Random Thoughts IV: the Abyss Gazes Back

[PhroX]

This whole sauce thing regarding BBQ seems off to me. Just get a good piece of meat, a little salt and pepper, then barbecue it. Don't need any fancy stuff. Very little beats a nice steak - beef or lamb - done on the BBQ.

As for pizza, simple is indeed best - nice thin Neapolitan style base, tomato sauce, mozzarella and Parma ham, then Parmesan and fresh basil (or maybe baby spinach) sprinkled over after it's been cooked (in a proper stone pizza oven of course).

 

[Ryika]

Oooh but imprisonment can be used for rehabilitation. Death cannot, unless you want to raise people as undead zombies to pay off their debts, but this is not a fantasy setting.

Is this still a response to the previous post?

If so, then I don't understand what this has to do with the time that is irreversibly lost while sitting in jail even if you're innocent. The damage from mistreatment in jail might be lower, but the overall statement is still the same; you lose time for something you didn't do, whether you're being punished, or "rehabilitated" for a crime that you didn't commit in the first place. You can certainly stop the enforcement of the punishment, and offer compensation for the imprisonment, and that's definitely an advantage compared to what you can do to a person (which is nothing, other than maybe compensating their family members), But you specifically said that you can't "reverse" death, and the parallel to that is that you can't "reverse" the time a person has spent in jail. That's why I said the devil is in the detail on the issue.

If it's supposed to be its own argument... well, yeah. I would think that the death sentence is usually used on people who would be considered unfit for rehabilitation anyway. My proposal went a bit further of course, but imho, if you're a person who has gang-raped a child, then I'd rather have 1000 of you executed than to have 999 rehabilitated successfully and 1 fall back into gang-raping another child later in life. One child is worth more than the lives of 1000 monsters. The problem here are once again wrong convictions.

You can let people out of jail though. And there is no utility gained from executing someone that isn't gained from imprisoning them for life.

It saves a lot of money and prevents them from potentially breaking free, to just name the two obvious ones.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

This whole sauce thing regarding BBQ seems off to me. Just get a good piece of meat, a little salt and pepper, then barbecue it. Don't need any fancy stuff. Very little beats a nice steak - beef or lamb - done on the BBQ.

As for pizza, simple is indeed best - nice thin Neapolitan style base, tomato sauce, mozzarella and Parma ham, then Parmesan and fresh basil (or maybe baby spinach) sprinkled over after it's been cooked (in a proper stone pizza oven of course).

I think many Americans, when referring to BBQ, are referring to smoked meats (whole hog, brisket, baby back ribs..) and not just the process of grilling meats. It's a highly specific definition of BBQ. Of course the idea of "the one true BBQ" is utterly ridiculous and dumb. Literally every nation on every corner of this world had their own version of BBQ, a.k.a. grilling things over open fire. matter of fact BBQ was the modus operandi for thousands of years. there is some unreasonable pride Americans take in their "special" BBQ that, many a times, really is just recipes they stole from slaves and appropriated for themselves, just as wide pypo did with blues/rock music and so many other things.

it's the same deal as with chili. people flip their stuff when you tell them you add beans or corn because muh puritanism. it is, of course, ridiculous. all BBQ traditions in America are to be treated with equal respect. but really, claiming "my state is the only one that makes true BBQ" is something that would be met with utter laughter if you left your flyover island. look at the vivid BBQ traditions in, say, Argentina with churrazco, Turkey with kebap, Germany (where we do whole hogs as well, probably came from here tbh), China where it's really entirely different to the rest of the world, Japanese with their obsession over charcoal grilled chicken skewers, the carribeans, Africa.. I could go on and on

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've received many glowing compliments for my spinach pizza.

It's annoying that neither of my preferred pizza places offer spinach as a topping other than as part of a specific specialty pizza and not as something that can be chosen on its own.

 

[MaryKB]

"boston" style with thick crust, spinach, cream, toasted almonds and black pepper is the bomb. blows regular american """"pepperony"""" abomination pizza out the water.

tbh the best pizzas are the ones that have five or less ingredients.

rocket, crudo, parmesan

mozza, mushrooms, artichokes, basil

and so on

I use a cake pan for my pizza, I create a deep-dish style that really works well with how I make my dough. I coat my pan with coconut oil, garlic powder, and italian seasoning. I'll usually roll mozzarella cheese into my crust, because well it makes it more fun! I mix chopped spinach with my freshly shredded mozzarella cheese, and I put a generous layer on over basic pizza sauce, and then on top I sprinkle parmesan cheese and dried parsley flakes. I totally agree how fewer ingredients are definitely better, I've seen some pizzas with just so much you can't even taste anything.

I don't have a brick or stone oven or anything so I can't do anything about that, but I turn my oven to maximum (550 degrees) when I'm cooking it.



Last week I made a pizza for my coworker who came over, and he's on a keto diet and he can't eat breads. So I made him a pizza from a chicken breast, by pounding it out with my mallet ahead of time to make it really thin (I got it to be like half a centimeter thick, and about ten inches wide!) and I prebaked that, and I also broiled one side to make it sort of crispy for the bottom. I then brushed the bottom with olive oil and sprinkled with garlic powder and italian seasoning, and on top I put pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni (he likes meat, his choice), parmesan and parsley. He said it's the best he's ever had, which made me very happy to hear!

 

[Cutlass]

It saves a lot of money and prevents them from potentially breaking free, to just name the two obvious ones.

The death penalty cost the taxpayers more than life imprisonment. And prison escapes are rare. You do, however, have the problem that with the death penalty, fewer of the guilty will ever be arrested, much less convicted.

 

[Ryika]

The death penalty cost the taxpayers more than life imprisonment.

That's true, but also misleading.

The death penalty in the USA isn't so expensive not because the process itself is expensive, it's expensive because that's the one time the judicial system is actually required to do their job as thoroughly as they can and move the chance for a false judgement as close to zero as possible. That's something they should be doing anyway, but of course with the massive prison complex in the US, it's not feasible. So this is a US-specific problem, not a problem with the death penalty itself, and I think we all agree that the US prison system is in desperate need of a reform.

And prison escapes are rare.

Sure.

You do, however, have the problem that with the death penalty, fewer of the guilty will ever be arrested, much less convicted.

I can't quite follow the logic about fewer arrests here, but the thing about conviction I don't see as a problem. Quite the opposite, it's how the system should be operating - if there's any reasonable doubt left, don't convict them.

 

[Cutlass]

I can't quite follow the logic about fewer arrests here, but the thing about conviction I don't see as a problem. Quite the opposite, it's how the system should be operating - if there's any reasonable doubt left, don't convict them.

Cops suck. Prosecutors suck. This is why innocent until proven guilty is enshrined in our legal code.

But the death penalty offers the sucks a loophole: They can threaten the innocent into pleading guilty to a lesser crime. Cops got what they wanted, a conviction without the need to have to, you know, actually do their jobs. Murdered got what he wanted, the investigation ceased before they were found.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Did the political compass test because I feel like my positions have changed quite a bit in the last year. I expected it would place me further to the left than last time (I was at roughly -5/-5), but it turned out that I moved slightly to the center (now at -4.25) by the standards of the test, and the larger change is actually that I moved much further into libertarian territory - now at -7.23. Surprised me at first, but then I thought about it, and it does make sense: The points in which I feel I moved further to "the left" are mostly social issues that are represented in the Authoritarian/Libertarian scale on the political compass.

The "People with serious inheritable disabilities should not be allowed to reproduce."-question gave me a surprisingly hard time given how much I think I value personal freedom, but in the end I did come around to the correct answer.

Do they ever change the questions on that thing? I think I've taken it three times and I'm sure it was the same stuff every time.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Random thought: "Memes are crap" is literally the dumbest thing I've read today including a bunch of right-wing nonsense

Yeah but you're always saying that. At least this time it's only the dumbest thing you've ready today, rather than ever. Kind of gives the impression you were only created a few months okay if you can keep reading "the dumbest thing you've ever read" on such a regular basis.

Also this is just an opinion you don't agree with, so isn't really "dumb" as such anyway.

Basically, it's because death is actually irreversible. A fine can be reimbursed, papers and documentation withdrawn can be reissued, and so on. But there's no real redress for killing somebody.

But in the kinds of societies that are being envisioned, where the government is rounding up "dissidents" and killing them as and when they want, what kind of redress is anyone going to get anyway? And how can you really redress losing 30 years of your life in prison?

I think you're answering the wrong question here actually. You pulled the wrong talking point out of the box. This is the answer you're supposed to use when someone asks why the death penalty is a bad thing in general. Yeah the more I re-read it, I see you just completely pulled a switch there and no-one seemed to notice.

 

[Ryika]

Cops suck. Prosecutors suck. This is why innocent until proven guilty is enshrined in our legal code.

But the death penalty offers the sucks a loophole: They can threaten the innocent into pleading guilty to a lesser crime. Cops got what they wanted, a conviction without the need to have to, you know, actually do their jobs. Murdered got what he wanted, the investigation ceased before they were found.

I don't see how that's supposed to be a problem inherent to the death penalty. People are already very willing to plead guilty for lesser crimes even if the thing they're threatened with is "only" a life-long prison sentence, even here in Germany where we surely don't have the nightmare cops that you're talking about, that's a thing that's in the news every now and then.

Do they ever change the questions on that thing? I think I've taken it three times and I'm sure it was the same stuff every time.

No, I think it was the exact same block of questions.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

But the death penalty offers the sucks a loophole: They can threaten the innocent into pleading guilty to a lesser crime. Cops got what they wanted, a conviction without the need to have to, you know, actually do their jobs. Murdered got what he wanted, the investigation ceased before they were found.

But don't they usually spend years/decades on death row anyway? It doesn't seem to be the case that if you're given the death sentence then you're swiftly despatched without any opportunity for appeal.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Yeah but you're always saying that. At least this time it's only the dumbest thing you've ready today, rather than ever. Kind of gives the impression you were only created a few months okay if you can keep reading "the dumbest thing you've ever read" on such a regular basis.

Also this is just an opinion you don't agree with, so isn't really "dumb" as such anyway.

I think you should look up "meme" and how it came to be historically and what it actually means and not conflate the word "meme" with the nowadays popular definition of "viral internet picture with funny caption", because that is certainly not (all) there is to memes.

one could make the argument that all human knowledge, in fact all of human culture, is mimetic.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I think you should look up "meme" and how it came to be historically and what it actually means and not conflate the word "meme" with the nowadays popular definition of "viral internet picture with funny caption", because that is certainly not (all) there is to memes.

one could make the argument that all human knowledge, in fact all of human culture, is mimetic.

Yes one could, or one could just recognise what the general usage of "meme" is today and assume I was talking about that. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely not above delving into the etymology and wider meanings of words in order to have pedantic arguments on the internet, not by a long chalk, but my experience has been that people don't tend to like it.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

The best BBQ is in NC. It is pork based and has a vinegar based sauce.

High on my list, certainly. I like vinegar in a sauce.

But yeah NC has awesome mustard-based bbq sauce.

I thought that was South Carolina.

This is the part of "traditional" NC BBQ that I like the least. I don't think the tastes go well together at all.

Yeah, don't understand mixing the palate cleanser with the dish. Like wrapping sushi with gari.

"boston" style with thick crust, spinach, cream, toasted almonds and black pepper is the bomb. blows regular american """"pepperony"""" abomination pizza out the water.

Sounds good but a thin crust would be preferable to focus the attention on the veggies.

 

[Cutlass]

I don't see how that's supposed to be a problem inherent to the death penalty. People are already very willing to plead guilty for lesser crimes even if the thing they're threatened with is "only" a life-long prison sentence, even here in Germany where we surely don't have the nightmare cops that you're talking about, that's a thing that's in the news every now and then.

Bigger stick, more fear generated.

But don't they usually spend years/decades on death row anyway? It doesn't seem to be the case that if you're given the death sentence then you're swiftly despatched without any opportunity for appeal.

That only works to the extent that someone is supporting them. People volunteer to help death row inmates. There's never enough volunteers for every case.

 

[Ryika]

Is it even a bigger stick, though? The death penalty completely avoids the years of suffering that a person would otherwise have to live through. I personally would rather be executed than having to live my life in jail, knowing that I've been convicted for a crime that I didn't commit.

But I see the argument, however, that's still a misuse of the system, and thus a problem with the system and not a problem with the death penalty itself.

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: This is the Random Thoughts thread, not the "have a multi-page discussion about one topic" thread. Change the topic please and maybe start a dedicated thread about the subject.

 

[Ryika]

It's such an immense privilege to be able to go into your kitchen, turn on the water, fill a bottle, take it back to your living room and be reasonably certain that you've got a clean drink in your hands.

 

[Takhisis]

I've received many glowing compliments for my spinach pizza.

Same here. Crate minds think alike.

It's such an immense privilege to be able to go into your kitchen, turn on the water, fill a bottle, take it back to your living room and be reasonably certain that you've got a clean drink in your hands.

Arakhor's words have worked magic, for you've finally made a statement with which I can agree 100%.