100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
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User ID: 2039
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
While it does disprove that claim in the isolated sense of "no other politician" .... it does so with a case that probably should not have been brought against Edwards and that he beat.
You're correct in a very specific way, but zooming out ... you're correct for reasons that circularly point back to my assertion.
I'm not trying to "win" this argument at this point. I'm trying to highlight that shitty politically motivated trials ... have always been shitty politically motivated trials.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
Many in the Democratic Party legal establishment were baffled by Breuer’s decision to green light the case, particularly because of suspicions that partisan politics played a role in the aggressive pursuit of Edwards by federal prosecutors in North Carolina.
...
That unit came under protracted public criticism in recent years over what the Justice Department found was prosecutorial misconduct in the pursuit of then-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on charges he filed false ethics reports by omitting the value of gifts and renovations to his home.
...
As a result of failures in the Stevens case, which was brought during the Bush administration, Holder changed much of the Public Integrity Section’s leadership and ordered new training for prosecutors across the department in their responsibilities. Two prosecutors were also ordered briefly suspended after an internal probe.
...
Jurors also got an up-close look at the prosecution’s star witness, Andrew Young, the aide who falsely claimed paternity of Edwards’s and Hunter’s child. Records showed Young diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Edwards donors to pay for his own expenses and a pricey new home he was building in North Carolina.
...
The Justice Department said in 2009 that it would pursue criminal campaign finance cases only where there was “no doubt” that the FEC agreed the “underlying conduct” was illegal. No such finding appears to have ever been made in Edwards’s case, and at least one current commissioner said publicly that he doubted Edwards’s alleged actions were illegal.
...
U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles excluded most evidence about the FEC’s views of Edwards’s case. However, jurors did hear the Edwards campaign’s compliance officer testify that she saw no requirement to report the payments related to his mistress and never heard from the FEC that they needed to be reported. The jury also heard a former FEC chairman say he’d never heard any discussion of whether payments to or for a mistress could be considered donations.
And this insane "history rhymes" banger:
Another problem that may have tripped up prosecutors: proving that Edwards knew his alleged actions were illegal, something the government must show to get a conviction in a campaign finance case.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
You seem to have more detailed awareness of the case, I'll admit that.
I'd like to point out I think we're on the same side, my guy.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
Action starts at about 30 second mark
- His vertical is impressive
- "Nah, fuck that that!" is equivalent to "Leroy Jenkins!" as a call to immediately do something crazy.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
This is a very narrow appreciation of the case and zero appreciation of the context.
Prosecutorial discretion is employed literally everyday in America. And it is up and down the socioeconomic chain and goes left and right. In Baltimore, they sometimes decide not to prosecute multiple felons on gun charges because ... racism or something. When it comes to campaign finance laws, as I understand it, it's close to impossible to run a national level campaign without accidentally breaking the laws a few times - which is why these are almost always handled by the FEC with, at most, fines and public disclosures.
Alvin Bragg wanted to shoot his shot with this case and he did. As @jeroboam said, no one believes this case would've been brought against any other politician besides Trump.
So, while what happened inside the narrow walls of the courtroom may be all on the up and up (which, right now, I believe more than I doubt) ... and while a good deal of blame here should be on Trump's defense team for going full retard ... the facts are that targeted prosecutorial discretion brought a case into a courtroom that would've never made it off a legal pad in any other context. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, Mr. Shapiro.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
Agree. Once you decide the ship really is going down, you stop showing up to fix the leaks and keeping the rudder straight .... and just start looting the supply stocks, picking out your life raft, and hope some ditzy redhead leaves you some room on the door.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
Such a classic British elitist attitude to employ. I would love to see a time-warp BBC covering the Irish Potato Famine; "Hibernian brutes act with unabashed lack of gentlemanly courage by not starving to death peacefully"
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
2d ago
The simple fact is that this guy is a soup-to-nuts career academic.
Which means he's basically been an anon posting on a very expensive board for years and has sat in the stew of his own filth echo chamber without interruption.
Although N.N. Taleb is increasingly crazy, his concept about Skin In The Game is a good one. Career academics who never ventured outside of those ivory towers should be treated with great suspicion. They live in a land of make believe ideas.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
2d ago
Science-like, math adjacent techno-babble is currently in vogue. I have the suspicion that you may have seen this to some extent during the Moon race in the 1960s.
I distinctly remember some horrible fluff piece by, I think, Business Insider (which is the smoothest brain "professional" publication on earth) fawning over Elon Musk and his "management technique known as 'First Principles'"
It gets more cringe when you have two worlds intersect. I have a limited background in defense contracting and there's now a bunch of silicon valley types flooding into that market. I keep hearing dudes who have zero military experience talking about "accelerating the killchain." It makes me laugh, cry, and drink.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
Definitely a chicken and the egg problem. Winners are gonna win, and they often do winner stuff (i.e. McKinsey, Harvard MBA) even when they don't necessarily need it.
A lot of my dyspeptic feedback here is derived from a deep hatred for the PMC types who come out of these kind of backgrounds. It's not that everyone from McKinsey is bad. In fact, I'd say that most aren't. But there is an often over-represented few who collect all the merit badges (Ivy education, McKinsey, maybe a stint in government) and sort of skip-level-up to real positions of influence ... to totally shit the bed when it matters. My current poster child for this is one Tony Blinken.
I don't care if a bunch of McKinsey dudes get together, raise capital, and then set that cash on fire trying to do Uber for Cats or whatever. I do care when they somehow get hired at an already growing company (or an established one) and then try to continue to coast on buzzwords and handshakeful-ness while failing to lead and make decisions. They'll probably end up failing upwards to do it all again. This is the true curse of the PMC. They are parasites who often face little to no consequences while those they "manage" can experience real career setback and failure.
Private Equity types have, at least, a very cut and dry success rubric. They often are also more transparent with who they are and what they're trying to do. PE as a career is much more results oriented and its hard to coast by with just the right merit badges.
Somewhere at McKinsey, however, the person who was flying high on the DEI accounts for the past several years is now "strategically pivoting" to a role as an "expert" in AI ... or AI ethics / alignment / effective altru-shitism. And that is a $500k / yr parasite.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4d ago
Don't make the mistake of thinking management == business.
I'm actually fan of disciplined and standardized management. I like that a lot of MBA grads are kind of robots like that - it creates more standardization and predictability across public markets.
But I've seen some awful-hilarious situations in which a McKinsey style cyborg thinks they can "Start a Business" because of all of their wonderful management experience and quickly realizes (or doesn't) that .... they always already had an organization to manage. Operating without that org was impossible.
These people are systems operators. Again, it's a skill I greatly admire (especially at scale and complexity. I've often wondered what it would be like to be a shipping executive, for instance) --- But it isn't "business" in the sense of determining what to bring to a market, what market need your offering solves, how to price it, how to sell it, how to appeal to customers etc. etc.
I can meet you half way and maybe rephrase "business" to "entrepreneurship" -- but that just risks making my point even more obvious. Very few schools even attempt to "teach" entrepreneurship and those that do are often the butt of jokes - deservedly so.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4d ago
I feel like this is a low-effort "I disagree" comment.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4d ago
Cool. Seems like we agree.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4d ago
In my updated comment I also wrote:
People don't need another snake oil salesman to sell them on bullshit like mindfulness and detachment. The unavoidable truth is that much of life is either boring, or frustrating, or unfair, or just random, or sort of unsatisfying. Trying to change those basics facts is foolhardy. Dealing with them is the mission of religion, philosophy, psychedelics, what have you. But the one guaranteed thing not to work is "just ... let go."
Yes, this is an editorial argument that isn't about parsing facts but my own opinions about certain topics.
Does this not qualify as effortful under your rubric?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4d ago
GROUP 1: ALL OF THE BUSINESS ACTIVITIES.
You have to realize that you're going to be doing EVERY job in the business for at least a while. That means:
- Sales and marketing
- Product building or service delivery (depending on if you are a product or service company)
- Operations (finance, accounting, paperwork etc.)
If you are one person company, you can do all of these things as you gradually get better and, eventually, probably have the cashflow to outsource number 3. If you add true partners (think in the law firm sense) you can scale a little better than linearly this way and eventually have specializations across partners (one is the Rainmaker, the other is the genius Dev etc.)
So, that leads to the first big questions: are you any good at ALL of these? If the answer is "I think so," you're probably going to have a rude awakening. If the answer is "I don't like to do X" you're going to fail. If the answer is "I have some experience in all of these things, and I believe I am basically competent" - congratulations, you probably are at about at 50/50 shot.
GROUP 2: TIMELINES AND CASH CONVERSION
How long can you afford to not make any money?
You answer needs to be "at least six months" If you don't have six months of your living expenses ON HAND RIGHT NOW LITERALLY WHILE READING THIS SENTENCE, you won't necessarily fail, but you're risking a big part of your financial health. To be fair - lots of people have done that at succeeded, I would just say you need to know that going in in order to be able to handle the stress.
Metrics you need to understand and track:
What's the full length of your sales cycle from prospect identification to close? (If you don't know what those terms are ... you aren't ready)
What payment terms are you offering? Net 30,60,90?
Are you spending money upfront on inventory? Digital marketing? Business trips to meet clients or customers? If so, when, and how much?
Those are the basic components of your cash conversion cycle. So now, big question number 2:
Do you have enough money to survive your first full cash conversion cycle and will the revenue be large enough to support yourself?
If the answer to that is "No" ... you're not necessarily sunk. You just have to raise outside capital. A good way to do that is to build a deck that gives the impression you are at least aware of the idea above. But, decks should primarily focus on product-market fit and theory of the product first.
Smart people aren't any better at business than dumb people. There is no skill called "business." Business School (MBAs) are accounting, fundraising, and basic systems thinking courses. They don't teach any business at business schools because it's impossible to teach business all you can do is do business (to be a little less trite: Business school lacks something very important: customers or clients...Every "market analysis" or "strategy development" is done with a rational agent stand-in for a customer segment. This is like war-gamming against an adversary who does ONLY the basics of infantry maneuver).
So, what's going to happen is, you're going to spend 6 - 12 months of your money or someone else's money to see if you're any good at business-ing. If you this post is full of things you don't understand, you'll probably fail. If you totally already get everything i'm writing, you'll still probably fail. If you've already raised $3m in pre-seed funding - you've already failed because you probably won't be able to keep your valuation increasing in later rounds and your VCs are going to push you to capture market at unsustainable customer acquisition costs, you'll begin to fudge some numbers, and end up bunkies with SBF.
I normally wouldn't jump in here but ... I'm literally that guy.
Almost all of my comments are effortful. Look at my post history. I've had two 1-day bans which I literally pre-called and 100% agree with (I got personal, which was wrong).
If you're looking for 100% adherence to only effort posts, you're inviting mods to over police everything. It's interesting, there was another top level post not too long ago bemoaing how everything here is turning into essay-length screeds. Balance matters.
EDIT: I updated the target comment. And now I'm updating this one. Effort posts all around.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6d ago
Maylene and The Sons of Disaster are on an east coast tour.
Cheap beer and parking lot cigarettes before and after the shows.
Lots of piercings and multi-colored hair. None of the chicks really dance. There's a scary Russian who plays bass, I think.
Is this a post from /r/thathappened ?
This sounds like such a fucking LARP
EDIT: To make this an effort post and to be a good Mottizen.
The reason this obvious fictitious story is so reprehensible is because it's fallacy actually doubles down against that thing which the author is ostensibly advocating; detachment, serenity, peace.
The fact of the matter (that I can't prove is fact but is, yet, still obvious and factual) is that this dude made up this LARP of a story to demonstrate how much he doesn't care. If you're the guy yelling "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK" as loud as you can ... you're a walking contradiction. Add on top of that some subtle bragging and an implication that this enlightened fellow was so put together, self-assured, and confident that the BRIGAND HE CONFRONTED WAS FORCED TO YIELD TO THE SUPERIOR SPECIMEN. Seriously dude, fuck off with all that nonsense.
People don't need another snake oil salesman to sell them on bullshit like mindfulness and detachment. The unavoidable truth is that much of life is either boring, or frustrating, or unfair, or just random, or sort of unsatisfying. Trying to change those basics facts is foolhardy. Dealing with them is the mission of religion, philosophy, psychedelics, what have you. But the one guaranteed thing not to work is "just ... let go."
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6d ago
I think Terrence Howard has a truly above average aptitude for language and verbal reasoning.
The scientific underpinnings of what he's talking about are nonexistent. It's gobbledy-gook nonsense. But it sounds cohesive and logical. He is obeying and staying within his basic axioms (which are all bananas). It is no different that a buzz-wordy consultant who says "if we align incentives to drive synergy, we can realize asymmetric outcomes that act as network multipliers" or the Progressive Activist who says, "active anti-racism necessitates a conscious awareness of embedded attitudes and beliefs that are not necessarily learned but may be, nevertheless, omnipresent due to cultural inertia."
They're all playing by their own rules, but the rules are made up and divorced from reality. This is LARPing, this is D&D "You can't use lightning bolt without rolling at least 15 on summoning first!" It's fun to do with your friends, but you're not allowed to call it science ... or non-fiction.
Because it is fiction! And fiction is about creating engaging stories and narratives for people. And this is exactly what Terrence Howard is doing - creating a narrative for people to feel like they've "uncovered" some hidden truth about basic math, multiplication, the elements, space, whatever. And the bonus narrative is that he's like really,really,super,duper genius smart. So, I can feel good about watching Hustle and Flow because the dude playing the street pimp is actually on a meta-narrative about the frequency-hopping abilities of music and sexual slavery .... I think.
Truth is elusive, but we love the sound of it.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6d ago
Not quite an overlap, but I always thought the Bosch series on Amazon would be good couples watching. Start with the first season and give it time, the characters take a little bit of time to get dynamic.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6d ago
Turns out that general information standards a kind of timeless.
There are some elite level ML engineers I've worked with who all have .... Library Sciences degrees.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6d ago
with sufficient will-to-power and unquestionable primacy, have power over what is in a man's heart itself.
I like, and agree, with this.
By contrast, liberalism and progressivism fundamentally surrender that what others do or are is out of one's control
Totally agree re: liberalism, but, in the case of progressivism I think the case is that while it does "surrender that what others do or are is out of control," it also makes hard right vs. wrong value judgments. Phrased differently, "I can't control what's in another person's heart, but I can damn sure tell (with authority) if it's good or bad and, therefore, if that person is good or bad."
And that's a massive, massive problem because, followed to its logical extreme, you get to genocide. No, I don't think that's hyperbolic. From some of the speech laws in the UK to BLM in the US, progressive movements move quickly down the path of "disagreement with us is a clear demonstration of evil." If something is truly, deeply "evil" you can easily deduce what the next logical step would be in "dealing" with it.
As an (aspiring) TradCath, I am actually very much okay with hard good vs. bad value judgement - but only in a transcendental sense. I have no problem thinking someone is evil but will wait for The Big Man Upstairs to mete out whatever punishments are warranted in the afterlife. Back on planet earth, I definitely do not want The State to be the high moral arbiter. That's insanely dangerous.
I am not a squishy "live and let level" humanist moral relativist. I believe there is definitely right and wrong, good and evil. I think it's often plain to see which is which. But a political ideology shouldn't be the rubric for that judgement, and certainly not the enforcement executive for perceived transgressions. Progressivism doubles down on all of that by creating a kind of secular quasi-religion. It's a cult, and we're seeing it go through what all cults do; internal strife and self-destruction because of untenable internal contradictions.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
8d ago
I tend to associate progressives as moving more quickly toward a destination, and conservatives as pulling back and slowing the rate of change to prevent mistakes.
Couldn't agree more.
There is a basic, universe level quirk of math that, I think, does a great job of capturing the conservative mindset:
The relative loss-gain imbalance; If I have a 10% reduction in any starting quantity, what do I need to reclaim to get back to even? It isn't 10%, it's about 11% (roughly).
Recovering from a mistake or loss takes more effort than the magnitude of the loss itself. Therefore, massive changes happening quickly in any direction are a bad thing. I am some (rare) times empathetic to progressive policy intended outcomes but their proposed policy functions are simply too large, too fast and, therefore, the risk of a fuck-up is so large that I think, in many cases, it represents a society level threat.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
8d ago
Promiscuous girls with tattoos and one side of their head shaved make me go crazy.
Hit the nail on the head. I will never not be attracted this aesthetic, but have enough first hand experience to know where it leads. I think for a fair amount of guys who have had above average "success" with women (and who can review their experiences thoughtfully and with honesty), there comes a point where they decide to trade high variance and FUN for lower variance stability. In other words; never try to make a ho a housewife, but trade in the hos for a housewife. That's a little crass, but it's the most accurate reflection of what goes in a lot of guys 30s.
But I also think that's all downstream from a larger shift in mindset. At some point, an intelligent person is going to choose between pro-social behavior and libertine personal freedom so long as it doesn't "hurt others." We can quibble over direct vs indirect harm; that's the culture war thread. But if you choose the former (prosocial) you changes all over the place; how you vote, who you date, where you live, etc. Which brings me to the first thing you wrote;
Politically, my preferred outcome would be to exalt White bisexual antitheistic males above all others
Okay, that's a preference. Enjoy the endless Sam Altmans.
make this identity the pass to being treated as aristocracy. I don't want meritocracy, equality of opportunity, judging the content of someone's character [...] All I want is progressive stack with me at the top, laughing as I kick those below.
I don't see this as either prosocial or libertarian-libertine. I see this is a sort of hierarchical-authoritarianism. You even use the word "aristocracy" with a pretty loaded subtext. I see this a bad for everyone. Those on the bottom literally get kicked, those at the top are going to fall into hyper-paranoid behavior patterns to try to guarantee their positions and society will stagnate, rot, and collapse. It's the illusion of mastery over human nature when you're really just cultivating the worst parts of it.
Mods gonna mod, so I'm not mad about that.
But, is this selective enforcement?
Here's the post that I cited that uses the same language: https://www.themotte.org/post/1019/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/217119?context=8#context
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