GBRK
4mo ago
Illegal immigration is good and is supported. Laws do not matter.
The laws are stupid. They're a bad compromise that makes no one happy. Leftists are mad that there are too few immigrants, rightists are mad that immigrants get too many benefits. I'm willing to cut the gordian knot and say that benefits are bad but immigrants are good. An ideal system of laws would recognize what the defacto state of affairs already does.
They can't even fathom how one could compromise on immigration.
The compromise is that we're more aggressive about punishing immigrants that prove feckless or criminal. (Up to and including forced labor, since deporting them removes the chance for justice and keeping them imprisoned just costs taxpayer money.) But rightists believe in crazy falsehoods like "immigrants are more likely to commit crimes," and leftists believe in crazy falsehoods like "welfare has no impact on market efficiency." So unfortunately it's up to liberals to do the most effective thing despite political and legal headwinds.
GBRK
4mo ago
The filibuster is a bad thing. I say that knowing perfectly well that trump is in office and he would pass things I hate. congress should be forced to make decisions, and face the consequences thereof, instead of endlessly grandstanding about how hypothetically they would be awesome if only they weren't getting filibustered.
Also, why not pack the supreme court? We should have a thousand justices. Maybe a hundred thousand. We should have so many justices they're actually a representative sample of the American population. Then the returns on lobbying justices would be basically nil; instead of being bound to support a political coalition, every justice could just vote their conscience.
GBRK
4mo ago
when they had the power to do so.
They made their best effort. DACA, Dreamers, etcetera. Democrats have had a government trifecta extremely rarely over the past few decades.
Anyways, illegal immigration is better than legal immigration. I'm a neolib, not a leftist; anyone who wants to live here can come, but if they want to stay here they shouldn't ask for welfare.
That inability to make a deal with the rest of the country
What deal? Republicans view immigration as a capital-t Threat. Look at any thread on this site and you will see that there are plenty of near-single-issue anti-immigration voters. Democrats couldn't have made any deal that didn't hurt more than it helped.
It's difficult to say.
It's not difficult at all. Illegal immigration is a good thing. I want as much of it as possible.
But a side doesn't get to claim it's some unique badness
don't twist my words. I'm not claiming trump is uniquely 'bad' in some objective sense. I'm claiming trump is uniquely placed to oppose my values and interests. Sure, clinton is also a rapist and I admit I don't feel nearly as much vitriol against him. But as much as everyone on the epstein list deserves to be taken down, I think it's perfectly rational to motivate my ingroup to focus on specifically the biggest threat to our interests. Call that Trump Derangement Syndrome if you want, but emotions are part of motivation and motivation is a part of political change, so it's perfectly rational for us to be "deranged."
GBRK
4mo ago
I don't like trump because he's made my situation materially worse and is likely to continue to do so. I don't like trump because he profits the outgroup at the expense of the ingroup. I don't like trump because I'm ideologically and morally opposed to his positions. I don't like trump because I think he is, personally, a very immoral individual.
In principle, you could convince me that any particular complaint is overblown. There are plenty of immoral, harmful, outgroup people I don't feel nearly the vitriol for. But Trump is the perfect storm; He's not just a villain, he's a villain that gratuitously kicks puppies. Sure, the media environment contributes to what you call "terror", but that's strictly adaptive. Everyone on my "side" would agree, sober-minded, that Trump is the single most important political figure to oppose. Adding a component of emotional motivation increases the time and pleasure in doing so. Consider any ideological cause leftists and liberals are interested in: creedal citizenship, wealth redistribution, climate change, alphabet people, etcetera. Assuming conflict theory, it's obvious that "Depose Donald Trump" is the first step in promoting any of them. The only reason to do anything else is if you believe in mistake theory instead-- but Donald Trump is congenitally incapable of admitting mistakes (except in the "fifty stalins" sense) which means any attempt to find common ground just gets ran over by his conflict theory instead.
By forming an orthogonal coalition with other people willing to press the "cooperate" button. "Orthogonal" meaning you cluster around a set of self-consistent values that are split between the current political coalitions. For example, if I had the charisma and moral fortitude, I'd try and pull together a movement that concedes to the left-wing economics of the liberation theology catholics but promotes the right-wing moral culture of the tradcaths. We'd advocate something like an open-borders welfare state, but with brutal enforcement of moral orthodoxy to discourage leeches from coming here. (I'm a morally spineless neoliberal currently, but compromise means being willing to give stuff up.)
Subsidies don't have to lose money if they have a positive multiplier.
They do if the government can't effectively recoup their investment via tax revenue-- which is what happens when money goes to tax-avoiding corporations.
Because in that case, that's the government owning a Treasury issued by the government.
Yes, that's the problem. Treasuries are essentially just an investment in the government's future ability to raise revenue, but that comes with the obvious moral hazard that when growth fails to cover the interest, "raise revenue" ends up becoming "raise taxes". I do agree with you on the "managed investments" bit-- and also the competent, professional team bit. With reference to...
I would like to reiterate that the executive branch borderline randomly scooping up equity stakes in flavor of the month companies is not this.
You won't find me arguing in favor of the implementation. Trump is definitely not the president I trust to do this. But the fact of the matter is, the government helicopters loads of money into flavor-of-the-month causes literally all the time, regardless of party or president. So why not set the standard that the government will get equity in return? And with reference to price discovery-- the government committing money into a sector is a truthful signal that the government is interested in promoting it, and that the government will become self-interested in making favorable regulations toward it. Obviously there are moral hazards associated, but price discovery, of all things, is not going to suffer.
GBRK
4mo ago
Subisides are just a strict loss of monies, and treasuries have abysmal interest rates. The superior growth rate of stocks makes them a means to raise government revenue without raising taxes.
GBRK
4mo ago
The thing is, regardless of whether the government buys specifically stocks, the government will allocate capital anyways. Currently that goes toward treasuries and direct subsidies. The government buying stocks instead is pretty much a direct improvement.
GBRK
4mo ago
My grandpa mentioned her-- he keeps track of all the successful people he's related to/otherwise knows in order to flex.
I plan to reach out only after getting published; it would be intensely gauche to show up like someone pretending to be long-lost family of a lottery winner when I have no similar accomplishment to call my own.
GBRK
4mo ago
I don't disagree with signaling, I just disagree with the particular signals I get from literary agents. I would still love to be able to signal that I am not just a writer, but an Author; I want the cachet that comes with being able to tell people to look for my writing in their local bookstore.
... and also, this is entirely petty, but I have to defeat my nemesis. I have a (2nd or 3rd degree) cousin who is published, does make their living writing, and has their book in my local Barnes and Nobles. (They live in another country entirely). They're also about my age. So despite the fact that they have no clue I exist, and that at a glance I don't have any problem with their writing, I've determined that they're my rival and made it my life goal to surpass them. (Only partially kidding.)
As for a vanity business... probably never. I'm either going to approach the problem with killing intent or not at all; if I just want status and creative freedom without regard for income I can go write fanfiction.
GBRK
4mo ago
Please, for the love of dog, actually fucking write this. I NEED to see the Burger Xianxia cinematic universe.
GBRK
4mo ago
Naomi Novik
also helped code AO3 and still writes fanfiction under a pen-name. Plus her fairy-tale retellings and scholomance series were very solid reads, if undeniably girl-coded.
She's like the spiders georg of female-author-male-appeal. Legit built different.
GBRK
4mo ago
I'm surprised and pleased by how philosophically coherent this move is. If the government is going to give out industrial subsidies, why not get something in return? We all know the big corporations will dodge any tax we throw at them, but trying to get around paying dividends risks pissing off their own power base.
That being said, I'm very bearish on the chances of this particular administration doing anything productive and socially useful with additional industrial control. Probably it just goes toward enriching the Trump empire with corruption.
I already have 30th percentile income and wealth. Making an extra 10k or 20k a year would be nice, but I could earn that for less effort by focusing on interview prep and certifications for my profession. That's why my utility curve is logitic in this case. If I get published at all, I get an initial surge of utility just from the status effects. Then there's a long doldrums of, "I'm happier the more money I make, but this doesn't seriously change my life." Then there's the jackpot of, "getting famous enough to do nothing but write." I've already taken most of the low-hanging fruit for improving my live within the confines of my current circumstances; setting a new utility basepoint would require dramatic changes in capabilities beyond what I already have.
Your best bet is to go indie. If you absolutely must attempt traditional publishing, skip the agents and try submitting directly to Baen.
Good point, I should be thinking about direct-submission places too... I have a pretty limited view of the publishing industry because frankly I mostly just () books. After a brief look I've already found the litRPG publisher Aetheon, and I think it's pretty interesting that they phrase their inclusion statement as
***Aethon Books is committed to the publication of works by writers of all genders, ethnicities, color, orientation, nationalities, and religious or political beliefs. We are concerned only with the quality and commercial viability of the works submitted to us, and not on the personal backgrounds of the authors.
... which is implicitly meritocratic. Ironically, I bet that their output is far more varied ethnically than the bigger publishers. (Some of those Indians CAN write, haha. And they're doing it on royal road instead of kindle unlimited.)
I'm willing to serially publish in principle, but this book in particular isn't designed for that; it's too short and dense to be serialized, so instead of butchering it I'd rather start from scratch.
GBRK
4mo ago
right-wing Catholic epic fantasy (I know that is not how you described it)
TBF it's not "right-wing", but "catholic epic fantasy" is close enough to the mark. I knew exactly what I was doing with the scene where the main character consumes the blood and body of an undead demigod.
But yeah, I'm aware that "quit my job" money is a long shot. My mindset is that each book is essentially a lottery ticket. The EV is <1, and it's even lower if I go for trad publishing over self publishing. But my utility curve isn't linear with respect to income here: I see the biggest bumps at, "convince a small number of dedicated people to invest a lot of effort into understanding my book" and "make enough money to quit my job." In-between, there's not a whole lot of difference between making 5 or 10 or 20 thousand dollars.
I AM interested in your experience shopping your books around. Are there any (politics-independent) tricks you picked up querying or submitting to contests?
GBRK
4mo ago
Trad pub has a much higher risk of failure, but if you pick the right lottery numbers it massively magnifies your success. That's why even the most popular selfpublished works eventually get aquired and sent down the traditional route-- because they know they'll benefit from the investment of institutional resources.
If I wanted side-hustle money, selfpub would be better. But I'm aiming, however foolishly, for quit-your-job money, which is a much higher bar since I'm already well renumerated. To that end, I'd much rather have 10 trunk books or flops trying to pen a bestseller than 10 books that get a modest audience but require a permanent time commitment for marketing, events, merch, kickstarter, etcetera. I'm not interested in the fate of all selfpublishing authors I know in my local writer's groups. Death or glory. Nothing else.
GBRK
4mo ago
I'm a big fan of serial novels, and I've previously written (fanfiction) serially before. But as an art form, it's like comparing a TV show to a movie-- for all the things that are similar, there's still plenty of things that change. For example, I'm committed to polishing to book to a mirror finish, which means obsessing over line-level prose, snipping dangling plot threads, and cutting out fat like I'm sculping a character from greek myth. But all of that goes directly against the grain of serial fiction, which favors expansive plots, slower development, excessive-- almost extraneous-- detail, and update rate over polish.
I'm not going to rule out publishing serially in the future, but this book specifically would only work as a traditionally published work
So I'm starting the search for a literary agent for my fantasy adventure novel. I haven't sent out any queries yet-- I've got at least one more round of beta readers and I still need to perfect a query letter-- but I've been looking through manuscriptwishlist and querytracker for prospective agents. Now this didn't come as a surprise or anything, but the ratio of female to male agents is something like 7:1. And making some assumptions based on biographical elements, I'll wager that the ratio of female to straight male agents is something like 15:1. And despite the fact that as a catholic I'm already pretty redpilled culturally in spite of my neoliberal principles-- wow is the performative support for alphabet + "marginalized" (read: nonmale, nonwhite) identities off the charts. It's genuinely pretty disheartening.
Now I could, in principle, present myself as exactly the kind of person these agents want: a brown author with a story set in a non-euroamerican inspired fantasy and female gender-non-conforming main character. (She actually conforms pretty well to the gender norms of her own culture, but I made a concerted effort to have all my cultures be strange and bizarre.). I even address a "socially relevant cause" (immigration) as a secondary theme. But the idea of contorting myself into their box disgusts me. And besides that, my treatment of the theme draws intentional parallels between immigration and imperialism, and poses the question of tradeoffs: security vs prosperity, the right to preserve your culture vs. the need to enforce uniform standards of good behavior, the interests of the immigrants vs. the interests of the locals, etcetera. And also the main character is genuinely racist. I don't think that'll go over well with the kind of people who "care deeply about supporting marginalized voices" and specify, "NO MORE BORING CIS WHITE GUYS" in all caps.
Despite that, I'm still going to go through the submission process. I'm not going to cope about sour grapes-- most probably, if I can't get an agent, it'll be because my manuscript just isn't good enough. Or, even if it is, it might just not be marketable enough, for reasons completely unrelated to politics. I was this close to listing "made in abyss" as a comp title; my level of politics-neutral degeneracy is high enough that I'll be genuinely surprised to earn out an industry-standard $10,000 advance.
But still-- if anyone can point me to resources for finding agents who aren't NPCs, I'd appreciate that. I'm also thinking about direct submissions to conservative-leaning mid size presses but worry those will just pose the equivalent-but-reflected problem.
GBRK
5mo ago
I hate to concede this because /u/The_Nybbler behaved in such poor faith, but on the basis of your critiques of the model, and the study you linked about the food wasting question-- you have successfully convinced me that school lunches are not a net economic benefit. I went to the trouble of finding the source, and you eventually went through the trouble of looking through it to point out the problems therein-- just as I'd asked. I can't find a counterforce with better quality evidence, so you win.
Did we really have to go through the whole rigamarole of you insisting that any source that disagrees with you can be dismissed because it's leftist propaganda? We're on a debate forum. If someone posts a glen beck video as a source the correct response is to counter it on its merits and only then dismiss, ignore, and ban the poster if they continue to be an idiot.
GBRK
5mo ago
Building a wall is a little silly. I'm pro-immigration, but in this case that l means I think the amerian military should immigrate into ottowa and annex it. Canadians are very aware that they aren't a real country-- this is the obvious solution to that.
GBRK
5mo ago
anti-dan already attacked your source.
No, he didn't. He attacked the people responsible for the source, and acted like that was sufficient to dismiss the source itself. That's a textbook ad hominem.
Buddy, I am really not asking for much. I'm not asking you to make an hour-long takedown of the study's contents, I'm just asking you to find a concrete problem with it or find a contradictory source. Take my response to the CATO article as an example: I didn't go in and question every single stat, I just raised a single, salient problem.
You don't have to find the perfect source or argument, you just need to do a little bit better than I did. I probably won't be convinced on the spot-- but it'll force me to either give up on convincing you or do even better. In the latter case, even if neither of us ultimately manage to convince the other, at least we'll both have better knowledge of the subject that's tested against oppositional analysis. Which is still a pretty great outcome, for anyone who believes in the value of reasoned, good-faith debate. And if you don't believe in that value, why are you on the motte? If you just want people to agree with you without regard for truth value there are other, better platforms.
(also I just realized that you and anti-dan aren't the same person. Which is honestly kind of sad. You have the energy to dogpile me, but not the energy to find a single source to the anti-school-lunch position?)
Tarrifs and fewer immigrants increase cost of living. Plus he's personally annoying, and that counts.
Were you born after 2008? because people were definitely Big Mad. The outrage reduced over time, but only because Obamacare is actually decent policy. (And if you want to argue that, explain why even Trump still hadn't gotten rid of it.)
Anyways, if you want to make a 1-to-1 comparison the outrage about Obamacare is definitely bigger than the outrage over tarrifs. Immigration and healthcare are flamewar lightning rods, but barely anyone actually cares to discuss trade policy.
I'm a government contractor. I believe my work is relatively nonpartisan, though if I doxxed myself maybe you would find a reason to disagree. But apparently the trump administration doesn't, because the contract I'm on got renewed... just, after a whole lot of time-and-money-wasting nonsense.
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