domain:astralcodexten.com
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8m ago
When the shooter said that Kirk needed to be killed because of Kirk's "hate", what do you think he meant by that?
Pongalh
9m ago
except your specific person being insulted is just the category of "Republican." Not the same.
Pongalh
10m ago
libertarians are either that or the opposite, some truck driving Gadsden flag-waving fella with little money
Pongalh
12m ago
no, those were formal armies involved. not shifting vague weird internet politics combined with political inference from a romantic partner
Pongalh
13m ago
Because the type of one-sided vitriol exhibited by Kimmel and Colbert has no place on a broadcast network, broad audience, light-hearted variety show.
Vitriol? It's all smiles. He's not Father Coughlin.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
21m ago
I think this is also a false equivalence: the two sides so-called “cancel culture” aren’t equivalent either.
They actually mirror the limited / unlimited dichotomy between conservatives & progressives basically perfectly.
During the woke left reign of terror of 2014 - 2022 it was an increasingly intense and long list of things that you had to positively affirm or at least not contradict in order to (maybe, possibly) avoid being canceled. It changed day by day, hour by hour, year by year, and grew longer and more complex. Like multiple dials constantly being adjusted.**
In the “woke right reign of terror” that is now being feverishly being dreamed up by people who imagine the current situation is analogous, it’s a bright line to not be crossed; it’s very simple, obvious and easy to know what not to do in order to not incur the wrath of the “woke right” At this current moment.
Step One: Don’t ghoulishly dance on the grave of a recently murdered conservative activist and icon and state that he deserved to be murdered.
Step two: There’s no step two. That’s it.
The “woke right” aren’t demanding performative mourning from people who clearly hate them. They don’t wish to compel speech out of anyone. All these people had to do was not justify out loud the cold blooded murder of their colleagues.
But they simply can’t help themselves.
** An observation is that conservatives view violence / force as a switch and progressives see it as a dial also maps nicely onto this.
07mk
22m ago
Wouldn't it be more like saying England bombed Pearl Harbor? And Germany's the one that's saying it, making fun of USA for being dishonest enough to insist that the attack could have come from Japan.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
32m ago
I don't think they will meekly accept it, no. But under the bioleninist framework, they are only strong because they are organized and their opponent is not. If the normie right begins to organize, it will successfully oppress the left. Probably not only via peaceful means.
I'm not sure how to define the "most leftist" ideas I accept. Probably some economic policies. I have some sympathy for protectionism, labor unions, and reducing income inequality.
I think the left-wing position needs to reckon with the fact that some percentage of people have problems that can't easily be solved and, even worse, risk becoming disproportionate consumers (of welfare or police resources or park space, etc. ) whenever you liberalize controls on them or make systems more generous and less skeptical.
Yes, there are some people who are bad targets for the policy. That's the exact argument for making these programs less conditional-- ideally, not conditional whatsoever. ubi pilots consistently show improvements in welfare, and while GiveDirectly wastes effort trying to pick specifically extra-disadvantaged villages, it redeems itself by distributing payments to everyone within those villages.
Consider this simplified model of the economy:
- Group A, given money, will generally improve their lives and their community with it
- Group B, given money, will generally waste the money
After a decade, semi-random economic events will have sorted people into "poor" and "rich". The "rich" group is mostly composed of people form Group A, and the "poor" group is mostly composed of people from Group B. But you know in principle that there are still poor people who might improve their lives with more money, and that, meanwhile, the rich people have mostly hit diminishing utilitarian returns for improvement-by-money. Your first instinct-- well, not your first instinct, because you're a conservative, but the first instinct of someone further left than you-- will be to take money from the rich people and give it to the poor people. At first, you see the lives of people of the poor people rapidly improve-- because they're improvers, and using that money to take all the low-hanging-fruit they were previously unable to. But soon, most of the improvers move into the rich group, and now you're just giving money that the improvers could be using to improve things to wasters instead, and the program fails. The better option would have been to take more money from the rich, but pay it to everyone. The richest of the rich would suffer a little as they're paying disproportionately more, but they're far at the reducing-rate-of-utilitarian-returns section of the scale. So given that they're also recieving the UBI, the only way they move from rich to poor is if they're wasters... and if they are, then society should want them to be poor, to discourage waster behavior. Meanwhile, the improver poor become improver rich, and the improver rich maintain their position, while the waster poor get to control a proportionately smaller share of the economy than they would if they were receiving direct welfare and also aren't facing any incentive to remain poor.
Funny, I just saw a new left-wing outlet wrestling with research that hinted at weak results when people are given money.
The funny thing is, I've also seen that same article, and I consider it direct proof of my point-- even though the leftist writing it doesn't seem to understand that. For example, they say,
Homeless people, new mothers and low-income Americans all over the country received thousands of dollars. And it's practically invisible in the data.
but then turn around and say,
But I do think cash as an intervention is best used in emergencies, for pregnant women, domestic violence victims
completely ignoring the obvious conclusion that if all these targeted giving schemes are failing, they should stop advocating for targeted giving schemes. Just give the money to everyone. The pregnant women/domestic violence victims that will use the money productively will still get it-- and so will everyone else that actually needs the money, and would use it to improve their lives. Sure, plenty of people who won't use the money to improve their lives will also get it-- but at least they're not directly incentivized to not improve their lives, and also they're probably going to be paying their money to people who can make better use of it.
Using the meme definition of insanity, this "transfer money to particular poor households" scheme is definitely it. Wealth-transfer research has promising results. Wealth-transfer-to-poor-people research has less promising results. Why do these leftists keep insisting that we trying to find even worse-off people to give the money too? That's just going to result in even worse results. Just give the money to everyone! The trump stimmy checks were the right idea, only held back by the fact that they were unfunded and increased the deficit (because deficit-mediated inflation is effectively a regressive tax on poorer people, who hold more cash wealth and suffer more from sticky salaries.)
To sketch out an ideal tax + welfare system...
Revenue:
-
LVT used almost exclusively as a revenue-generating tax
-
Pigouvian taxes applied in conditions of high economic certainty
-
Service charges for excludable use of sensibly government-provided services (e.g., getting your passport renewed, driving on a toll road)
Spending
-
Pigouvian subsidies applied in conditions of high economic certainty
-
security (including military)
-
contract enforcement (the courts, plus the parts of the regulatory state that do stuff like fine people for lying about the efficacy of medical treatments)
-
the strictly necessary parts of the administrative state (e.g., salaries for judges, lawmakers)
-
the parts of the regulatory state that exist to solve multipolar traps/tragedies of the commons/failure states of capitalism/etc. (e.g., climate change, national parks, trustbusting)
-
the parts of the regulatory state necessary for auditing the other parts
-
A UBI calculated to be the higher of {[enough so that almost* no one starves, dies of exposure, dies of easily treatable disease*, or otherwise lives considered strictly unacceptable for a citizen*], [Whatever figure maximizes the equation: RISE IN(MINIMUM OF(aggregate GDP, aggregate population utility*)) DUE TO PAYMENTS - FALL IN (MINIMUM OF(aggregate GDP, aggregate population utility*)) due to taxes]}
-
A service designed to care for people who are strictly unable to make economic choices (the mentally challenged, the insane, and the senile)
* I'm using fuzzy language in a few cases because some of these concepts/thresholds are strictly subjective... I concede that even in my "ideal" economic system there would be plenty for people to fight over and disagree about
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
41m ago
How often does your leg go to sleep?
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
43m ago
You need speed cameras that fine distracted drivers.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
47m ago
It's untrue in the same way that saying the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor is untrue.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
50m ago
I’m not a huge fan of Maher but he’s clearly a lot more talented and intelligent than Jimmy Kimmel.
Not a super high bar, mind you, but I’m not damning Maher with faint praise; I’m sure it explains both his ability to be edgy and escape the worst consequences and not get immediately fired for overstepping the line.
Jimmy’s biggest sin is just being retarded and unfunny. I’m as angry as anyone about Charlie Kirk’s death but even I’ve seen some decent jokes about it, and I’ll give credit where credits due.
This in turn is a wild punch-drunk accusation. You have no idea what I believe or what my motivations are and are wrong in this case. (do we even have a single Trump-deranged person on themotte? how would they not go crazy and burn out immediately?) I am neither a Trump obsessive nor an Epstein obsessive, and that "70%" is not a strongly held immovable belief.
My (again loosely-held and not deeply researched) model was that he knew or kinda knew about Epstein's proclivities during the 80s and 90s, didn't really care (considered and treated it as within the jocular class of "cocaine and affairs"), thought he should get credit for his later hostility to Epstein (hence his comfort attacking others for Epstein, drawing massive attention to it, until like 2019 -- not the behavior of a man who fucked kids with Epstein), but didn't really get that he would be held little less guilty even by his base for not immediately turning him in until more recent rounds (hence no longer doing that and treating the whole subject as an embarassment to be quieted even at the expense of recrimination and retribution -- not the behavior of a Donald Trump who's done literally nothing wrong).
I took another look at the card and found it would be significantly more implicating if real than I'd remembered, which does not fit that model as well, so I withdraw my tossed-off small-questions-thread-level take for further review.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
55m ago
I first heard of Kimmel when he did The Man Show way back when. I suppose his trajectory to the left is not surprising but he certainly seemed more right (in a bawdy, jokes-about-tits way) at that time.
Late night comedians always used to take potshots at whoever was in office, right up to Obama...and then suddenly the President could do no wrong. Then Obama's sainthood juxtaposed with Trump's Trumpiness happened, and "making fun of both sides" went out the window. Anyone on the right had horns drawn on their image. The rise of the Daily Show and John Stewart's (and Steven Colbert's) extremely politicized humor stirred the pot, and voilà.
Tretiak
57m ago
Probably not but at least we validated the stereotype that men are always thinking about Rome.
I'm pretty big into ancient history and consequently Roman history. Good to know there's others here like that.
Nobody said he was incompetent. Like Caesar he was obviously a great man. I admitted from the start that he was wronged and that he could clearly see some of the problems in the constitution as it stood.
Well. Seems we agree then. That's much closer to the conclusion I wanted to emphasize. Not that his reforms weren't quickly reversed after he withdrew into retirement. They obviously were.
A Republican system depends on others buying into it and continually making the choice to restrict their own use of power. This cannot necessarily be achieved by Sulla just hanging around. If anything that increases the chance for the system to collapse into monarchy.
There is a question in here as to whether the Republic at large was just at the end of it's natural lifespan as it was transforming into something that was already beginning to look and feel different. I'm not saying the solution would've been for Sulla to linger around on the sidelines only that it was ultimately concluded more prematurely than it should've been. As far as collapsing into monarchy goes, you could argue Octavian's proscriptions were worse than Sulla's (a controversial statement, but one I've seen people make) but people are more willing to overlook it because it concluded with the Pax Romana, whereas Sulla's ended having enriched his friends and further solidified their positions among a corrupt ruling class.
It went about as well as the realization that the emperor could be made outside of Rome.
Septimius Severus did that. There have been more than a few provincial emperors, albeit that they came at a bad time; being at the tail end of a dying Empire.
But it is what it is. We should also consider that his motives, like Caesar's, were not pure. Both of them did what they did to defend their own dignity and interests. I'm more sympathetic to Caesar, since the risks were so much greater for him. But in both cases it wasn't just concern for the Republic.
I'm also more sympathetic to Caesar by a long shot. With him however, I think his motives ultimately were questionable as to whether he wanted to become king or not. It's not as cut and dry as people think it is.
Pongalh
1hr ago
Well it's not untrue in the way saying Robinson was 50 years old would be untrue. Ideology and political philosophy don't work that way. We don't even have a manifesto from Robinson. He's directionally prog and for common conversational purposes you'd be on much stronger ground claiming he's not at all MAGA, and coming from the left. iow not enough to warrant being pressured by the FCC.
It's just vibes and vengeance. And frankly Trump's preference for talking about his ballroom over Kirk was a real zinger from Kimmel. "This must be the fourth stage of grief." On point. Who's the coldhearted demon again?
gorge
1hr ago
I looked that it up at one point and its not so straight forward. IIRC, he stayed on the air the rest of the year and just wasn't renewed, and ABC claims that the non-renewal was due to ratings, not what he said. Bill Maher claims that he was canceled for what he says, but he would have an incentive to spin it that way, it looks better for him to be canceled for being edgy than for having low ratings.
Jesweez
1hr ago
By that you mean "moral" corruption
Maybe that is the deeper issue but I had more in mind things like: the president and his associates running cryptocurrency scams on their supporters
That sort of thing didn’t used to happen in the US or even the developed world from what I know.
The moral corruption I perceive is that suddenly the US started acting in ways that I associate with third world governments, and there was only tepid criticism.
Well, as long as they were the correct color. They had quotas for that, just like they did in the '50s, for the same reasons they had them in the '50s
Affirmative action type stuff to me is a side note to what I’m describing.
I agree with conservatives about basing acceptance for jobs and studies on merit instead of skin color.
That doesn’t change the fact that we’ve essentially renounced the role as the country that hoovers up all the intellectual talent and high agency individuals from the world and puts them to work building things here on our soil.
Science that doesn't replicate isn't science, and the initiatives to do R&D were also suffering from the "so long as they're the right color" problem. I guess it's the age-old dilemma where you can either do science or you can sacrifice it to be anti-racist, just from the right's definition of anti-racism instead of the left's. Naturally, this is moral corruption to the left, just like ending racism the first time was to the right.
Look, science has flaws, but it works, damn it!
The survivability of cancer has increased dramatically over the past decades. That’s just one (set of) disease(s). Dementia, Parkinson’s, AIDS, diabetes, MS, arthritis, many of these conditions have seen outcomes quietly yet drastically improve over these past decades. Science is working and still acts as a fundamental engine advancing human wellbeing.
Materials science, computational techniques, and even odd niche branches of science such as looking at what chemicals are in the saliva of lizards, have delivered huge advances in recent decades. And surprisingly, most of this has happened in the US!!
You might be destined to get Alzheimer’s in the future and science poses the ability to save your very brain and being from a terrible fate. Or maybe you will experience a horrific accident and regenerative medicine techniques might save your life from becoming a living hell.
Scientific advancement is occurring, and is good for all of us, and despite our comfort and confidence in continuous advancement, it’s not guaranteed.
The current administration has been a storm that passed though science funding at every level, ripping up grants, discouraging a generation of youth from getting into the discipline, and discouraging people who typically would have come here to work in our labs to stay away and go elsewhere.
The sheer strength of our position as the center of the scientific world might allow it to hunker down and withstand all of this, but that’s not at all the outcome you would hope for.
No, only China. Nobody else invested into the tooling to manufacture the panels for the same reason the US couldn't- too expensive. The West has already lost the battle for renewable energy sovereignty (and already won the battle for forcing Europe into a dependence on American natural gas by successfully provoking a war in Ukraine); the only question is whether we want to pay now to redevelop indigenous green energy generation capacity, or pay later by having to do that anyway when China starts making diplomatic demands in exchange.
I agree and this one is complicated, but we had a role to play in a technological revolution that the entire world is going through and we decided it’s better to sit back and actually attack it rather than get in and help shape it.
It’s like if in the past upon seeing that the English were advancing with this new concept of coal fired trains and industry, we had decided to actively combat its establishment here to preserve the timber industry.
China has the lead but we could have played a role with innovating in this domain and then at least competing to help lead the global buildout that is (genuinely) occurring. Instead, China is the one and only benefactor, and for this is leaps and bounds ahead with the know how to produce and install this stuff and is doing so in every country across the planet. Not to mention that in any conflict has a decent shot at kicking our ass with massive swarms of cheaply made drones and batteries.
Were obviously just missing out on the next supercycle of technological development on the planet when we could have at least tried to be in the game.
Like I say we did stay in the game on AI, since it was genuinely our innovation which came from the US academia and tech industry. Currently it’s the only thing keeping the American economy afloat (although probably also is in big bubble territory).
But instead of navigating this time of challenges skillfully, focusing on our fortifying our competitive strengths, we just adopted the posture of an angry inwardly-turned nation that started attacking its own foundations of power and influence based on passing culture war freak out stuff.
In other words, stuff like affirmative action and all that is just some silly ornamentation we put on top of the most successful engine of power and influence of the modern world. We could have taken away the mild productivity-decreasing AA stuff and kept the foundation intact! Instead, we started chopping the entire thing down.
The baby can only be thrown out with its bathwater for so long. The lightening might be very hard to get back into the bottle, as each former center of world power and influence can attest.
Yep! I remember clearly.
That was rather unwise to say even if it was true. I remember being annoyed by that but not particularly surprised.
What Jimmy Kimmel did was actually much, much worse; dancing on the grave of a recently murdered victim of political assassination and simultaneously spreading an easily disprovable conspiracy theory for obvious partisan reasons immediately after a very tragic event.
Which is why the “Bush did 9/11 also all those firefighters that voted republicans deserved to die” on 9/12 is rather apt comparison, no?
gorge
1hr ago
I'm not familiar with those cases, do you have an example of a high-status comedian cracking an insulting joke toward one of their friends or loved ones?
There also is a difference between a death due to a person's own recklessness/stupidity, which is often the fodder for jokes, and an outright assassination.
Tiber727
1hr ago
Nybbler is correct that it's not a microaggression. A microaggression is similar to a backhanded compliment - "You're pretty hardworking for a black guy."
That said, there is nothing new under the sun. Cancel culture is nothing but the current iteration of wanting bad things to happen to people you dislike and the people you hate to have no power to do the same to you. One side may have more influence at any given moment, but even the minority will try and fail at it.
NewCharlesInCharge
1hr ago
ABC yanked Bill Maher's show for saying that the 9/11 attackers weren't cowardly.
striker
1hr ago
What I’ve observed over the past 7-8 days has been general insanity everywhere, with people on both sides failing to have any awareness of their own insanity as they use unreliable information or malevolent lies to judge those crazed loons on the other side. This (Kimmel situation, all the over the top responses and false equivalencies) is just another example. Woke left or “woke right”, it looks all the same to me. (European, no US political affiliation, interested observer from afar.)
What's the point of an analogy if it doesn't work unless it's exactly the same? Typically everything is fodder for a joke among comedians, and the punishment is that if people don't like it the joke bombs. "Don't make jokes about deaths" wasn't really a standard until last week, and while people often got sensitive about such jokes, this wasn't a broad standard.
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