note that hanging out and drinking w/out money IS legal, but as soon as you sell a hot dog or a beer, boom now the state has some lawyers for you to talk to and you're 100% blocked until we are satisfied you have done everything we want.

> The book seems crazy wrong on how its mystical quest ends, and on its assumed connection to a computer simulation in our universe. But I presume that the author would admit to those errors as the cost of telling his story. However, the book does very well on physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and low level engineering. That is, on noticing how such things change as one moves from our 3D world to this 2D world, including via many fascinating diagrams. In fact this book does far better than most “hard” science fiction. Which isn’t so surprising as it is the result of a long collaboration between dozens of scientists.

The points about not knowing anybody are fair, but still, the obvious implication is that the comment, while coming from the left, is also suggesting that the MC should have privately been told the racial realities of that area. But the right to speak about that, too, is under attack. Is it or is it not okay to mention that majority black, southern, low income towns are likely to be extremely dangerous, and that poverty is a proxy for it, but that other methods of stereotyping are likely even more effective?

Or else, they'd just build fences, forbid anyone from living on the coast, and maintain this artificial continental boundary forever...?

Which one is it. If society didn't hold back women, would they win or not? Arg 1 says no, arg 2 says yes.

If the event were fairly constructed, arg 1 says they'd win, arg 2 says they still wouldn't.

So you've identified two possible problems; if the first is true (events are inherently biased) that completely proves that social discrimination is irrelevant (because the event design is so sexist women can never win)

If the second is true (women only lose because society holds them back) then the claim that the events are inherently biased (enough to totally prevent female wins) has to be false because either they can or can't win ex social bias. Qed either claim being true forces the other to be false, the args are contradictory.

EDIT: yes, I may be falsely thinking point-wise rather than distributionally. Both of the factors you mention do push women out further in the distribution of placements

Why would someone trap themselves in an ideology which depends on believing that women are physically equal to men when men are obviously bigger, stronger, more insanely competitive and dedicated to meaningless status games. That's not necessarily a plus.

Also you still haven't really explained why "run X miles from A to B" is a tilted contest. Yet "swim Y miles from France to England" (an event I believe women are somewhat better at than men?) isn't.

> “The Overconfident Optimist and His Ill-Advised DIY Project.”

This is what I mean. The article just started and he's defining his conclusion for all readers.

Then, he compares Fenley to a "Child-destroying slackline" (which apparently never actually hurt anyone?). Fenley bought some property and tried to artistic type stuff. It is really slimy to compare him to such a horrible thing as hurting a child. That linked tweet is another "we know better" type of guy who's telling someone else how wrong they are. Yeah, doing risky stuff is risky, and I definitely don't think kids should (or would) be allowed to ride that thing, but I think they'd figure it out real quick (possibly after the creator died testing it).

This is really a cultural thing - puritan types freaking HATE how unplanned, disorganized, and free/careless other cultural groups are in the US (i.e. appalachian/borderer people). So reading this as straight up cultural mockery/status management/ridicule makes it clear. Its basically equivalent to a 19th century "lets go to other countries and laugh at people's behavior" type of travelogue by northeast USA "know better than you" types criticizing other cultural groups for the behavior they don't like (monster trucks, bbq, hotdog eating competitions, basically anything that's just not done in the uptight north-east USA)

Also: author, did you personally ever make 900k from a patent? So yeah, people are weird, have bad/dumb ideas. And I can feel you kind of like the guy despite everything. So like, get over the contempt you feel, figure out what he's got that gave him the skill to invent something, and rise above your need to mock him. The rest of the article is fine in tone, just fix the initial disrespectful comparisons. Something like "I looked into this guy and found a complicated, naive, but also gifted guy...

  300 traders, The most likely time served is 20-30y

  270 traders, he'll be sentenced to 20y+, 86% 

  135 traders, he'll be sentenced to 50y+, 27%