[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Disclaimer: This post is on sensitive topics of sex and power. I try to make it clear when I make a claim; beware drawing indirect inferences; I rarely value signal.
As promised in my last post, I now return after a civility pause to the topic of comparing sex and income inequality and redistribution. This post will be unusually long, as I’m trying harder to speak carefully.
If a feature of individuals can be compared across individuals, and ranked, then we can say that some people have more of it than others. We can then talk about how equally or unequally this feature is distributed across a population. Some features are seen as good things, where most people like to have more of it, all else equal. And the values that people place on some good things exhibit diminishing marginal utility (DMU). That is, people put a higher value on getting a bit more of it when they don’t have much, relative to when they have more.
For good things, we usually seek policies (including informal social norms and formal programs by government, charities, and other organizations) that can raise its distribution, all else equal, and get more of it to more people. And for good things with DMU, unequal distributions are regrettable, all else equal, as any one unit is worth more to those who have less. Any policy that changes a distribution is by definition said to “redistribute” that thing. (If you doubt me, consult a dictionary.) A policy that reduces inequality more might be said to do “more” redistribution.
Eddie Murphy has how many children with how many different women?
Of course all else is usually not equal. People vary in their ability to produce things, in the value they place on things, and in how much those people are valued by their society. Both the things that people value, and the arrangements that produce them, tend to be complex, multi-dimensional, and context-dependent. “Income” and “sex” are both labels that point to such complex, multi-dimensional and context-dependent good things. Both are usually produced via unique pairings, sex between a man and a woman, and income between an employer and an employee. The value of these pairings vary greatly across possible pairings, and also with a lot of other context.
Welfare not only provides money, but frees up the precious resource of time, for people like Desmond Hatchet to have 30 children with 11 different women.
For income, centuries of effort has resulted in several simple accounting methods by which we can define each person’s “income”, though we know that these measures miss a lot of what we care about. For example, regions vary in living expenses, people vary in their health-induced medical expenses, some jobs are easier and more enjoyable than others, some people have more expensive tastes than others, some assets are illiquid and unique, and there’s a key difference between what people own and what they consume. All these issues make it hard to say exactly who has more “income”.
This complexity makes it harder to analyze policies that influence income. Even so, when arguing about policy, people often mention income redistribution advantages or disadvantages of policies, such as regarding taxes, schools, medicine, housing, immigration, and much more. (Such policies usually let either side veto each particular employee-employer pairing.) Reducing income inequality is widely seen as a legitimate policy goal, even if people don’t agree on its priority relative to other goals. Income, and our related informal norms and formal policies, have changed greatly over the last few centuries, though less so over the last half century.
On sex, we might in principle compare individual counts of simple sex acts to get a rough indication of sex inequality, though we know that such a measure would miss a lot that matters. But even though sex is complex, hard to specify, and varied, it is also clearly important to many (both male and female). As is income. People often explicitly mention effects on sex when arguing for and against policies in many areas, such as marriage, prostitution, dating, birth control, nudity, pornography, drugs, child care, housing, and recreation. In the last half century, we’ve seen big changes in both informal norms and formal policies related to sex. People seem to be more sensitive today on the topic of policies related to sex, relative to those related to income, perhaps in part due to recent changes being bigger.
In my April 26 post, I noted that recently some people (self-labelled “incels”) have explicitly and publicly sought less sex inequality, a few via violence, and I wondered why they are so few relative to, and overlap so little with, those seeking less income inequality. I mentioned a few specific possible policies, such as cash transfers conditional on individual sex rates, legalized prostitution, and stronger support for monogamy and marriage. (I did not support or oppose any specific policies.)
But these were just examples; the fact that sex is so complex and integrated into so many social practices implies that a great many policy levers must exist. Who has how much sex with who is influenced by what we count as status and beauty, where people live, where and how they meet, how they talk to each other, what they can learn about each other, and especially by where and when they can talk and meet privately.
I’m far from the first person to consider such policies. Historically, societies have passed laws to discourage premarital and extramarital sex, and to limit how many wives or concubines each man could have. Informal gossip and propaganda has tried to lower the sex appeal of rakes, foreigners, and the promiscuous, and to raise that of soldiers. Policies have limited where and when people might meet in privately, such as segregating student dorms by gender, and prohibiting unmarried couples from renting hotel rooms.
Priti Patel today signalled a fresh crackdown on illegal migrants crossing the English Channel as she also vowed to tackle ‘vexatious’ asylum claims.
The Home Secretary conceded that there are currently higher numbers of people trying to cross the stretch of water.
But she said she is working to agree a scheme with Paris which would allow Britain to return illegal migrants to France after they have come ashore in the UK or if they are picked up while at sea.
She also vowed to focus Home Office efforts on combatting ‘vexatious methods’ and ‘vexatious claims’ around illegal immigration and asylum.
Well, good luck with that. Patel, like every other politician is ignoring the elephant in the room - the UN Refugee Convention 1951 and the 1967 Protocol, to which both Britain and France are signatories. The Convention states…
The principle of non-refoulement [pushbacks] is so fundamental that no reservations or derogations may be made to it. It provides that no one shall expel or return a refugee against his or her will in any manner whatsoever, to a territory where he or she fears threats to life or freedom
But France is a safe country so they are not genuine refugees ?
A refugee does not cease to be a refugee simply because they leave one host country to travel to another. A person is a refugee because of the lack of protection by their country of origin.
The Convention also states the basic rights of refugees as going well beyond ‘physical safety’ and include freedom of movement within the state, rights to work, access to housing, education, travel documents and more. The absence of ‘means of subsistence’ is justification for moving on and seeking a ‘decent human life’.
Illegal ?
The Convention further stipulates that, subject to specific exceptions, refugees should not be penalised for their illegal entry or stay. This recognises that the seeking of asylum can require refugees to breach immigration rules.
When it comes to refugee status feelings matter. Does the individual feel safe ? This isn’t lost on the likes of Amnesty International and other NGO’s known to tutor would be refugees on the right things to say and how to behave during assessments. Amnesty recorded the words of Josue, a 53 year old from Honduras, on the Mexico - Us border..
I don’t feel safe here. Anything can happen, because I’m Honduran. The police here are very corrupt and they steal the money of lots of people.
The 1951 Convention gives human rights lawyers the upper hand in any court case concerning asylum and refugee status, as in April of last year, when a US federal court issued a preliminary injunction banning the further implementation of Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ aka the ‘Migrant Protection Protocol’.
It’s hard to accept any politician or political party as being serious about ending the ‘refugee’ problem unless they first announce that they are withdrawing the country from the 1951 Convention. The current system only really benefits organized crime - people smugglers and lawyers - and is unfit for purpose. Free of the Convention, countries can decide for themselves whether or not to accept refugees and if they believe an individual or group of people are worthy of refugee status and are willing to provide sanctuary, they can cut out the middle men and go collect; which is something Britain did for the Ugandan Asians and Hong Kong Chinese.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 28 April 2020 04:56.
National Geographic Channel’s “Mars: Making the New Earth”
Published by space and astronomy, 10 June 2017
In National Geographic Channel’s “Mars: Making the New Earth”, award winning writer/producer Mark Davis and legendary Mars animator Dan Maas collaborate with McKay on the first in depth visualization of what it would take to turn a cold, dead planet into a living world.
Elon Musk wants to build a metropolis on Mars starting in 2024.
With particular attention to the Manichean (trickster) evolution of those evolved in temperate climates where competition is more against other groups (thus, evolving trickery) as opposed to those evolved in climates where nature, Augustinian challenges (natural challenges) are the greater concern, i.e., in protracted spans when food and shelter are the greatest challenge and threat to survival: we might consider what can happen when Manicheans are introduced to habitats of the northern, “naive” species.
There is an analogy to the introduction of invasive species to habitats where the species are naive - not having evolved defense against the invasive; but while this tends to be a phenomenon of accident in the animal world - e.g., invasive species being carried along in ships - it can be compounded by deliberate imposition in the social world.
Naive species and the introduction of manichean species
Social groups evolved in circumstances where brutal and cyclical elements of nature deprive food and ready shelter for extended periods are less the challenge, are put in more direct competition with other groups [hypothesized of Middle Easterners] for easier resource and recourse in shelter; thus develop trickery (“Manichean devils”) to compete with the other groups for resource as opposed to those [hypothesized of Europeans, esp. north] evolved more in the circumstances where the challenge comes more from brute nature (“Augustinian devils”); who become stronger in STEM disciplines but somewhat naive species and socially gauche - dupes compared to Manicheans if they are introduced to their habitat (nation); and providing more reason for them to recognize these groups, despite any crypsis (phenotypic appearance like the in group despite being of a genetic outgroup), more reason to recognize them as out groups - belonging to another nation.
While the powers that be with their liberal “pan-mixia” agenda are of course only reluctant protectors of the borders and ever the more pernicious abusers of control of individual liberties within the borders by means of modern technology and the excuse of pandemic, the key counter to them is, of course, achieving ethnohomogeneity and focusing on how to do it.
This is to be done by means of the DNA Nations and unionization on its basis.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 25 April 2020 05:00.
The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
‘The Data Is In — Stop The Panic And End The Total Isolation’: Fmr. Stanford Chief Of Neuroradiology, Dr. Scott Atlas, discusses his viral column in The Hill
BY DR. SCOTT W. ATLAS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 04/22/20 12:30 PM
EDT THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.
Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 22 April 2020 12:08.
Meaning that we’re in this for the long haul, with serious economic impact.
Coronavirus: Major European tourist events cancelled - BBC News
22 April 2020
By the end of this week Italy will announce a plan to gradually exit its lockdown, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said.
In a Facebook post, Mr Conte said the country could not give up its policy of “maximum caution”, and said Italy would reopen in line with “serious scientific policy”.
“A reasonable expectation is that we will apply it from May 4,” he said.
Italy has reported 24,648 deaths, the highest recorded toll in Europe.
Data released on Tuesday showed the number of people currently confirmed as infected fell for the second consecutive day. But deaths rose by 534 in the previous 24 hours, compared with a rise of 454 announced on Monday.
Spain’s famous annual San Fermin bull-running festival in July has been cancelled because of the coronavirus crisis.
“As expected as it was, it still leaves us deeply sad,” said acting mayor Ana Elizalde in a statement from the local Pamplona town hall.
The festival, which draws thousands of participants and was made famous in Ernest Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises”, has seldom been cancelled in its history.
It is the second major European tourist event to be cancelled today after it was announced that Oktoberfest, the famous annual German beer-drinking festival which sees six million people travel to Munich, will not take place.
So we all have to stay in our houses to stop the spread, everyday there’s videos of the police abusing their powers in the name of this ‘lockdown’ but they don’t mind 15,000 people a day flying into the country? - From Good Morning Britain audience. Reported by Daily Express
UK coronavirus lockdown: what are the rules, and when will it be lifted?
Government has closed schools, pubs, restaurants, cafes, gyms and other businesses under new lockdown measures.
Boris Johnson has placed the UK on a police-enforced lockdown with drastic new measures in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak.
The Prime Minister ordered people only to leave their homes under a list of “very limited purposes”, banned public gatherings of anyone not from the same household and ordered the closure of non-essential shops.
Every citizen must comply with these new measures and the relevant authorities, including the police, have been given the powers to enforce them through fines and dispersing gatherings.
These measures were introduced on March 23, and theThese measures were introduced on March 23, and the Government had stated these measures would be reviewed after three weeks, and relaxed if the evidence showed this was possible….
Britons furious as UK not testing 15,000-a-day arriving in UK airports: ‘Ridiculous!
MATT HANCOCK joined Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain today in a heated discussion regarding the government’s current plans to continue to tackle coronavirus. However, fans were left furious as they heard the Health Secretary reveal that people are arriving in the UK from coronavirus hotspots and are not being tested for the deadly virus.
Good Morning Britain viewers were left furious today as Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed there was a distinct lack of testing at airports for people coming into the UK from coronavirus hotspots. Morgan and Hancock engaged in a very heated debate over the subject and viewers also hit out at the health secretary online.
After Reid quizzed Hancock on the government’s exit strategy for the end of the lockdown, Morgan was keen to ask whether those still arriving in the UK were being tested for Covid-19
Referencing the importance of testing, Morgan asked: “If it’s so crucial, why are we still having all our airports open, flying in from coronavirus hotspots like New York, like Italy, like China.
“It doesn’t make sense to me that we are allowing tens of thousands of people to come into our airports and walk into our communities without even a basic test.
“And given that we know that many people can be asymptomatic. Can you explain that?
“We do of course have different treatment from different places according to how serious the outbreak is-” Hancock began to respond.
But Morgan interrupted: “How many people are you testing at airports?
Hancock explained: “The number of people coming through has dropped very very dramatically and very low -
“How many have come in this week?” Morgan interrupted.
“About 15,000,” Hancock replied, with Morgan hitting back: “So that’s about 15,000 a day without any test?”
Hancock’s admission left those watching at home furious and many took to Twitter to express their anger.
“#GMB @piersmorgan great question on why are all these people coming in from hotspots untested, why!!!? We will never get out of this going round in circles,” one viewer raged.
Another added: “So we all have to stay in our houses to stop the spread, everyday there’s videos of the police abusing their powers in the name of this ‘lockdown’ but they don’t mind 15,000 people a day flying into the country?” #GMB.
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Clinton sell-out, Maxwell’s Judeo-supremacism and the hoarding of sexual resource.
Eddie Murphy has how many children with how many different women?
Welfare not only provides money, but frees up the precious resource of time, for people like 
Ignoring the elephant in the room
‘The Data Is In — Stop The Panic And End The Total Isolation’: Fmr. Stanford Chief Of Neuroradiology, 