ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
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User ID: 1098
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
6mo ago
I don't know anyone in real life who is both pro life and anti those other things. I know people who are pro life and also believe in helping the poor and immigrants. I know people who are anti immigrant but fine with abortion. That these people happen to be part of the same coalition is due to the relative strength of their convictions on the different issues. Pro life are VERY pro life and weak on the other issues. Etc.
You could make a similar criticism of the pastor's position along the same lines. "You can advocate for bringing in criminals and low class immigrants and taxing the wealthy because you live far away from the lower classes and don't have to worry about crime, you work in a nepotistic industry that takes decades to assimilate into so you're not threatened by immigrant labor, and you are paid in esteem rather than cash so taxing the rich doesn't affect you. Very convenient that your political positions are both morally correct and don't force you to make any sacrifices in your own life." With a little wordsmithing that would be just as persuasive as what the pastor said.
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
11mo ago
If it were not true that most of the people who voted Democrat before Reagan vote Republican now, then where did all those Democratic voters go and where did all the Republican voters come from?
Exactly. People change their party affiliations over time. Parties change their platforms over time. Ascribing a consistent principled philosophy to a political party, a group that is a Ship of Theseus in both membership and in ideas, is a fool's errand. It would be more accurate to treat the parties as brand new groups every election. Republicans_1984 is not Republicans_2024. And criticizing a party based on the platforms of past parties that share the same name is invalid. It was different people and a different platform.
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
3mo ago
I'll miss your commentary but I support this choice. Good luck with your project, and please succeed or fail quickly so you can get back here sooner.
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
10mo ago
The campaign's proposals include a "first-ever" tax credit for builders of homes sold to first-time buyers, as well as up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance for "eligible" first time buyers, a move that her campaign estimated could reach four million households over four years.
To anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of economics, this is just gibs for her constituents. It'll of course raise housing prices in general, hurting all the people who don't qualify for the tax credit.
- A: Behold our new policy: Subsidize Demand!
- B: How will this help lower prices?
- A: Lower prices?
Which... totally makes sense if one believes her constituents are good people and deserve more than they're getting right now. Or that the people hurt by the policy are bad people (a.k.a. status competitors) who deserve less than what they have.
This is an interesting analogy and lends itself to more elaboration.
In aviation, there have been autopilots for many years. But always the human pilot is in command, and uses the autopilot as a tool that has to be managed and overseen. Autonomous vehicles, at least in some companies' visions, have no way to control them manually. An airplane pilot enters waypoints into the navigation system to plan out a route; an autonomous car routes itself. The biggest difference is in who is responsible for the vehicle; is it the human operator or the vehicle's manufacturer?
I could see a kind of autonomous vehicle that works more like an airplane autopilot - you wouldn't necessarily need a steering wheel, but if you had control over the different high-level choices in route planning and execution (do I try to make this yellow light? Should I play chicken at this merge or play it safe?) then the human could be considered responsible in a way that a fully autonomous, sit-back-and-relax mode doesn't allow.
I am revolted by the idea of relying on a company akin to an airline for my day-to-day mobility. There are too many failure modes that leave one stuck. What if there's a natural disaster and all the phone networks are down? Or the car company has a de facto local monopoly, but then withdraws from this market or goes out of business? What if the company starts blacklisting customers for things that shouldn't be related to transportation, like their political affiliation or their credit score?
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