Nazi Bar Problem

The problem when you own a space that if you let certain groups of people in, such as, in this example, Nazis, you'll literally drive everyone else away from your space, so that what started off as a normal, ordinary space will become, essentially, a Nazi bar.

It's not only Nazis — it can be fascists, white supremacists, meth-heads, PUAs, cryptocurrency fanboys — some groups will be so odious to others that they will drive everyone else from your space, so the only solution that you can enact is to ensure that they don't come to your place, even if they're nice and polite and "follow your rules", because while they might, their friends won't, those friends have a history of driving away other people from other spaces.
Yeah, he kicked you out of the Discord, but he has the Nazi Bar Problem to deal with — he can't just let you in, you and your friends would drive away his other server members.
by tariqk December 05, 2021
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mathwashing

The act of using mathematical models, statistical analyses and data-centric approaches that are used to justify bullshit policies and terrible strategies. Mathwashing can occur in any stage of the analysis — it can be using the wrong kind of data, using the wrong kind of model, or even making the wrong kind of conclusions from the results provided. Whatever the cause, the results are the same — it uses the sanctity and the so-called objectivity of “math”, “data”, and “science” to justify policies and strategies with destructive, tragic and far-ranging effects.
Telling me that John McAfee said that Bitcoin's mathematics make financial bubbles impossible is mathwashing, George — the mathematical guarantees that the blockchain algorithm only guarantee that the whole damn thing works as a tamper-evident repository of data, not that fraud and asset bubbles are fundamentally impossible. Now, get your head out of your ass, and tell me how much of our life savings did you invest in the damn thing.
by tariqk December 12, 2018
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Libleft

Political compass meme term for people who identify with the bottom left corner of the political compass (the "ibertarian-left”), who often proudly tell everyone within earshot that Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Gertrude Stein and Karl Marx are in “their” team, but often ignoring the fact that Mahatma Gandhi was an anti-Semitic proto-Hindutva fundamentalist with weird ideas about women who got killed by another proto-Hindutva fundamentalist for not being fundamentalist enough, Nelson Mandela barely lasted a Presidential term because he was too left for his (arguably, kleptocratic neoliberal) compatriots after being in jail for over 30 years, Gertrude Stein was a cryto-TERF, and no one's been able to effectively implement Karl Marx's ideas for the 140+ years since he died.

In short, political non-entities whose only argument for their “ideology” is that they don't have, by sheer coincidence, genocidal maniacs on their corner of the political compass, mostly because the bar is so low that it excludes coercive state action from their list of acceptable policies.

They have Kropotkin though. Kropotkin's cool.

But still not enough to base an entire political identity on.
Telling me to support your policy proposal “because I'm a libleft uwu” is a terrible idea, Stuart, saying that is the oatmeal of political statements, it just means that you're against coercive state action against anyone, not that you're against with exploitation or structural discrimination, or that your brain is grounded in, you know, actual material circumstances.
by tariqk December 05, 2021
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Xennial

A terrible word used by early Millenials (born circa early 1980s) to disassociate themselves from those other younger millenials and to tell their Boomer parents and Gen-Xer elder siblings that they aren't like those other young people, they're not cringe, or whatever it is young people use today, they remember what it was like when VCR was king and TVs were made out of cathode tubes and there was no Internet.

Fallen out of disuse when those so-called Xennials realized that it doesn't matter how not-cringe you are, they're still gonna kill you with wage theft, student debt, and all the other tools of generational class war at their disposal.
Unlike those other Millenials, I am a Xennial, and I know what it is like to live without smartphones glued to my face every day.

No one cares, Kathy, we're all getting murdered with student debt, just lift your picket sign higher and shout louder.
by tariqk December 05, 2021
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Carry the Great Man

To actually take into account the costs of retaining a Great Man in any organization. Costs include the number of people said Great Man drives out of the organization due to their behavior, the amount of legal fees that they could expose said organization to due to anti-harassment lawsuits made by other members, organizational reputation loss, etc.
Clarence: …and that's why I recommend that the board does not terminate Mr. Stallman's role in our organization.

Kelly: Okay, go back to slide 15…

Clarence: Got you. What's your question, Kelly?

Kelly: I was afraid of that. You forgot to carry the great man. What happens when you do that, Clarence?

Clarence: Oh, right. Let me put that in the spreadsheet… huh. I guess we should fire Mr. Stallman's ass, then.

Kelly: I was afraid so.
by tariqk December 05, 2021
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sophopause

A boundary that forms between what an expert or a genius has every right to say what they like because they are unquestionably an expert about the thing they are talking about, and what they have absolutely no right to comment on because they are so invariably full of shit about it.

Sophopauses may be bound in time — say, for example, after a traumatic or life changing event, after they've smoked a blunt or drank too much alcohol, or may be bound in (metaphorical) space — someone may be completely insightful about certain topics, only to be so fucking stupid in other things.

From the Greek sophía, and the Latin pausa, in the same tradition of English that mashes Greek and Latin words together, because everything is horrible and nothing makes sense.
Talking to Dr. Roberts about world politics, race, evolutionary psychology, Bitcoin, or social sciences, while he's drunk? That's a bad move, because you'll cross his sophopause at Mach 3. The man is a brilliant statistician, but hoo boy does he believe in the weirdest conspiracy theories.
by tariqk December 11, 2018
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pareto-

Roughly but not exactly.

Like, when you say pareto-80 you don't exactly mean 80 percent, you really mean, roughly four out of five. Pareto-20 means one out of five, and saying that a scheme will likely fail at pareto-5 means it'll go okay so long as we don't roll a natural 1.
So, like, 20 percent of respondents say that—

That's bullshit, you pulled that number out of your ass.

Pareto-20, man. You're right, it's... (checks notes) closer to 18 percent, but that's not much of a difference, is it?
by tariqk July 13, 2022
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