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
Right, but what's the Oath itself called and when do Catholics make it?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
By that standard, most American Catholics are "non-Catholic" since it is common to deviate in opinion and practice on things like birth control, sex outside of marriage, etc.
nervous laughter
Yeah, um, about that ..... we're talking it over.
More seriously; there's a growing division in the church over just these issues. And American Catholics are definitely near the center of it. And while Pope Francis might not care so much about the opinions of Yanqui Capitalists, the realities of the needs to convert within the developing world means that he'll bend a knee to the African bishops as necessary
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
What's it like living in an episode of Giri-Haji?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
The reason Catholics could not be POTUS is because we had an oath to the Pope.
What's this called?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
2d ago
interesting far rightist perspective, that maybe is common here, but expressed in much better form, than you can expect from mottizens with similar views.
I feel personally attacked.
And can also offer no protest to your assertion.
My YT Submission: Horses
Very stylistic documentary shorts on ... nothing in particular? But they're very well done. The one on Icelandic Witches is a must watch.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
I was a Div 1 college athlete and got a perfect score on my SAT and took 14 AP exams.
Yeah, this is a balls out, face first brag. I've never actually said it like that in real life. Thank you, internet.
In my experience the top tier athletes are one of two camps; yes, group one is all around above average 110+ IQ types who also have very good emotional intelligence and social capability. Remember how the teen bully is the football star and also the homecoming king? He's probably also going to like, UT-Austin. I had a fraternity brother who was Div 1 in a different sport, head of the Panhellenic Council (so, literally the boss of all of the fraternity and sorority bosses and yes, it did function exactly like the mafia) ... ended up becoming an Air Force Officer and now does Consulting for basically the defense-focused version of McKinsey. If I had to wager some money on "knowing a future member of congress" ... there you go.
The other types, however, are the sports savants. These are the guys (and girls) who probably have built their entire life around whatever sport they're doing. Frequently this included some pretty extreme parental ... "supervision." The GOAT poster boy for this is Tom Brady. He's a football genius (and, yes, it was him not Belichik) but, outside of that, he's fucking weird and awful. To get to that level, and then to absolutely crush it at that level, means your brain maps so perfectly onto the sport that you're Ramanujan levels of brilliant in that domain. This can't be explained away with "Dad made me practice every day" or even "My ex Soviet sports machine dad made me practice every day" ... you have to be born with it.
But I use "savant" on purpose. Some of these guys are fucking useless outside of that sport and actually lead kind of fucked up lives. I can't say the sport without probably doxxing myself - but I grew up training with the Bobby Fisher / Tony Hawk / Tom Brady of my sport.
Yeah, he's fucking weird and lives at home still and can't drive or cook for himself. When the clock runs out or he blows out a knee, I am super, super worried what happens next. Sports aren't transferable skillets. If you're rainman and can math-your-ass-off, you can probably find work for a variety of places that will be happy to put you in your special room 8 hours a day so long as you can fill out the reports. You can earn a living, even if that living gets reinvested into Hungry Man TV dinners, porn, and cheetohs. Sports with a limited professional (I.e. money making) applicability? Not so much.
So who do you want to be? My old friend, Captain Chad Thundercock? Or VictoryBot9000? Above median breadth but, perhaps, never true greatness? Or brilliant, early greatness that will be remembered far past your life ... which will be 70% "over the hill nothingness."
(P.S. The answer is always Captain Chad Thundercock)
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
HOWIE DO
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
As a tacti-cool armchair bro, I am utterly floored by how shitty the cops are in this video.
At literally any given point past about the halfway mark (when the camera has enough perspective to capture all of the involved parties) there are at least 3 cops doing fucking nothing. The pony-tailed brunette deserves special acknowledgement for standing around. When the first cop goes in and gets stabbed, there's a clear shot of three of his comrades sort of standing in a "ready position" on the edge. With backup like that, right?
Say what you will about American policing, but the bias for action is still well instilled. If something like this went down in any major American metro, and there were 5 -7 cops in the vicinity, you would have a dogpile on at least Mr. Knife.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4d ago
There was no reason for Hillary to set up her own private email server, unless: 1) She was doing horribly corrupt things on it 2) She was extremely willful and ignorant and insisted on doing something that everyone around her would have told her was a bad idea.
I actually think it's a worse double compounding of these two things;
She did it because the people around her knew she was doing horribly corrupt things and convinced her this was a really good idea so that she could avoid responsibility down the road.
I wanted to add something related but tangential to @self_made_human 's post on therapists.
The business model issue.
Without doxxing myself, I'm just going to say that I once had a person who ran / co-owned a therapy practice explain how his business ran. He and his partner would contract with independent providers who would contract with them, they guy and his partner would handle all of the overhead, paperwork, legal, marketing, etc. and take a percentage of patient fees.
He told me that the customers break down into three groups.
The first two are what you would probably expect.
The first group is more or less stable people who go through specifically difficult life circumstances and require the services of a therapist for some amount of time. People after a divorce, death in the family, traumatic event. In addition, you also have those with enduring mental health issues (major depression, bipolar etc.) that can function in society but probably need therapy and possible medication to do it. In many ways, these are the "best" patients in that the therapist gets to see them heal, grow, thrive etc. Very much a win-win.
The second group are folks with severe mental illness that have sought out therapy usually with the assistance of family and / or friends. Now, because the guy telling me about this was running a very much for-profit no-insurance practice, I will caveat that this is one perspective / reality. I can definitely see how this group's dynamics may be different at other kind of practices / state sponsored hospitals etc. Anyways, these folks have brutal situations and are doing what they can to manage. In addition to the severe mental illness, substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviors are super common. Some therapists really are dedicated and do what they can to help, but few and far between see these folks really turn it around. Maybe a few "stabilize" and can live with a lot of family support.
So, here's the first business question. Do you think Group 2 here can ... pay their bills? on time? Even with family support, the answer is "no."
But that first group! Surely they always pay. The answer is "yes" .... for a time. Remember, folks in that first group often "get their shit together" after 6 months, a year, two, three ... And even the ones that are getting therapy for decades are probably not doing it weekly after a while. They often slow down to once a month or even less frequently as check-ins.
So, from a cash flow perspective, you're in a rough spot; some percentage of your patients are so unreliable you can't really put much confidence in their recurring revenue. Another percentage pays, but does not pay with enough volume or long term durability to cover that other group. What to do?
Group Motherfuckin' 3.
Group 3 are the textbook, highly online, utterly insufferable "therapy culture" people. Soccer moms, yuppie young professionals who probably had awesome childhoods, confused and wistful early retirees, college professors (who may be banging those young professionals), and art history majors. Unfulfilled dads don't get therapy - they become very good at grilling meat and an expert in either WW2 or the Civil War (God Bless all ye taxpayers!). Group 3 is at least weekly in their visits. Many are more frequent. Most will go through periods of "needing" more intense therapy. They change prescriptions a lot for .... unknown reasons. If they catch a hint of lack of interest from the therapist, you can bet they will effect some sort of scene outside of therapy to re-energize their sessions (_"When we were in Cabo, I told Braden that I wanted to try polyamory. He just went golfing without saying a word! HOW CAN I LIVE LIKE THIS!") I'll be nice a little here; sometimes, Group 3 types just need a little professional reassurance and they do turn their shit around. Sometimes, even, they realize a lot of their problems are of their own making or that their perspective was just miscalibrated. Yet, the majority are absolutely using a therapist as a paid friend. Depending on where you live, lap dances from strippers are more cost effective.
Back to business - how do we square the circle of Group 1 and Group 2 not covering our costs or making us money?
Group Motherfuckin' 3. And boy do they Make. That. Money.
What to take away from this? As @self_made_human 's post pointed out - therapy works (if you work at it, I would add). But the problem is that so much of the therapy business and market is now geared towards "therapy culture" people that it's creating a really bad situation in which new providers either think that everyone they're going to meet is just an exasperated housewife or, even worse, that everyone they're going to meet is just an exasperated housewife who doesn't care if it's $275 / hr holy shit free money hack. When that second group comes face to face with their first hard case of a patient, it can be horribly destabilizing for both of them. The proliferation of the online telehealth therapists is the poster child for this.
What's the market solution? I don't have one and I don't want one. If we ever get to the point as a society where we really deeply subsidize mental health services, we're going to be broke overnight. Think about that - that's creating a free service for when you feel bad. Absolutely uncapped demand. And, as I hope this post as pointed out, the way it works in practice, you do have an effective voluntary (albeit semi-informed) wealth transfer tax. I will never not let rich people spend their money the way they see fit.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6d ago
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
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6d 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.
6d 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.
6d 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.
6d 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.
6d 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.
6d 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.
6d 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.
8d 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.
8d 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.
8d 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.
9d 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.
9d ago
I feel like this is a low-effort "I disagree" comment.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9d ago
Cool. Seems like we agree.
I appreciate the straightforward explanation here of how policy and intent creep occurs.
Taken at face value, the logical (though extreme) conclusion of the open boarders set is to import all of the less fortunate of the world no questions ask. As "pure" as the intent may be, this is, on its face, a non-viable option to any informed audience. So that argument isn't made ... but it sure as hell gets reflected in the policy-enforcement system.
I believe this is one of the core unsolvable problems in American politics; there are, at least, three "versions" of any given policy - the intent stated by candidates publicly, the letter of the law as literally recorded in U.S. code, and then the execution thereof by the executive branch. When Americans vote for a candidate, they often are voting for just one of those concepts, or are switching between them in their heads. The appreciation of the process is non-existent and so constant dissatisfaction is constant.
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