Blueberry
7mo ago
Today I learned that the Constitution does not explicitly require the speaker to be an incumbent member of the House of Representatives, although every speaker thus far has been.
Blueberry
7mo ago
Btw: Many countries ban polling before an election:
Blueberry
7mo ago
I wouldn’t put Tucker in that bin. He said he bought after the demon attack a bible to read it (very slowly in a year) but that he is not coming from a tradition of faith and dislikes pastors.
Blueberry
7mo ago
giving all candidates a goverment backed x amount of money and a right to get small donations.
Living in a European country with state financing of political parties, it is utterly alien to me to donate to political campaigns. I know it happens, but I would never do it (aren't you psychologically locked-in after donating to Trump/Harris?) and the amount of effort and time American politicians have to raise funds seem gross.
I looked up how UK does it and they actually harshly restrict political expenses:
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/election-spending-regulated-uk
Each party can spend £54,010 for each constituency that they contest. A party that chooses to contest all 632 seats in Great Britain at the election will therefore be able to spend just over £34m.
A small proportion of spending at elections is conducted by third parties – groups like charities and trade unions that do not stand candidates of their own, but campaign for particular outcomes. … Several spending limits are then applied to registered campaigns.
If the UK (or Canada or Australia or whichever country) is better governed is debatable, at least theoretical raising funds could also be a useful signal in a democracy, but I wonder how an election cycle in the US would look like if Democrats/Republicans (and GreenParty/Libertarian) could only spend $100 Million each?
Blueberry
8mo ago
To be fair, the Mobile Launcher 2 tower is indeed mobile
That is … why? Couldn’t they have built a mobile transport, maybe with a simplified support pillar so the rocket can’t topple over, and then at the flame trench a launch tower as a static structure? That would have simplified the requirements for both.
are not a fledgling industry that needs a financial boost
SpaceX was much smaller 4 years ago in 2020. The year before they “only” had 13 launches, instead of the 100 launches per year now, and actually it was a struggle for them to finance Starlink and Starship at the same time and maybe this money would have accelerated both.
I am not arguing for subsidies, but we/they got a bit lucky that it still worked out ok.
Blueberry
8mo ago
Landing legs are heavy and any mass you lift up lowers payload. You also prevent damage from the engines (which are much more powerful than the Falcon 9 Merlin engine) blasting the surface and reflecting heat/shockwaves back to the ship.
https://x.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1844870018351169942
He [Elon Musk] was not enamored with the landing legs being planned for Starship’s booster. They added weight, thus cutting the size of the payloads the booster could lift.
“Why don’t we try to use the tower to catch it?” he asked. He was referring to the tower that holds the rocket on the launchpad. Musk had already come up with the idea of using that tower to stack the rocket; it had a set of arms that could pick up the first-stage booster, place it on the launch mount, then pick up the second-stage spacecraft, and place it atop the booster. Now he was suggesting that these arms could also be used to catch the booster when it returned to Earth. It was a wild idea, and there was a lot of consternation in the room. “If the booster comes back down to the tower and crashes into it, you can’t launch the next rocket for a long time,” Bill Riley says. “But we agreed to study different ways to do it.”
A few weeks later, just after Christmas 2020, the team gathered to brainstorm. Most engineers argued against trying to use the tower to catch the booster. The stacking arms were already dangerously complex. After more than an hour of argument, a consensus was forming to stick with the old idea of putting landing legs on the booster. But Stephen Harlow, the vehicle engineering director, kept arguing for the more audacious approach. “We have this tower, so why not try to use it?” After another hour of debate, Musk stepped in. “Harlow, you’re on board with this plan,” he said. “So why don’t you be in charge of it?”
Blueberry
8mo ago
You are joking and the amount was zero, right? Because I think before Musk there was no monetization?
Blueberry
8mo ago
At least in 2016 they also had bots/provocateurs masquerading as legitimate users. And Russia just wanted to fan the flames, they played both sides from “gay rights to gun rights”.
WSJ 2017: Facebook Users Were Unwitting Targets of Russia-Backed Scheme
https://archive.ph/rZJBo
“Blacktivist,” an account that supported causes in the black community and used hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, frequently posted videos of police allegedly shooting unarmed black men.
The issues they targeted spanned the U.S. political and social spectrum, including religion, race, immigration, gun rights and gay rights. Facebook said the accounts were created by Russian entities to exploit tensions among Americans and interfere with U.S. elections.
NYT 2017: Purged Facebook Page Tied to the Kremlin Spread Anti-Immigrant Bile
https://archive.ph/kuS2E
Blueberry
8mo ago
a flickering candle to the gigaton flare generated by the actual words and deeds of genuine Americans.
Sure, I think this is a healthy perspective. But Russia, and China, trying to sow discord is an argument some make:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/01/russia-and-china-target-us-protests-on-social-media-294315
While these official social media accounts have not posted doctored images or false information, they have sowed divisive content — a strategy that Russia previously used during the 2017 Catalan referendum in Spain and the 2019 European Parliament election, according to previous analyses of social media activity by POLITICO. The goal, according to disinformation experts, is to foment distrust on both sides of the political spectrum rather than publishing easily identifiable fake social media posts.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/19401612221082052
RT and Sputnik primarily produced negative coverage of the BLM movement, painting protestors as violent, or discussed the hypocrisy of racial justice in America. In contrast, newer media properties like In The NOW, Soapbox, and Redfish supported the BLM movement with clickbait-style videos highlighting racism in America.
Yes, the normal stupidity of bureaucracy.
But Secretary Buttigieg reacted to Elon Musk!
https://x.com/SecretaryPete/status/1842271678274928964
No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.
Musk reacted first aggressively, but after the call conciliatory:
Thanks for the call. Hopefully, we can resolve this soon
Maybe he overreacted? Let’s see what he posts tomorrow.
But I think “legitimate” could be a key word here. It is an emergency, business as usual shouldn’t apply, and they shouldn’t restrict the airspace in any way. It is not like aircraft/helicopters pilots are blind, they are not crashing into each other easily.
Edit:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1842352252922843403
Problem has been resolved. Kudos to @SecretaryPete
Blueberry
8mo ago
Yes and no. I didn’t read the Musk biography by Isaacson, but I read last weekend the new book “Reentry” by Eric Berger about SpaceX from 2010 - 2022. There is also a prequel “Liftoff” about SpaceX early times. I can both recommend glowingly. He truly did build SpaceX from the ground up. He did know nothing about rockets so he learned everything he could and even Russian rocketry manuals! Since Twitter he became more absent though (which Berger counts as a big negative), first because he focuses so much on the business of the new company but also because he is addicted to tweets.
Anyway this is of lesser importance. Aquota point was that garbage in produces garbage out, and I think Musk is victim to that on X. Snarky soundbite discussions (or mastodon or thread) are rotting the brain of everyone not counterbalancing it with more deeper longform material.
I don’t know him, maybe I am unfair to him and he does have deep discussions with very important people in the Bay Area we could never even dream about reaching. He could just phone Nobel prize tier economists to invite them to dinner! Hire policy experts. Or ask any Senator about their opinions. But instead he shitposts when he is bored.
Blueberry
8mo ago
Here is the Cato institute proofing with many studies that Hispanics turned to the Dems because the local GOP was more and more anti-immigration. That pushed minorities away:
https://www.cato.org/blog/proposition-187-turned-california-blue
Hispanic voters were alienated from the GOP and welcomed by the Democratic Party during the fights over Proposition 187, Wilson’s reelection, and during a series of other propositions proposed in the mid-1990s. One way this shift occurred was by galvanizing Hispanic naturalization in response to the perceived GOP threat.
Here is Mother Jones saying that demography is destiny and the whites deserved it:
It’s that simple. Prop 187 probably cemented Hispanic support for Democrats, but that was about it. It was demographics and redistricting that really made the difference.
If you believe in the demographic theory of presidential elections, the same thing will happen nationally when the non-white vote reaches about 50 percent. Unfortunately, that’s still a decade or two away.
Blueberry
8mo ago
are there any heuristics
Look where past floods / natural disasters (blizzards, forrest fires, earthquakes) were?
There are services like this:
https://www.augurisk.com/risk/state/north-carolina/buncombe-county/37021
Good bet would be that insurances have the best models and risk assessments.
Yes, if there is no challenge one can master it often is just a hedonistic treadmill.
There were a few posts last month on Reddit about American Beauty, the 25 year old Oscar movie with Kevin Spacey, and how weird not only the movie but the past time now feels. Together with Office Space and Fight Club artists struggled to find something to rebel against. Cold War was won, war against terror didn’t start yet, economy was great, racism solved, the environment ostensibly protected, peak oil unknown, feminism a joke, and gayness widely accepted by enlightened centrism. So the only way was to attack the mundane boringness of a secure middle class existence.
This is Lester Burnham‘s House in which he lived in 1999 with a wife and daughter and got deeply unhappy:
https://filmoblivion.com/2019/01/15/american-beauty-1999/
Sept 2024 the U.S. housing deficit has increased according to Zillow to 4.5 million.
The TFR data shows what we (sadly) expect:
Total Fertility Rates, by Maternal Educational Attainment and Race and Hispanic Origin: United States, 2019
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/105234/cdc_105234_DS1.pdf
Non diploma women have high TFR of 2.7
high school diploma have 2.05
Then it sinks further with lowest the bachelor degree holders having 1.2 TFR
And then a little bump up again for master degree 1.4 and doctorate degree 1.5 (still brutally below replacement)
I saw the argument that TFR is artificially a bit worse than in real life, because TFR is not catching yet that women are moving their child bearing years up. Similar bachelor degrees having lowest TFR does not mean that women with a bachelor are (in the end) worse than master women in family formation (eg because they earn less money), but can also be explained by that students who have a bachelor and also doing their master additionally are avoiding getting pregnant while still in University.
Blueberry
8mo ago
but dysgenic IQ selection from low fertility rates is not a real thing
Can you give a summary?
Here is the happiness list (younger age 30):
https://worldhappiness.report/assets/images/2024/ch02/Figure_2.2_1.webp
1 Lithuania (7.7)
2 Israel
3 Serbia
4 Iceland
5 Denmark (7.3)
And
62 United States (6.39)
Unhappiest youth are predominantly in African countries beside Lebanon on second last place and Afghanistan (1,82) on last place.
Blueberry
8mo ago
Stalin had four children (he adopted the son of his best friend).
Artyom Sergeyev (the adopted) made a military career and staid a life long admirer of Stalin. His last words in 2008 were according to the obituary of the Guardian a proud "I serve the Soviet Union".
Yakov Dzhugashvili (eldest and half brother to the other two) was the abandoned son, who Stalin refused to pow exchange and who surprised his German captors by dying through running into an electric fence.
Vasily Stalin was the cocky drunk womanizer we see in the satirical movie Death of Stalin. He was imprisoned by the communists after his father’s death.
Svetlana was the dearly loved daughter who got political asylum in the United States in the 60s and then got a bit unhinged trying out all the religions.
Blueberry
8mo ago
Totally in line though with stories about other Silicon Valley leaders.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/should-the-future-be-human
Business Insider: Larry Page Once Called Elon Musk A “Specieist”:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Google cofounder Larry Page disagree so severely about the dangers of AI it apparently ended their friendship.
At Musk's 44th birthday celebration in 2015, Page accused Musk of being a "specieist" who preferred humans over future digital life forms [...] Musk said to Page at the time, "Well, yes, I am pro-human, I fucking like humanity, dude."
Imagine the mind set where this is not a pot fueled friendly banter, but actually a more and more heated argument. Maybe it was blown out of proportion? When Page bought DeepMind, Musk approached DeepMind's founder Demis Hassabis to convince him not to take the offer. "The future of AI should not be controlled by Larry," Musk told Hassabis.
(I don’t quote this to praise Musk, him being humanities champion frightens me a bit, but the misanthropic outlook Effective Accelerationists have.)
Blueberry
8mo ago
The Washington Post and the WSJ have op-eds praising the mockumentary. Which is actually especially surprising, as the entertainment sections on their websites, at least as of now (I just checked), have not a review or any article about it.
WP: "You might not enjoy ‘Am I Racist?’ You should watch it anyway."
https://archive.ph/9J7Ch
But what Walsh is actually revealing is two not-very-surprising realities of human nature: First, that every group has an awful fringe, and it’s easy to make that group look bad if only the fringe’s worst moments survive the cutting-room floor. Second, that the human instinct for avoiding confrontation is exploitable if you’re sufficiently willing to violate the social contract. Both points have already been amply demonstrated by a long history of cults and dictatorships, not to mention middle school.
Yet to give Walsh his due, it’s still jaw-dropping when participants in his ersatz diversity workshop sit silently, or even participate, as he berates a sick-looking elderly man in a wheelchair for being a racist. Walsh eventually stops the workshop when it seems as though they’re actually considering flagellating themselves with the whips he’s passing out.
At every point, his targets are visibly uncomfortable with his exaggerated behavior and strange ideas. But our instinct for avoiding confrontation is almost overwhelming, which both leaves us vulnerable to manipulation and keeps us from killing each other over trivia. If possible, we try to sidestep people who misbehave, not change them.
That’s especially true among America’s genteel upper middle class, who have an unusual ability to engineer their lives away from people who are annoying, antisocial or just plain weird. Many of the most embarrassing moments come in situations — small groups in small rooms — where it’s hard to get up and leave without causing a scene.
[…]
I dropped my head into my hands as DiAngelo went scurrying for her wallet, though I confess, I also laughed. Because you can’t help think of how many times DiAngelo has been paid for her advice on how White people ought to interact with people of color. And some of that advice is only slightly less bizarre and patronizing than suggesting we haul out our wallets and tip them $20.
WSJ: "Matt Walsh’s Hilarious New Film Asks: ‘Am I Racist?’"
https://archive.is/PMYka
An assessment of the DEI literature, published in the Harvard Business Review in 2012, was titled, “Diversity Training Doesn’t Work.” According to the article, one study of “829 companies over 31 years showed that diversity training had ‘no positive effects in the average workplace’ ” and that millions of dollars were spent annually on “training resulting in, well, nothing. Attitudes—and the diversity of the organizations—remained the same.”
Sociologists Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev reached a similar conclusion in a 2018 academic paper. They noted that “hundreds of studies dating back to the 1930s suggest that antibias training does not reduce bias, alter behavior or change the workplace.” According to the authors, “two-thirds of human resources specialists report that diversity training does not have positive effects, and several field studies have found no effect of diversity training on women’s or minorities’ careers or on managerial diversity.”
It is getting even crazier:
Lebanon's official news agency reports that home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut
I wonder how deep Israel did go. And how much is paranoia/fud now.
Edit: And more! Exploding toasters next?
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-820703
Unofficial reports claimed that iPhones, video cameras, IC-V82 radios, and other devices also detonated. Unofficial reports also claimed that Hezbollah told its members to dispose of devices containing a lithium battery or that are connected to the internet.
Regardless of politics I think this song was pure meme magic. The band (Brave Shores) hated that their song was taken and how hard it slapped.
But who would have thought that in 2024 Pets lives matter?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3BrCvZmSnKA
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