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12d ago
I agree many wars have a much higher risks but for the purpose of choosing to take AI risks I think a big difference exists. You do AI for money. Choosing to fight in many of those wars is possibly death if you don’t fight.
I will limit this to things people do for money and not honor or religion.
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Wars of conquest. Like conquistadors in Mexico certainly faced high death rates but also a great chance at being fabulously wealthy with lots of heirs.
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Drug dealing. Both the low end dealers seem to take a lot of risks for little gain and the higher ups. Mexican Cartel leaders death rates are definitely far above 10%. S American cartels have gotten safer and less violent but they were very risky for a while. Bootleggers and Italian Mafiosos no doubt faced higher risks.
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Donald Trump. Maybe 10% is too high but assasination risks or perhaps for him live in prison risks were quite high.
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Long distance trade was quite dangerous for much of history
I think maybe we could exclude the older examples when life was much harsher and not comfortable like today but Colombian drug cartel bosses were often already quite rich. Guys who already had cattle farms and estates. There are a lot of examples of cartel guys who didn’t need to take the risks but just wanted more money and power. It’s obvious a fairly large % of people take the risks.
My gut says it would be smart for me to take a 10% risks of instant death for a 90% chance of $500 million. I might turn it down for religious reasons as suicide is a mortal sin and that kind of feels like sort of suicide.
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12d ago
Most people would take a 90% risks of immense wealth or a 10% chance of death in 10 years. People have gambled for far less at a far greater risks of their life.
I think the average person would take the risks but you can certainly find many humans will to risks that.
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12d ago
Historically the US has had to do that when different races and cultures co-exists. After the Great Migration the cities that experience migration had to significantly increase their police forces to deal with crime.
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12d ago
I didn’t want to denigrate architects but mostly wanted to pick an white collar occupation that could rise in stature with higher productivity as excess wealth could be spent on design and community design.
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12d ago
I thought it always had a reputation for bad pay versus the amount of education required. In part because it attracted people who thought it would be enjoyable. Maybe I’m wrong on that. And there are definitely some routes you can make money like getting more into construction management/development.
I needed a career to pick as an example where human taste would have value versus AIs being very productive. Something that is affluent tastemaker and architect seemed like it fit that.
I would have been against this 5 years ago or super against it outside of that time frame. Here’s my thoughts:
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American fiscal capacity is amazing now. It really feels like we can run an economy with only 10-15% of the population working and everyone else on benefits or make-work programs. With half of our smartest people playing zero-sum games like trading or market making on prediction markets. It would be nice to get back to 80% of people working but I don’t know how. For all the things we subsidize I think subsidize children is the best.
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I don’t like it with current demographics. If we deport more I like it more. 50% of blacks are on government programs or government jobs (basically fake). I am fine with sharing with them now because we are rich enough but seems like we have migrant communities that will max abuse it.
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Way better than unlimited disability for benefits. If we are going to do UBI it should be for everyone.
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Decent chance the amount of people who need to work falls to <5% of the population by 2040 so something needs to happen. This actually isn’t rare event in human history. At one point 90% did agriculture so it’s not impossible we basically figure out how to make everything without working. The rest of the economy will be tastemakers. Weirdly architect was a terrible career for a while but the jobs of the future will be the tastemaker - someone who can make a neighborhood look nice.
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Somehow I think rich and poor people will still exists even with unlimited material wealth. Baltimore or Haiti will still be a ghetto while Greenwich and Palm Beach will not be. It’s just the poor areas will have a lot of stuff but lack all the other things that make a community great. Being high IQ, Conscientious, honest, fun to be around, good looking etc will still matter. The Southside of Chicago will likely still be shooting each other even when unlimited money exists.
Trump plus no bill is better than Harris plus bill.
Even if we accept the bill was a net positive by itself (it still had loopholes) executive authority is still far more important. And giving the Biden administration a win that they were doing something could have flipped the election which polling showed as much closer at the time. He ended up winning big so perhaps you still could have done the bill.
It would be impossible to pass anything right now without eliminating the fillibuster. I think we should get rid of it but so far we haven’t gone down that path. It would costs some political capital; though in my opinion smart people on both sides are thinking that we have too many checks/balances and eliminating them to boost the power of congress would be a good thing.
If the GOP got rid of the filibuster now it would give the Dems another issue to run on even if their smart people think it’s a correct decision.
One of the reasons I like getting rid of the filibuster the most is it would be a check on the Supreme Courts power as the SC would be more comfortable telling Congress to fix legislation.
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13d ago
It’s really tough to write legislation that can’t be interpreted in a way that creates loopholes. I feel like you need something else to keep things like asylum from being abused. Especially since you kind of want asylum law to be broad enough to be useful in an emergency.
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13d ago
I thought it included people outside of the navy.
When I Google it the definition I get is navy, commercial, and even recreational. So I believe it’s not limited to just military person.
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13d ago
Pinochet is one of my favorite politicians so I have no fundamental issue with doing that when necessary, though in a way that limits life losts. It’s a reasonable response to present things like communism.
Which I will remind you was backed by the US and the government was being ran by the University of Chicago at the time.
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13d ago
Stock and Flow do matter.
As far as I can tell Mexico has a largely unified Mexican Culture and assimilation of their ethnic groups has occurred. By global standards it’s a fairly wealthy country helped by closeness to the US. It’s also a low-trusts society. It’s a very common story to be robbed by the police in Mexico which does not happen anywhere else that has their level of wealth. Most of the US black population is unassimilated. Brazil has a culture but the stock still leads to dysfunctional politics.
Flow arguments do matter at times like with the Italians who eventually assimilated, but stock arguments also matter when assimilation between different ethnic groups is impossible.
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13d ago
The issue I have with this is the Chesterton Fence you propose has not historically existed. Remigration has happened many times in history. It’s often happened more often during war times but it has happened a lot in history. The Reconquista of Spain occurred. Haiti did it. Israel is basically doing it today. It was debated as a solution posts civil war. White Flight in America was basically forced migration.
Usually populations combining are fairly rare and only happen during conquests. Mass migration has only really happened to western civilizations over the last 30 years. Every other mass migration like Spanish to Americas or Normans to England happened during war times.
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13d ago
Some of the issues with the right never doing anything I think comes down to the US believing in Adam Smiths invisible hand and not state power.
The US administration has lowered foreign born population by a few million people for the first time in I believe a century we have had a decline.
For a system that believes in the private sector this is still impressive. It’s much easier for an activists to go to let’s say George Soros and raise a few billion dollars to start a ngo that operates in Central America to abuse immigration loopholes to get people in than it is for the federal government to deport millions. You can’t go to the Koch Brothers and raise a few billion to deport people privately for various reasons. Even ardent anti-immigrationists would see giving the Feds the power to check papers and deport on site as an evil infringement on their own rights though potentially a necessary evil.
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13d ago
I did use sailor a few times too. One issue with the use sailor is it does not have specificity that they are fighting men. Soldier is specifically fighting men.
I probably would have considered sailor as a type of soldier but sailor can also refer to people who are not fighting men.
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14d ago
I think it’s in the category of a civil right.
The confusion may be thinking in the of an American Declaration of Independence idea of a right coming from God and is guaranteed.
We’ve pretty much have fought over colliding “rights” for centuries in the court.
Personally I like the fact I have a nearly universal right in my current position to throw a dart and a map and I could pretty much go there in a month or two. Not every other human has the right.
Life is not fair. Rights aren’t universal things everyone gets but we still use that terminology of calling them rights.
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14d ago
I’ve for a few years realize I hate labels like far-right or moderate. Those terms are extremely dependent on time and place. Many mainstream Democratic positions were considered crazy when I was growing up. Like basically on the crazy spectrum (Tran stuff) that would be straight to jail and had like 2% support. There are two ways for a party to not be far right. Change positions or move the Overton window. When you getting 42% of the vote then even for time and place your close to the center. One more surge in popularity and AFD is basically centrists.
And probably currently centrists for native Germans.
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14d ago
Honestly feels like conventional wisdom now. Everyone I talk to thinks oil is a short. It’s just a timing issue on when you do it.
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15d ago
Ya two people mentioned the lady boys. But honestly I thought this was also known for loose women.
I got pagan vibes of soldiers having a lot of sexual conquests/rape posts war. Which is the bit of culture war here. At times it seems like the modern right is moving in a pagan direction and the modern left feels like a posts-Christian but still Christian cult.
The USS Lincoln is currently in Thailand after 9 months at sea. My small question on this is whether Thailand just made logistical sense to stop in or is this basically Hegseth deciding to dump 5k sailors in Thailand and its world renowned red-light district and therefore sort of culture war. I don’t think I could see a Dem administration doing the same thing because it’s basically asking for “toxic masculinity” behavior.
I am curious what the total party tab would be. 5k sailors with all their pay saved up for 9 months. $4k average spend sound right? Or $20 million. I guess burning man is going on right now but if I was choosing a party right now I think I’d go with Thailand and 5k soldiers who haven’t been off a boat for 9 months as the more lit party to attend.
A lot of the pro-immigration people act like it is a moral thing so I respect that you don’t think it’s moral.
I guess I’m an urbanist. Which is sort of a blue tribe personality trait. Demographically and where I grew up I would be predicted to be very red tribe but my preferences are very blue tribe.-
I do think one of the strongest arguments against immigration is Americas inability to build middle class urban environments. Americas preference for building suburbs in my view is based on a strong preference not to live in diverse environments. I guess one could say blacks are special and prone to having unacceptable levels of violence and new immigrants are fine. That is kind of a justifiable view. But while we just had a huge immigration wave our biggest cities didn’t build more housing and make it work but instead had out migration of natives. So my opinion is if blue tribe wants me to accept mass migration then they need to show me they can run a multicultural city that doesn’t result in mass out migration of natives.
A lot of my anti-immigration views can boil down why doesn’t America have cities. Because I like living in cities.
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18d ago
High TIPs spread is one reason I’m recommending owning bonds is ok.
Fundamentally I’m a mean reversion guy. I’ve always traded that way. The trick with having that trading personality is I guess having a fundamental understanding and being right more times than wrong that it’s value. And my gut is rates are value here and not fucked. And duration can offer significant upside.
I honestly love US 30’s now. I’ve been seeing 2 possible medium term outcomes proposed: (1). AI is real and is a huge productivity boom causing mass unemployment. Deflationary. Likely causing rates to fall (2) it does not do that. Or something in between. Capex buildup for AI falls. Lower demand because that’s removed and is deflationary. Rates fall.
I also think big tech or some of the names after a recent dip are reasonable. And a friend asked me what would I want to hold thinking 9 months out. If I had to be long or short big tech I would choose long. But also the same with 30’s. And if rates fall you actually get very good appreciation in long term bonds too. 100 bps fall in yields will get you 15-20% price appreciation plus the yield
Back to big tech. If I couldn’t trade for a year I would own it. My current portfolio is approximately is about 25% long 30s, 40% cash, 35% equities. A lot of trading in between but overall those ratios I’ve been maintaining the last month. If I couldn’t trade for 9 months I would deploy a lot to Amazon and Google since I like their price better now. And a few random names I follow. And probably increase the 30 year exposure from 25 to 35%. I would have zero cash on a 9 month hold. That’s there to hopefully find better opportunities next few months.
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18d ago
But why? What’s in it for me?
You are right red and blue tribe are not united enough to even try forced assimilation. I still think it would often fail due to personality differences.
Every time we do mass migration in the US we see massive outmigration of the native population from desirable locations. Many call this white flight. We now have zero urban environments in the US for middle class natives.
When the great migration occurred it eventually led to white flight thru out all of the rust belt cities. They left because the schools collapsed and their kids were being bullied in their communities. Crime rose. Which led to the birth of the suburbs and policy to keep land values expensive.
Recently LA and NYC have seen a new wave of white flight. Sure we can say this is due to blue tribe governance making housing and taxes unaffordable for the middle class. Regardless, immigration came to these cities and politically governance changed. I am personally a victim of the crime to white flight thing. It sucks. But not as much as staying and waking up to police marking bullets in the morning. Most of the people fleeing NY and Cali do not share my politics. They just left because the areas got worse and the financial mature sense to leave.
And you talk about the red tribe-blue tribe divorce. In reality with only the white vote we would have the power to do forced assimilation. I saw data that Trump would still win the election if only white females voted. But that’s not our electorate anymore. But I will emphasize I don’t believe forced assimilation would work due to genetic personality differences.
I understand why immigrants want to come here. I don’t hate them. It just makes my life worse.
So I will asks you what is in it for me?
Americas Bad Cities are costing you
This is where Cremieux goes through the loss of agglomeration effects due to American cities being awful low density places. The loss of the American City he largely blames on the Great Migration and the associated crime waves. He then goes thru how white flight has mostly only occurred with black populations especially ADOS and occurs less with immigrants from Africa.
One of the things with woke is it made people think about ways to refute their ideas. One of them is that white people just hate black people so they did white flight. Turns out the data and original source material people started to look rediscover showed a rise in crime before white flight. People accepted those narratives for decades because we had already mitigated the costs and it was just easy to go with the old narratives. We also accepted a narrative that Americans just liked to live in the suburbs. The actual answer for the preference is crime was too high in cities.
The costs of mitigation Cremieux lists is likely not the full costs. It’s likely everything about city design has been done to allow for unofficial segregation. Often this has been done thru zoning to keep prices high. High home prices means high prices for everything in safe cities as your working class either needs to be able to buy housing in the community or compensated for a long community.
Not being able to do official segregation has basically made the American urban lifestyle very expensive and even more expensive if you have kids. You can’t just buy a cheap house and send your kids to public schools because of the demographics. Which forces you to either live in an expensive suburb or use private schools. This also means you largely can’t be poor in your nice community because your community refuses to have low costs of living options because that would allow the more criminally inclined people to move in.
Today we talk about foreign migration and not domestic internal migration. Once you do mass migration you can’t unring tbe bell. You are now stuck with new demographics. In the case of the great migration I think it basically destroyed Americans urban environments. And now American cities suck. And we had to convince ourselves that we loved living in the suburbs instead of the suburbs being a mitigation for good schools/safety.
I am also open minded that the Great Migration led to increased American wealth because people opposed sharing economic resources and it had a macro effect of limiting socialism in the US and the political paths Canada/Europe went down.
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