put a lot of work into filming their dogs and cats at every possible moment, waiting for those choice interactions.

And then they have to go through the labor of editing and posting the video.

I think they should be commended for their work.

Here's a thing I noticed.

Robusto

@Mitch And then while they're editing, the pets do something even more outrageously funny.

Too late, though. No camera work while editing.

Mitch

22:42

Because I've reduced my news intake purposefully (I hear enough without even trying), I've noticed that I don't know the day's weather forecast very well.

Robusto

Pro tip: If you go outside, you'll find out the weather right away.

Mitch

eg,I woke up this morning with extra snow on the ground, which usually I find out about and am prepared for the night before. Today it was wow what a shock I didn't know it was going to snow!

@Robusto I hear you but as an argument that seems to be missing some steps, eg the preparation part.

Robusto

@Mitch Well, you find out even quicker if you don't put clothes on.

Mitch

So amid all these robust institutions being gutted -on effing purpose, what I can't stand about this effing guy is that now I'm not always prepared for the weather.

@Robusto I've tried that. The way you learn is by not have pockets, so there's no where to put your key, because you'll kinda want it when the door shuts and locks automatically behind you.

Barefoot in the snow you didn't expect.

Robusto

nods sagely again

Mitch

22:48

shivers

peers yearningly through window

hears sirens in the distance

Robusto

nods sagely while shivering

CowperKettle

Mitch

I'd offer a cigarette and a light, but 1) I don't have any cigarettes on me, and 2) I don't smoke.

CowperKettle

> The British Library must store one copy of every single book published in the UK and Ireland. It houses over 200,000,000 publications, adds 6 miles (9.65 km) of new shelf space a year, and receives over 8000 new publications daily

Mitch

@CowperKettle Nice. When I say it snowed here, I mean it was like an inch, on top of melting snow and it was almost up to 10C this afternoon so the roads were clear without plowing. So things didn't look as nice here.

@CowperKettle I loved going to the basement of the big college library which had a similar mandate of collecting books). They had these special bookshelves that were stacked10 feet high and 50 feet long, and on these rollers which allosed each bookshelf to be compressed together except for one space barely large enough for a single person with a ladder,. And each shelf had a button to press so that the rollers would mover enough shelves to make a space at just that one spot.

But also that is a good case for only having digital copies.

I like my kindle, but I also like the personality of a book cover always in the same spot on a book shelf to remind me of the impressions I had while reading it.

CowperKettle

22:59

I have a pet tree.
It's like having a pet dog except the bark is quieter.

CowperKettle

23:14

> A parlour boarder is an archaic term for a privileged category of pupil at a boarding school. Parlour boarders are described by a modern historian as paying more than the other pupils, in return for which they got a room of their own.

GratefulDisciple

@CowperKettle Reminds me of Harriet Smith, a parlour boarder in Jane Austen's Emma, one of the main characters. But I think her boarding fee is covered by an anonymous gentleman which is why her status is questionable and that became a minor plot device.

CowperKettle

@GratefulDisciple I've just come across this term by stumbling upon "The Little Princess"

A LITTLE PRINCESS | Full Audiobook | by F. H. Burnett (The Secret Garden) * unabridged with text

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Apparently a hugely popular book, there's even a Russian movie of 1997 on it.

A Little Princess

A Little Princess is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, first published as a book in 1905. It is an expanded version of the short story "Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's", which was serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine from December 1887, and published in book form in 1888. According to Burnett, after she composed the 1902 play A Little Un-fairy Princess based on that story, her publisher asked that she expand the story as a novel with "the things and people that had been left out before". The novel was published by Charles Scribner's Sons (also publisher of St. Nicholas...

4 Hours of Mind Tricks to Fall Asleep to

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It's 4 am, so I'll try falling asleep

Mitch

LEVEL COMPLETED!

one hour got for free, easily wasted on crap!

@GratefulDisciple Saucy!

SmokeDetector

23:45

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Email in answer (79): "Suggestion" vs. "proposal"‭ by carlos polastri‭ on english.SE

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…