AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
Just Another Alt-MSNBC Guy. Find me at Substack: https://alexanderturok.substack.com/
User ID: 3346
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
17hr ago
Whereas if they're raised in and around nature, they will also perforce have to contend with nature, which would seem to inculcate some common sense in addition to other virtues.
Rural resentment and envy again.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
18hr ago
I guess it's just not clear to me why we need more people rather than getting our existing people to be more productive.
Do you have any ideas about how to do that?
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
18hr ago
My gut says that living in dense cities is somehow injurious to the human spirit and generates a lot of sicknesses downstream. If someone lives in an entirely man-made environment, why wouldn't they believe that everything's a social construct? Whereas if they're raised in and around nature, they will also perforce have to contend with nature, which would seem to inculcate some common sense in addition to other virtues.
Sounds like the kind of thinking that got us "banning abortion will strengthen the family." None of the people who said that admitted they were wrong when the experiment was carried out. We shouldn't base government policy on "gut feelings" of these people.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
20hr ago
Something I've never been clear on is how this dynamic is controversial. Obviously if labor is scarce wages will go up, eating away at the 'income inequality' boogeyman.
It's very easy to make wages go up: just print more dollars. What actually matters is productivity: how much those dollars can guy. You don't make an economy more productive by removing labor from it.
Yes, having more people around also generates some economic demand, but surely this is in the same sense that broken windows will generate economic demand?
No, because people produce wealth.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
Nice takedown of that strawman.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
The majority of what he posted on Twitter before he became Pope (which wasn't much) was criticism of Trumpist policies or ideas.
During the trade war with Canada the Canadians threatened to turn off its electricity supply to America. Trump and MAGA used that as a reason why America couldn't rely on foreign countries for electricity:
They really cannot grasp the correlation between their behavior and outcomes and think that's a good argument.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
It's a reference to a supposed Russian proverb "the Jew will always tell you what happened to him, but he'll never tell you why."
Iran and Russia got hit because they engaged in acts of war against other countries. It doesn't occur to "they" that you can avoid having to worry about such things if you don't pick fights with foreign countries.
It's basically the mindset of the prison gang guy who's big and tough and strong and always thinking about how he will defend himself from attack, who sees of himself as a hard-headed realist, and is 10x more likely to die a violent death than the average schlubby insurance agent who never thinks about self-defense at all. MAGA is an entire political movement based around this mentality, which wants to drag the entire country down with it.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
if you don't control your borders adequately then hostile enemy security services will infiltrate your country and use inexpensive one-way attack munitions to blow up your strategic assets
They'll never tell you why.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
And while that might function for a while, it seems unlikely that the United States can survive with each state having its own immigration policy any more than it could survive half slave and half free.
There's no reason it couldn't. It really depends on what the anti-immigration people are upset about. Are they upset about illegal immigrants in their communities? If so, letting California be a sanctuary could actually help them, as more ICE resources could be dedicated to their areas and some illegals would leave and go to California. If they're upset about illegals living in blue communities many hundreds of miles away, then no compromise is possible.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
Theologically serious Catholics, nowadays, have to vote Republican
Don't think the Pope would agree.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
If they didn't have to worry about re-election there'd be a lot more "ACBs" in the House and Senate.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
The correlation between social and economic conservatism isn't all that surprising in light of facts like these:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GVSIRXhWYAAxzzp?format=png&name=small
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
"what do college kids like? oh yeah sex'n'drugs'n'rock&roll"
No-college kids like that too.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
Right now, they can't make enough of Governor Walz being pro-reproductive rights and so forth.
Makes sense. It's their best issue.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
1d ago
For they are fiends in human shape, monsters of depravity.
That's the norm across the West. In most of Europe abortion is non-controversial even in conservative and far-right parties.
pro-life not wanted in the Democratic Party.
Yep. The reaction is akin to how the GOP would react to "pro-Sharia-law Republicans."
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
2d ago
Why do you believe in supply and demand? Sure, it's "basic economics" but economists mostly reject your theories on immigration and trade. If you're going to throw out economics, you might as well go all the way.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
3d ago
How is it that we didn't run out of jobs decades ago as population increased?
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
3d ago
Lump of labor fallacy.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
3d ago
Except all across the board, in this scenario, the country removes the downward pressure to wages caused by the underclass who can get paid under the table, who cannot ask for help if they are abused, and who are desperate to accept any wage to avoid going back home.
Machinery is also abusable and doesn't require any wage at all, should we increase wages by banning it?
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
3d ago
If we cut the labor pool, the wages and benefits will rise for these jobs.
What makes you think this?
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
3d ago
Men don't work as much as they used to.
Most of that is students and retirees. If you look at the male labor force participation rate aged 25-54, it's 89.5%. Number is going to be higher for white men. Perhaps the MAGA Maoists want the students and retirees to work in the fields as part of their Bangladeshification campaign.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LRAC25MAUSM156S
Nobody is suggesting that high school students go work on the farm. We're suggesting that high school students work at McDonalds, and the possibly legal Mexicans who currently work at McDonalds can go work at the farm, both at higher wages than are currently paid for those jobs. And no, working a service job is not a degrading thing to do for a kid.
What happens if the Mexican decides he'd rather stay at McDonalds and the employer decides he'd rather keep the Mexican than cycle through a bunch of high school students? Is central planning the economy on the basis of race part of the plan?
And if you did hire high IQ high conscientiousness people to do the work, they would actually do a better job than the illegals.
MAGA Maoism. Take computer programmers and make them do the job of Bengali peasants, but we'll be 10x richer than Bengali peasants because of high IQ. It has the same vibe as "guy who says he supports eugenics to piss of the libs, but opposes any actual eugenic policy because it supposedly conflicts with his religion." You know IQ-realism is based, but disrespect actual high-IQ people working high-IQ jobs.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
3d ago
they still hand them out that stays long enough
You can not do that.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
3d ago
There's a clear path to amend immigration laws to make the immigrants never eligible for U.S. citizenship. Birthright citizenship in the only big stumbling block, but even that is possible, offer the Democrats a compromise of much higher immigration levels in return for abolition of birthright citizenship.
I was at a LessWrong meeting when a guy told us he had recently got married. We asked if he was going to have kids and when he said no, the reaction of the (almost all secular) group was quite hostile.
Young Rightists who are politically active are creating their own pronatal subculture. That's how you get quotes like this, from a 24-year-old White House correspondent who (like me) grew up marinating in 4chan:
https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/katy-balls-night-out-trump-young-maga-crowd-9dv93rlx8
More options
Context Copy link