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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 4th, 2025

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  • Looking at recent precedent and using that to assess probabilities of current motives and actions is inductive reasoning, not “engaging in false rhetoric.”

    And another bit of induction is worthwhile: when someone lies to you tens of thousands of time, what possible reason would you have to assume they’re telling the truth this time, especially when it contradicts their own previous statements and actions, such as changing rules of engagement to disregard civilian casualties when selecting targets, or advocating a policy of killing the families of foreign leaders?







  • The way I view it is that fraud is a crime, but we also have an ethical obligation not to let ourselves be marks. Same goes for lots of other crimes. Legal penalties are one deterrent. Raising the barrier to entry for a criminal activity by being a hard target is another. Both are good. But there will always be gullible, vulnerable people, and saying that they’re fair game is much too close to eugenics. Healthy societies protect the vulnerable, but also train people to be less vulnerable when that’s possible.