Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
Hello back frens
User ID: 2022
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
2mo ago
I think you should evaluate this not only in the context of the war. German democracy was deeply unpopular and due to end soon, and the communists and nazis where fighting for who would replace it. In retrospect, it seems clear that the germans are better of with their choice, despite everything. Communism really is that bad that youd rather lose a world war.
But what Nick Fuentes and many others outside his orbit among the "anti-semitic Dissdent Right" are perceiving is heterodox political perspectives previously monopolized by the DR become appropriated and platformed but stripped of actual criticism of Jews.
WW2 revisionism always had anti-american strands as well as anti-jewish ones (perhaps not as prominently in America itself?). BAPists are not taking the serial numbers off your stuff, they are reinterpreting the anti-american versions as being about the blue empire. Being broadly familiar with the european right that sure was what I thought moldbug was doing.
I personally know someone who believes a lot of things about WW2 are lies but not the holocaust, and is also antisemitic.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
If you want to factor out that term because you don't believe they do, then I'm fine with that.
Thats not what its about. What I said is that GDP already includes wages. GDP measures production expenditure, which includes expenditure on wages. If hourly wages go up, ceter paribus GDP goes up. If hours worked go up, ceter paribus GDP goes up. This is also why you should subtract the immigrants own wage - it goes into GDP, but doesnt benefit natives.
densifying population centers means that people increase faster than miles of roads and sewage
If thats true, then is should already be profitable to urbanise the existing population more. And Im not sure it is all that true - as a city grows bigger, it needs more transport per person to still get everyone everywhere at even just the same velocity.
to other sub-american countries they will be less productive than they would have been as americans
I say that? You get less, but still most. This is important in the political calculus, where there are non-economic objections to immigration, and the size of the benefit matters in addition to the sign. And it matters to all non-american first world countries.
There are also services that are difficult to provide non-locally
Sure, but people in the non-local jobs are freed up to do those local ones, compensating most of the loss.
And-- centralization effects are a big deal too.
Im not sure theyre such a big deal. Maybe without immigration, every person would have gotten the same wage at home, which would lower the average in America but not for americans. So I dont think the higher wages in America relative to other countries are evidence of productivity gains from centralisation. The fact that centralisation occured is evidence for a benefit from it, but doesnt tell us how high it is. Benefits from centralisation, like pretty much all benefits from scale, are asymptotic. The US tech industry it quite big already, it propably wouldnt lose much from being split in halves.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
I think that makes those soldiers more like ambassadors (in relation, though not purpose)
I dont think so. With the ambassadors, the US agrees to exchange jurisdiction over them with the other state. This requires a recognition of that state and a defined relationship, which an invasion does not. Are raiding native americans "acting in an official capacity"? Or mexican cartells, or CHAZ? The US may also, even universal jurisdiction aside, prosecute soldiers for crimes unrelated to the war effort. And note again the similar treatment of soldiers and illegal immigrants.
So any theory of jurisdictional defect premised on illegal entry is still going to conclude a substantial part of Trump's order is unconstitutional
I understand that its a long post but I literally said so.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
I think youve somehow got the idea Im an enemy, and interpret me as arguing under that goal. I think Im on your side, but what Im saying here doesnt particularly help either.
It was giving reasons the swings aren't viable.
It also says when they are not viable, and I dont think these situations are inescapable. Your incompatibility is true only if theres nothing that can reduce the frequency of flips, other than an unelected ruling ideology. Im open to critique of democracy, but I dont find this one convincing.
Look, theres been a few democracies in the world and as far as I know none of them ever had this problem where they ran the state into the ground because they flip-floped every election. It just doesnt happen, because people can see it coming and do something else instead. Now you can ask yourself what that something else could be in our case and if thats good or bad, but I didnt really go into that because it gets speculative quickly and my point is to not fixate on the shiny flip-flop scenario. Yes, you need to think about it a bit because the BATNA is relevant to what people do instead, but comments like OP where you assume that theres a decent chance it happens and wouldnt that suck for republicans are living entirely in lalaland.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
How do they do that? They can close their own airspace, but you could fly around that, no?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
5mo ago
No, the point is that you are using those concerns to support one narrow claim, but if you look a bit further they have big implications for our general picture of the situation, and consequently the role that that narrow claim should play in our discussion of it.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
Ive been gone for a while, has something changed in how we act around His name?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
2yr ago
and harder still to distinguish from normal personality changes from simply being in these environments
Is there even a difference? A new behaviour is established, gets positive reinforcement, grows.
It's enough of an issue that there's a lot of psychological screening that goes on for serious undercover investigation roles.
Yes, few people have the ability to keep their inner life unchanged when they get a lot of reinforcement in a different direction. And describing it like that, I think its easy to see how having that ability would put you at risk for a different kind of insanity.
MineCraft Quilt multiplicity people
Google is useless here, mind elaborating?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
2yr ago
This is truely strange to see. Normally its rare for an interesting comment to also get an interesting response, but this is an entire thread thats almost all people bouncing schizo theories off each other.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7d ago
That's akin to borrowing happiness from tomorrow at a very high interest rate, it doesn't end well.
If were talking about the effect of a ~one time experience, then comedowns arent necessarily relevant. We might imagine for example someone seeing "Wow, its possible to be happy" and that giving him hope in life. That hope might point down the abyss, but thats only measurable when you get there.
But taking this at face value: do you think peoples lives are worse for alcohol? Theres a hangover there too, and in the narrow pleasure-pain accounting, youre not coming out ahead - yet there are many apprently non-addicted people who are using it a decent amount.
It's highly reductive to dismiss such advances as "Drugs can make you feel better when used responsibly".
Yes, thats the point. The value of the cliche depends on not thinking you can outsmart it.
Nobody has lost their job or family because they drink too much coffee.
I am well aware. The link is not directly related to my point here, and I was wondering more about the idea that shes better off for it.
It also remains fascinating, the way people will respond to every part of my comment but the main one. Why do you think apparently different drugs work in such similar ways here?
'all models are wrong, but some models are useful'
Yes, what do you think "useful" means? Of course, your evaluation of whats high-utility will have to include all sorts of knock-on effects - but it cant include things like "this is useful to say because its true". This is of course incoherent, you cant actually decide whats high-utility without knowing whats true, and Scott the human knows what truth is when its about normal topics - but thats what the argument of the post implies when taken seriously (you will notice that the section thats actually talking about how language works is very short relative to the post). Theres no conceptual role left for truth, as distinct from "the outcome of usefully structuring language".
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
1mo ago
Why do you think he doesnt do that? "Le dumb" was kind of believable during the first admin, but now theres all sorts of people who could be doing that and presumably understand the importance of it. Why isnt e.g Vance writing an immigration bill?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
2mo ago
There was a time when the pope was basically chosen by italians only, but with the elections today, is there really a relevant way in which Rome is asserting primacy here, if the doctrinal points are compatible? It seems to me that the church would be "overall democratic" either way - its rather about more vs less centralisation.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
3mo ago
Can someone recommend an explained numerical estimate of the economic effects of the recent tariffs, assuming they continue unchanged? Looking for something from a broadly neoclassical perspective, largely based on general theory (not "look at my linear regression mum"), that isnt aiming for maximum Trump-condemnation.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
the constructivists think that the struggle for power is just a social construct that can be undone with nagging, sanctions and judicious use of force
Actually existing constructivists are batshit, which is too bad, because the first-principles logic of realism really is fake, and in the MAD world it was created to explain its more fake than ever. Theres no reason why something like e.g. current front lines should matter to a settlement between nuclear powers, beyond historical ones. And yet it does matter, and you cant unilaterally do away with it either.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
*Western politicians are scary. Almost every real-life interaction I had with one felt like a Voice of Saruman moment.
Can you give more detail on an example? I havent met any top-brass, but so far thats not my impression.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
I only thought of it now, but have you been to America before?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
I would formulate it more like "I want good healthcare to be available and affordable to everyone".
I just dont see how this would boil down to anything other than paying for peoples healthcare. And if youre gonna do that, its a bit weird to say youre "giving them access to healthcare", instead of just "giving them healthcare".
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
Of all the examples you list when "we were mistaken", the only one that isnt simply leftwing is sports gambling - which ideologically Id read neutral but I think was mostly done by the republicans. Is this your personal bias (where others would not agree they were mistaken), or a humongous miscalibration thats really easy to notice to the point where it seems questionably someone would honestly make those mistakes?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
Yes, but humans are also biologically selected for certain patterns of collective action - thats part of normal evolution for a social species.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
4mo ago
I'm with Scott's The categories were made for man(...) here
If I remember right you understand enough math that you should see the difficulty with the distinction between "facts" and "categorisations" hes trying to draw. Have you thought about that more/found a way its not self-undermining?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
5mo ago
Since this is already spoiler territory, Id like to complain about the copyright question.
Im not entirely on board with treating a simple dollar bill as an IOU. I understand your point about it gaining value from being usable for future taxes, but the bill does not, at the point of issuing, create any obligation for the future. "I owe you tax relief, the amount and whether thats relevant at all to be decided, by me." is not a financial instrument, because thats true of everything. Nothing prevents me from demanding taxes in yuan (or kilos obsidian, or literally whatever) instead of dollar tomorrow, so how are dollars my debt, and yuan arent?
Other question: If the government borrowed in a foreign currency or gold rather than dollars, would that be inflationary?
I also notice that you never say whether somethings is in nominal or real terms, whats up with that?
This might be the crux. If people want monetary savings to keep increasing in real terms, that would mean theyre willing to work for more than theyll consume, indefinitely. Thats certainly a disagreement with the classical model, but its not really over something monetary. In that case, I can see how you can grow the economy by just spending the money they dont. A few remaining disagreements:
First, I dont think this leads to full employment necessarily. Firstly, because while more demand can be expected to increase employment, but there neednt be any finite amount of it where employment becomes full. Secondly, because the willingness to increase real saving per unit of time is propably limited, and drawing on that full amount might not be enough for whatever you want to do.
Second, even if savings increase over the long term, there will be fluctuations. If a lot of people suddenly want to spend money that youve already spent for them, what happens?
Last, people want savings, but why would they want dollar denominated savings over non-monetary assets? If people just buy index instead of sitting on money, does that already do what you want to do?
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