AnonymousActuary
No bio...
User ID: 2163
AnonymousActuary
1mo ago
because the cost of social security benefits and the cost of medical spending are growing at two very different rates.
AnonymousActuary
1mo ago
social security honestly has never seemed to be as big of an issue. Certainly the demographic slowdown is a bit concerning for anything like this, but you can tweak the ages of eligibility and uncap the payroll tax and you have pretty much fixed it.
Medicare/Medicaid/health spending in general....much thornier problem.
AnonymousActuary
1mo ago
One more comment - not sure if you can read the Atlantic, but always thought this story by Ezra Klein's wife (Annie Lowrey) to be a fascinating one (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/pregnancy-birth-complication-abortion-life-of-mother/671006/).
It's basically about her harrowing experience with pregnancy through truly truly terrible itching (among other things). She relates this horror story she went through...then get about halfway through the story and relates how she still decided (and followed through on) having another kid.
AnonymousActuary
1mo ago
Yeah I think it's hard to look at society writ large right now in the US (or Korea...) and think that increased parental attention is doing a lot of good for the median family (or even the 85th or 95th percentile family). I'm sure there's some Bryan Caplan's out there who are giving their kids a lot of good experiences but in general I think self sufficiency and learning how to entertain yourself without parental impact is generally quite good. I think you have good reasons to be wary, but I also think worrying about impact on your kids from a 4th is not it (kids like having little siblings too!)
AnonymousActuary
2mo ago
My wife and I are expecting our third within a matter of weeks. For us part of it was just the joy of larger families and the new sibling relationships you get with each one. I sorta think of it like the formula for an undirected complete graph - with 2 people you have one relationship. With 3, you now have 3 (parents with each other, each parent with child). You have 3 kids right now, so you have 10 edges, adding one more kid will increase that by 50% to 15!
Maybe this is a weird way to think about it, but I feel like families I knew that had 4 kids always had the most fun family dynamics. You don't have the natural rivalries of two, the self-centeredness of one, or the ganging up that can occur with 3.
I don't think your other concerns are trivial though.
AnonymousActuary
2mo ago
Not sure your views on Genesis, but the pain of labor is literally taken in Christianity to be a consequence of evil entering the world.
AnonymousActuary
2mo ago
Roe v Wade is repealed and it is left up to the states, Obergefell passes, and federal dictate is declared.
This is an easy distinction to notice, not sure why it is being missed.
AnonymousActuary
2mo ago
the problem is a status quo where what the conservative wing of the forum sees as an imposition on constitutional rights continues, and the forum one would go for redress of those wrongs continually punts on fixing this despite multiple electoral victories having led to it being comprised of justices whom one would've thought would think it important to rule on this.
AnonymousActuary
2mo ago
ChatGPT suggests this: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/patrick-collison/.com
AnonymousActuary
3mo ago
capital gains taxes are bad actually so this is fine.
Alternatively, they still have to pay sales taxes on what they buy.
AnonymousActuary
3mo ago
he won only insofar as he was immediately targeted for other lawsuits on similar grounds. Yay.
AnonymousActuary
3mo ago
I think the general script that I see among the more conservative/traditional people in my life is you meet someone in college and marry them shortly thereafter, with varying degrees of whether you sleep with them before marriage (but your lifetime body count is much more likely to be 1).
This puts extra non-academic pressure on college, and most of this happened pre-COVID, so not sure how easy it is now.
I was raised in a conservative family, did not partake in sex, drugs, or alcohol in high school and feel like my life turned out pretty awesomely.
AnonymousActuary
3mo ago
This is ignoring the massive confounding variable which is social media and the post 2014 culture (much more engagement with politics, for instance)
AnonymousActuary
3mo ago
replaced my nightly twitter doom scroll with anki decks for geography, presidents and amendments a few months back. Highly recommend.
AnonymousActuary
3mo ago
Dagger and the Coin
AnonymousActuary
4mo ago
People who are AI Doomers/on the doomer spectrum and have kids, how has it changed how you parent/plan for life?
I wouldn't say I'm a doomer, but I generally respect Scott's opinions so the latest AI forecast they dropped does seem somewhat concerning to me. Wondering if I should be stepping up the amount of time and money spent on eg family vacations while the going is good.
AnonymousActuary
4mo ago
yeah I've played a handful of games past Medieval TWII and decided that it was the best. Now I play Divide and Conquer, the LOTR mod for it
AnonymousActuary
4mo ago
We had a moment where we suspended literal constitutional rights and a large chunk of the populace was pleading for the Government to take whatever action it could to save them including by confining people at home (great for coups!) while Trump was already president and he mostly tweeted.
AnonymousActuary
4mo ago
Huh. That sounds...very promising. Definitely have post-nasal drip and headaches. I'll get an ENT appointment and report back.
AnonymousActuary
5mo ago
It's broader than just bed - I have it right now to some extent (not fully plugged up like when I have a bad cold, but just feel resistance to nose breathing). Maybe need to get back on a daily allergy spray and see if that helps.
AnonymousActuary
5mo ago
I'm a bad mouth-breather while sleeping, usually due to general nasal congestion (not specifically illness).
Is my best path those nasal strips that are supposed to help you breathe? Mouth tape? Afrin spray? ENT visit? Something else?
Last week I had one night where my nose felt clear and I woke up feeling way better in the morning.
AnonymousActuary
5mo ago
I appreciate the optimism that Biden just got caught on a singular bad day
AnonymousActuary
5mo ago
90% sure they use bows in the loot train attack
I think the argument would be that the deficit will eventually trigger some sort of economic death spiral that would be very unpleasant. So if your party can be reasonable, it might postpone said death spiral a few more years.
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