DirtyWaterHotDog
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User ID: 625
DirtyWaterHotDog
1d ago
That's why I specifically compared it to other bicameral systems.
slow down the passing of legislation
Can't slow down a stationary object. The Senate can only limit the power of the house, a house that already moves at snails place. The Executive and Courts wield their power independently.
give a seniority track to successful politicians
Works better when people were dying at age 50. When the average age of the Senate is higher than the life-expectancy 100 years ago, you know something went wrong.
reserve of statesmen
All elections become popularity contests. Why make the senate elected, if the goal is to bring in experienced statesmen.
The American system was created for a different America. A white-protestant nation run by proven men who rose up the ranks through merit (college, military achievement). 75% of the Senate had a college degree in 1945, when less than 5% of the nation had gone to college. The need for fund-raising and media-access meant that running for office was exclusively limited to the elites. This meant a high degree of consensus on what America should be. Therefore, they worried about the excesses of democracy.
In 2025, America is a diverse nation with public-office having exceptionally low barriers to entry. Consensus is nonexistent and core values of various groups are at odds with each other. In such a place, the system should encourage compromise. This means giving power back to the house.
If an downstream institution can unilaterally torpedo a bill (Senate filibuster), then the house would never go through the painful process of reaching compromise. The congress can override the president, but not the senate.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1d ago
On filibusters and the Senate..............
The US senate is an odd institution.
The house does the legislation. The executive executes. The courts maintain constitutional sanctity. The states already elect governors to represent them. What is the role of the Senator ? It made made some sense until the 1913 (17th amendment), when Senators were effectively subordinate (selected) to Governors. That way, state elections served as a useful way to remove both unpopular governors and senators.
An elected senate is just odd.
- The Senate isn't representative. (Californians have the same representation as Wyoming)
- The Senate can't do anything but block. (Net negative institution)
- The Senate can filibuster, the House can't. (1 man anti-democratic weapon)
Most democratic nations don't have anywhere near as powerful of a Senate (or equivalent institution). The Indian Rajya-Sabha & House of Lords can only delay a bill by a short amount. A balancing counter-weight also makes sense in a parliamentary system where the executive (Prime-Minister) is selected by the house (making the house too powerful) unlike the US where the President is separately elected.
This means, in India, a person only thinks about 2 elections. Once for their state (governor, who selects senators) and once for the nation (house, which selects the executive). A British person only thinks about the Commons.
In comparison, An American must think of 4 elections. The governor, senators, house reps and the President. That's exhausting. Only takes 1 lapse, 1 midterm rando, to block legislation for the next 6 years. Doesn't the US already have enough checks-and-balances ? The house churns every 2 years. The last time someone held onto Senate+House in a midterm was in 1978.
I am just learning about the 17th amendment & the history of filibuster. so bear with me. Some wikipedia exerpts:
Those in favor of popular elections for senators believed two primary problems were caused by the original provisions: legislative corruption and electoral deadlocks
Appears that it made things worse than better. In an era where they were capable of pushing constitutional amendments, it's hilarious to think that they were complaining about deadlocks. Yeah buddy, try getting anything done in 2025.
Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the United States Senate allows the Senate to vote to limit debate by invoking cloture on the pending question. In most cases this requires a majority of three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn (60 votes if there is no more than one vacancy),[3]: 15–17 so a minority of senators can block a measure, even if it has the support of a simple majority.
Interestingly, the most important change on senate filibusters was also made in the same decade (1917). Clearly they knew filibusters were a bad idea. House filibusters were eliminated in 1842 ! Not sure why they left it half-complete in 1917.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2d ago
China is fine with nation-wise oppression of minorities. They have no issues with oppression of Muslims in China, Hindus in Pakistan or the Chinese in Malaysia.
Second, the Muslim identity is primarily an Arab identity. East-Asian and great-lake-African muslims are oppressed all the time, and global Islam does not care. (note: North African islam is not the same as Subsaharan islam). These are the Muslims that matter to other muslims.
Do they just think they own Pakistan as a counterweight to India
Yes. It's less friends, and more that Pakistan is a client state of China. Pakistan is Turtle to China's Vince.
and Pakistan is happy to be owned?
No, but what option do they (Pakistani Army) have ? IMF isn't giving new loans anymore. Even the Saudis stopped giving freebees. Big daddy China is all that's left. Anything to be in opposition to India.
DirtyWaterHotDog
4d ago
The rivers are already shut off for all intents and purposes. Pushing it further can set scary precedents in the sub-continent.
India could go upstream and cut off rivers at the source, but Pakistan's best friend (China) controls even more important rivers upstream. If China did a tit-for-tat than India would lose a lot more than they'd gain.
It's the main reason I consider Indian inaction to the Chinese annexation of Tibet to be the worst strategic misstep of a newly independent India. And for those who say 'India did not have the resources', Tibet is a defenders dream. All supply lines are cutoff for half the year. You can't lay siege, you can't set up shop, you can't invade. Well, I have enough reasons to dislike Nehru already. But here's one more.
In the months surrounding the People’s Liberation Army’s October 1950 entry into Tibet, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru read the same cable traffic yet drew radically different conclusions. Patel’s 7 November 1950 memorandum to Nehru warned that Tibet’s fall would erase the Himalayan buffer, expose India’s “almost undefended” northern flank, and reveal “China’s carefully laid plan to establish its domination” across Asia. Nehru, by contrast, saw the episode as unwelcome but unavoidable; he registered a formal protest, yet pressed ahead with recognizing the People’s Republic of China, advocating its U.N. seat, and negotiating the 1954 Panchsheel Agreement. Their divergent assessments shaped Indian policy for a decade and still frame today’s debate on how the annexation might have been answered differently. (sauce - O3 mini with search)
Ofc Patel was on the right side of history. Everything I read about him makes him seem like a 'Lee Kwan Yew' style pragmatic statesman that India needed. But ofc, Nehru chose naive optimism as he always did. Oh, how I wish the man had just gone to Cambridge and been a brown Francis Fukuyama instead.
DirtyWaterHotDog
4d ago
I've had a few moments where I thought I was watching fake videos or Indian propaganda. Then looked into it and turned out the Terrorists/Pakistanis are really that comically evil.
No wonder The Boys fell off after season 2. Can't compete with reality.
Few corrections, observations and 'smells' that imply this time it may be different.
1. It's overt - The attack was claimed by the Resistance Front (Lashkar-e-Taiba LeT). Pakistan operates many terrorist cells in the Kashmir area with different levels of overt and covert involvement. LeT is about as overt as Pakistani intelligence involvement gets. Why be so obvious ? It's so overt that Pakistan's defense minister almost let the mask slip off.(ignore the twitter handle, video is real)
2. It's timely - Last week, the new Pakistani General Munir (defacto leader) gave a fiery speech highlighting Pakistan's militant islam identity, Kashmir and Hindu-Muslim strife. It was big new in India even before the attack. Makes it look like Pakistan really want war.
After indiscriminate firing in the beginning, terrorists singled out non-Muslims to kill them. Separately, sources told CNN-News 18 that terrorists checked people for circumcision (this part is unsubstantiated) and asked people to recite ‘kalma’ to identify non-Muslims and shot them (is substantiated) — ‘kalma’ in Islam is a declaration of faith and serves as the allegiance to God. Those who could not recite it were deemed non-Muslims and were shot.
3. It's cruel - The pointed slaughter of Hindus has everyone pissed. I mean, really ? How comically evil can you be ? Almost as if Pakistan is provoking war.
There have been bigger terror attacks in the past
No. Which brings me to #4 and #5
4. It's extreme - The last time as many civilians died to Pakistani terror attack was during 26/11/2008. (India's 9/11). The only reason India did not go to war back then was because Congress's pro-muslim stance makes it impossible for them to sell aggressive rhetoric towards Pakistanis.
5. It's the right people - Unlike the congress, a war with Pakistan comes with better optics for Modi. Both Modi and Munir are seen as hardline strongmen, more conservative than their predecessors during 26/11.
India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers” and would “pursue them to the ends of the earth. The time has come to raze whatever is left of the haven of terrorists.
6. It's the right signals - The military build up is higher than usual. America has taken a suspiciously weak stance in condemning Pakistan & Modi has said surprisingly little (when it is saber rattling, nations take strong stances. When it is real, they hedge). In such situations, Modi jumps on it and makes strong statements. This time is eerie silence. Like the calm before a storm. In time of silence, the words that get spoken are more important. Modi made a speech in English. The speech was for the world, not Indians. His phrasing was ominous. I expect there to be cross border action at the very least.
7. It's the right incentives - India is internally stable, while Pakistan is in crisis. Pakistan uses war to stabilize their nation. India avoids war because it risks destabilization in Kashmir. This time around, local Kashmiris have been silent. India feels confident that a hot border won't hurt its stability.
All in all. While this may still be a nothing burger. There are indications that this time may be different.
What I expect will happen:
In wars, nations have desired outcomes. India and Pakistan do not want land on either side of the border. Primarily, Pakistan wants to destabilize Indian-Kashmir and India wants to stabilize it. Likewise, India wants to destabilize Pakistani-Kashmir.
Short term - Full scale war is unlikely to impossible. Air strikes are near guaranteed. Given the non-commital language adopted by Modi, I expect an un-easy calm and sudden retaliation. Pakistan is reeling from internal strife. Modi has time. If Modi is feeling it, he can try to secure new vantage points near the line of control, but that seems unlikely.
Long term - Hindus will continue to be aggressively resettled back into the valley. Security levels will stay high. Ie. Freedoms of non-BJP operatives will stay limited in Kashmir. Infrastructure development will similarly continue. Kashmir's stability after the attack will come as a huge relief to Modi. It lends credence to the idea that Pakistan has ran out of traditional avenues (saber rattling, funding local opposition and activism for Kashmir's independence) for retaliation. The abeyance of water-rights agreements with Pakistan would allow for resumption of various half-built dams.
DirtyWaterHotDog
5d ago
And for a while they were doing good. India was a languishing in socialist democracy (hindu rate of growth) and a Bangladesh was still finding its feet as fledgling nation. In the 20th century, Pakistan was in a better place than India or Bangladesh. In the 90s, they nearly doubled India in GDP-PPP/Capita terms.
Even as a badly run but stable nation, Pakistan has a lot to offer. It has tons of rare earths. Pakistani-Kashmir is heaven on earth. Punjabi river systems are well-suited for industrialized agriculture. I would much prefer for Pakistan to thrive as nation of 250 million people, than this clown show they've been running.
DirtyWaterHotDog
5d ago
Temporary victory, but I'll take it. Nice to see pro-transit efforts can't be unilaterally blocked by Trump.
You can't fight Pakistan for the same reason you don't pick fights with a pig. Pakistan doesn't point a gun towards you. Pakistan points a gun and its own head and threatens to shoot. Every Indo-Pakistani war was started by Pakistan, because India has nothing to gain from it.
War doesn't work, because war creates unpopular deaths for India while creating martyrs in Pakistan.
Economic retaliation doesn't work because Pakistan has no economy to speak of. Resource bottlenecking doesn't work because they are already on the verge of famine. Anything more will mean civilian deaths.
Full decoupling does not work because we have long borders. The US can't enforce a border with Mexico, and that's all flat land. Imagine trying to maintain a border up in the Himalayas. Don't even get me started on their nukes.
The failed state of Pakistan is a nuisance past redemption.
If Pakistani leadership stopped to think for a second, they'd realize that India is their natural trading partner. Afterall, these trade routes go back millennia. Karachi is clearly aching for maritime trade with India's west coast. Lahore is 30 miles from Amritsar. Faisalabad is 100 miles from Amritsar.
Geographically, Pakistan's urban areas hug India in the same way Canada's hug the USA. Can you imagine if Canada arbitrarily decided to have zero trade ties with India. Yes, Pakistan is client state to China and could trade with them. But China is too far. Beijing is closer to Anchorage than it is Islamabad. After 100 years of poisoning the well, I am aware that India-Pakistan peace is broken for good. But, what a waste.
Yes, 1 borough of 1 city containing 1.6 million people. All this outrage over 0.5% of the nation's population ?
60% of commuters use public transport in NYC. 3 types of people drive into NYC : Rich people, Blue collar workers and suburbanites who would who have been forced back by RTO policies. Rich people can pay the toll. RTO suburbanites would be compensated by their companies. Hourly blue collar people would rather save time and make a few more dollars.
I don't know if you've driven into Manhattan before, but it is a total shit show. Tolls or not, I can't imagine anyone wanting to drive into the city by choice. Congestion pricing takes what is a universally miserable experience, and makes it tolerable for some while incentivizing the rest to take the less-painful path (transit). It is a as close to a universally good thing as you can get.
DirtyWaterHotDog
8d ago
Saved ! Great song. Thick basslines make lives.
DirtyWaterHotDog
8d ago
It's popular in New York City, because many in New York City don't drive so it's a tax on other people. Not so popular outside NYC.
Exactly ! Why national outrage over a single bridge in a location where it makes sense ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
8d ago
"Urban crime" is a scoped to make all cities look bad, when the issue is of some neighborhoods in some cities.
Oakland or Baltimore are generally violent. Downtown Seattle or SOMA SF have homelessness and nonviolent property crime associated with it. I dont recommend living in these neighborhoods and I am in complete agreement on the dire need for possibly non-compassionate methods for resolving these issues. But these cities/neighborhoods are rarely the subjects of discussion.
Statistically, transit focused American cities are exceedingly safe. NYC & Boston are the nations 2 big transit cities. Both the cities and their transit corridors are quite safe. Hell, you can fall asleep late at night on the subway and wake up in East NY (murdertown).... and it's still safe inside the subway complex. As mentioned before, bad neighborhoods are ofc crime ridden. But connecting them to a common transit doesnt bring crime to your doorstep.
That being said, I'm glad that the YIMBY/Transit crowd has decoupled from the compassionate/pro-homeless crowd.
Strict enforcement of public safety is essential to getting people to use transit. The caltrain (well run) vs Bart (total mess) are great examples while being within a few miles from eachnother.
DirtyWaterHotDog
8d ago
imposition of tolls under the CBDTP pilot project appears to be driven primarily by the need to raise revenue for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) System as opposed to the need to reduce congestion
For context. All revenues collected under this program are earmarked for MTA projects.
If it is the primary goal of the program is up to interpretation. And as you said, the state could always throw it into a pile and use it for MTA projects anyways. Earmarked or not.
I'm with you on everything else. For once, I'm a shameless partisan on the issue. I like to think I can empathize with the stance of my ideological opposite. But car brained Americans have to be operating under advanced stupidy or extreme malice. I see no sympathetic position for them.
Even the smallest inconvenience to cars thousands of miles away makes them go into a frenzy. No one is coming for cars in rural America or the suburbs or even godforsaken cities like Atlanta. We're talkimg about vanilla-ass transportation policy in world cities like LA, NYC, SF, Boston, Philly, Miami and DC.
Not even a red vs blue thing. Californian opposition is so comically evil in their demands for an acceptable subway line that I cant help but think there is something I'm missing.
based on two defects
From the document, this came across as an argument rather than a statement of fact (Sec Transp argues that the 1991 exception for congestion pricing was vague so he he's going to interpret it as he sees fit )
Reading between the lines, it's pretty much a 'Biden let you do it. I wont. Fuck you' letter. It even acknowledges the positive reception among the public.
It comes across as another example of Trump pushing the power of the executive to its furthest limits (every executive outdoes their former on this, but Trump 2 is a whole another level)
Congestion pricing is popular. Its in a deep blue state and doesnt have a partisan bent. (Republicans take the subway too). Im not sure why Trump is so appaled by it other than simplistic 'highway good, transit bad' memes.
Unsurprisingly, there has been nothing said about the flagrant disregard for rule of law by the executive of New York.
Executive overreach vs executive overreach. About damn time Democrats started playing politics rather than fumbling around like baboons.
I recognize that FHWA under the prior Administration concluded, when executing the November 21 Agreement, that the CBDTP was eligible for approval under VPPP, and that my determination represents a change in position.
What is the precedent around retroactive change to previous approvals, esp. when the capital expenditure is already done ?
Man, is it hard to get anything done in the US. No wonder the infrastructure is crumbling.
Congestion pricing launched after surviving multiple lawsuits filed on both sides of the Hudson River.
How did stuff ever get built in the US ? The system offers infinite tools for opposition to block every project. How did the interstate system get built ? Was there a clear before-after for when this kind of systemic obstruction became commonplace ?
I'm surprised that Trump fans didnt see the civic disobedience coming. Politics and the balance between the various pillars is a massive grey area, always has been. The boundaries around this area are primarily upheld by expectations of civility and perceptions of what gets you voted out of office. "X is illegal" is never that straightforward.
Trump won by throwing civility out the window, slaughtering every sacred cow and still got the popular vote. Dems are learning the obvious lessions. Trump is about to find out why certain pandoras boxes stay closed. (Assuming the dems are somewhat competent )
DirtyWaterHotDog
11d ago
Fighter pilot.
Resilience to stress is more important than excellence. Both of them can fly a plane. Only one of them knows how to keep his cool in stressful circumstances.
DirtyWaterHotDog
13d ago
In stating examples of scissor statements, your post will recieve dismissive comments. But, I loved it. It articulated why I felt a strong discomfort while reading scotts post.
I thought, ofc no one takes POSWID literally. Then Scott wrote a takedown of the literal implication. It felt oddly tonedeaf for him. Turns out, people do care about the shallow claim.
To me, POSWID accusations are veiled versions of "sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice". This is especially relevant in American meritocracy, where incompetence may be seen as worse than malice.
If American police keep killing black people without sufficient body cam footage and police are good people, then maybe theyre stupid. After spending a year in SF, maybe social workers combating homelessness are incompetent. American defense, healthcare, etc. Stupid or evil. Pick one.
Calling people stupid is a social faux pas. POSWID claims are a socially acceptable way to call people stupid.
DirtyWaterHotDog
17d ago
Yes, but that's because they believe they can have their cake (their Indianess, communities ties) and eat it too (be in a clean & wealthy place).
DirtyWaterHotDog
18d ago
Unfortunately, change usually comes from violent revolt. Olds don't fight. Geriatric welfare is a democratic phenomenon.
SK is primed for revolution. Every man serves in the military. They had a (failed) emergency and subsequent (successful) impeachment last year. The leader before that was ejected in a anti-govt protests. So far, jobless men giving into a 'laying flat' depression rather than violent retaliation. Not sure how long that will last.
South Korea is a fascinating nation. A first world nation where everyone seems miserable. Strong contrast with India, where people live in literal filth, yet seem happy and content. What's the main source of this deep nihilism ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
18d ago
don't need to use my money to study tuna for "sustainability" reasons
Fisheries is a massive industry. We're seeing widespread collapse of wild populations for crabs and migratory freshwater fish.
Agriculture, fisheries & husbandry are always subsidized by govts. Govts move research burdens away from the farmers, by making public universities do the heavy lifting instead. These jobs were not created as a result of DEI. The 'tuna research' guy was in his job since the mid-1990s. It's indirect social-welfare.
US will experience a "brain drain"
The US is defined by brain-gain like no other nation before it. It has selected for 2 things : Intelligence (high skill immigration) and agency (the kind of person who will seek gold an ocean away). Brain-gain is practically American industrial policy. Cooling down would still imply brain-drain on the balance.
DirtyWaterHotDog
21d ago
Vivek and Vance seek power. Ackman seeks money. It's different.
Lastly, the current trading system, while far from perfect or fair to the U.S., has served us extremely well so we need to be prudent in how we change it so as not to upset the world order in such a manner that it disadvantages our country over the long term.
The fear is palpable
DirtyWaterHotDog
25d ago
because of low hanging fruit like the Common Crawl
You're underselling the size of Common Crawl. At that pretraining scale, the emergent properties of the model are near identical. Shady data is useful for turning models into experts at narrow tasks. But if the task is generic and isn't gated by access to shady data, then the models will give identical answers.
Broadly speaking: Model_output = function_of(prompt, post trained personality, conditioning information)
I am assuming that the prompts were identical and the post-training personalities don't factor into this exercise. That leaves conditioning information.
Fields like programming (Github) and News (Twitter) have private sources that Openai or Grok can leverage to get an edge over their competitors. Other fields like Physics, gaming & image creation are amenable to simulation and therefore improvement through RL. Lastly, private data collection can help fill in gaps for applied fields where there is a rift between what is written and what is understood. (medicine, law, etc). Macro-economics is none of these 3. There is no simulation, no private corpus, no information that an expert can feed into an LLM that improves its intuition on how markets work. In such cases, the LLM will default to a logical process that emerges from the median knowledge of its public corpus.
This means that models will give identical answers.
DirtyWaterHotDog
26d ago
4o, o3 high, Gemini 2.5 pro, Claude 3.7, Grok all give the same answer to the question on how to impose tariffs easily.
Bruh, they're all trained on the same base data.....ofc they give the same answer. It's like seeking the true religion, and then interviewing 5 different people in Saudi Arabia.
The models diverge in post training areas (coding, creating writing, etc), but not on long-tail questions like 'how to implement tarrifs effectively'.
DirtyWaterHotDog
28d ago
Neither are unconventional but....
- Banana bread should always be toasted. toasted till the (salted) butter burns. Heaven on earth.
- Pain Perdu = French toast. But, instead of adding sugar into the mixture, you sprinkle it on the soaked bread and then toast it in butter.
I suspect Brazilian cheese bread will toast great.
The credible/non-credible forums can be alright. /r/noncrediblediplomacy , /r/crediblediplomacy, /r/noncredibledefense, /r/credibledefense
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