PyotrVerkhovensky
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User ID: 2154
PyotrVerkhovensky
16d ago
I'm reminded of a couple years ago when a friend and I stopped at a Texas Roadhouse. I had not been to one since college when it was the highest-end eatery I could afford. The place was packed. I often eat 80 dollar filets at high-end steak houses, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of my steak. For 14.99 I enjoyed a flavorful (if slightly chewy) eight-ounce sirloin, two sides, and endless rolls. If I recall correctly, the same meal cost 9.99 when I was in college 15 years ago, while beef prices have tripled during that time.
The biggest change was in how the service was provided. In college, Texas Roadhouse was a standard sit-down restaurant with waiters who served a small number of tables. While the trappings of this model were still in place, the methodology was far more optimized. There is a well-defined mechanism for assigning parties to tables. Once parties are seated, the server "tags" the table with a sticky-note receipt with the party name and number, presumably to assist the waitstaff in delivering the correct order and to facilitate accurate billing. Despite my rather dim assessment of the waitstaff's mental faculties, we were delivered accurate orders in minutes. Once our plates were taken away, we were able to pay via the mobile payment device connected to each table. We left within thirty minutes from when we were seated.
The efficiency of this process was evident. The crowded restaurant was staffed by no more than 4 or 5 waiters. Yet there was something tangibly missing from the experience for both the patrons and the servers. Waiting tables at a Texas Roadhouse would have been a good job for a high-school or college student: the student would gain experience and acquire a certain amount of responsibility. Now, the waitstaff is not expected or encouraged to show any individuality or responsibility. Any deviation from the process is a flaw. When we were being seated, there was a slight breakdown in this process. A wayward plate from another table had been set on the table at which were to be seated. Our seater was flummoxed. Eventually she and another waiter contrived to put the plate back on the original table, at which point she continued to seat us. Addressing a trivial mix-up like this should be done without a second thought by even the most inexperienced waiter.
When we were paying, our electronic payment device asked for a tip. Given the impersonal experience in which our only possible interactions with our waiter were transactional (except, oddly, for the monetary transaction itself), a tip seemed pointless. The waiters had no opportunity to independently provide a pleasant dining experience, instead relying on customers' habit and largesse.
While my natural inclination towards productivity and efficiency makes me appreciate what Texas Roadhouse has accomplished, as a diner I felt like a commoditized agent being pushed through an assembly line. I, too, was expected to participate in the well-run ordering of the establishment. If I had been a little quicker with the credit card, maybe we could have spent only 25 minutes eating and not wasted 5 minutes of a table meant for the next faceless consumer.
So what am I to take from this? The dining experience felt demeaning and dehumanizing to both the servers and the customers. It feels like Wall-E. It won't be long before we do have robot waiters. We will all have adequate, but unsatisfying, commoditized consumption experiences. The majority will be content to consume and over-consume. I only can hope that a few of us will not want to just survive, but to live.
And yet, while the experience may have been grotesque, aesthetics are a low priority in any hierarchy of needs. The clientele were much more concerned about getting a decent meal at a reasonable price. I believe that making steak relatively more affordable for more people is a good thing. Better to gorge on sirloin than to go hungry in the streets. Better to be in a cog in a machine than for the machine not to exist at all. The economic engine that drives us towards efficiency may not always be pretty, but it generates results.
I have a mental model for economic markets that they behave much like a stochastic gradient descent algorithm. Firms and entrepreneurs explore the economic domain and move ever towards optimization. Whether this exploration results in a globally optimal solution depends greatly on the initial conditions. Initial conditions such as culture, institutions, and societal norms can have a major impact on how close the market engine comes to global optimization. An optimization problem is considered relatively stable if many different initial conditions can result in similar minima.
While this mental model is useful, it is incomplete: the very act of economic optimization can lead to eventual changes in the topology of the economy. In the case of Texas Roadhouse, the optimization begets atomized consumption and labor. Neither buyer nor seller is being acclimated to experiences outside of a prepackaged box. This may well lead to a fragile stasis as we lose initiative and dynamism and as the economic system becomes incapable of accommodating any deviation from the norm. Hence I can simultaneously applaud the innovations that lead to greater abundance, and decry the resulting changes to our society that can lead to stagnation and collapse.
The clear intellectual inferiority of the waitstaff is a microcosm of the entire labor market. For the first time in history, most labor is sorted (roughly) by intellect. In the agrarian days, farmers were more or less intelligent, but as long as the farmers could plow their fields their intellect was sufficient for the job. The higher intelligent farmers would naturally become community leaders and occasional inventors. With jobs now bifurcated by intellectual capability the "lower skill" jobs are essentially only occupied by lower capability individuals. There is limited interaction among individuals of different capacity as many of our social circles are dominated by work colleagues. Lower skill jobs atrophy with no innovation and no leadership. Hence the gross incompetence of many fast food restaurants and the disaster of manual construction and landscape labor. It genuinely was better service in the old days, when a diversity of intellects occupied these jobs. Conversely, the "high skill" workplace is now almost entirely staffed by high intellects. The menial jobs that would still have required interaction across intellects have been replaced by computers.
AI may be the great leveler. Robots are increasingly good at "high skill" jobs, but can't (yet) perform the types of physical tasks that even a 70 IQ individual can do. If job loss in "high skill" industries occurs en-masse, we may see the intellectual class starting to perform "low skill" jobs, with positive benefits for all.
PyotrVerkhovensky
1mo ago
There are at least two ways to reconcile these two beliefs.
- Modern jobs are fake and gay because most associates are diversity hires and prevent real work from being done
- Modern jobs are fake and gay, so companies may as well fill them with diversity hires.
In the first case, we can make the economy much more dynamic and worthwhile by reducing DEI.
In the second case, the economy is unsustainable and any "solution" would fundamentally change the nature of the economy. Even fake and gay jobs can inculcate leadership and administrative skills that will be invaluable during such an upheaval. Society would benefit from putting the best and brightest into these positions to better prepare itself for the transition.
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
I've argued since at least 2015 that the US government should invest, on the behalf of its citizens, in AI and automation companies. In the event that such automation pans out, each citizen reaps the benefits through his capital stake. This is inherently solvent (there is no promise of continued UBI payments). It would only "pay out" if automation was in fact successful. And it would help unify US citizens, who would feel pride of ownership in their country rather than a beggar for handouts.
Unfortunately, it looks like the time to do this would have been 2015. Genesis not withstanding, OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are in too late a stage to need or desire government investment on behalf of US citizens.
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
Conceptually the same gods as in any age: anything we place above God or are more key to our identity than God.
I think some specific gods of this age are "comfort", "tolerance", political affiliation, sexual orientation, "reason", educational achievement, careers. Not all these are bad in and of themselves, but they become gods when we place our faith or find our identity in them.
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
I agree, and I find it galling that most Western Christians are just fine with the complete surrender of society to hedonism and licentiousness...and often partaking in it. The early Christians would be torn apart by wild beasts rather than bow to a statue of Caesar. Modern Christians pay homage to the gods of this age without even thinking twice.
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
Carlson sees Fuentes as a future leader of a large segment of the American Right. To the extent possible he wants to channel this in a positive direction. He pushed back on Fuentes attacking "good" people on the right. He used religious arguments to persuade Fuentes' followers that idpol is a dangerous idea (God judges individuals, we should too). He practically begged Fuentes to settle down and get married. Carlson gained goodwill among the Groypers for "platforming" Fuentes. In return, Carlson hopes they heed his words.
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
What happens when Groypers start attending your church?
I've seen (in real life even!) blue-tribe immersed evangelical leaders bemoan the lack of religious interest in the side of America they see. Our churches have largely pandered to the "wider culture" (typically center-left leaning) without realizing that there is a burgeoning counter-culture that signals great interest in traditional religion. When they do realize there is such a counter-culture, they condemn it.
The most recent example is the the much-ballyhooed Fuentes-Carlson interview. The David Frenchs of the world signaled their great distaste. The very-online dissident right was mostly pleased. As I have never heard Fuentes speak before, I decided to listen to the entire interview. What surprised me most was how much both Carlson and Fuentes talked about Christianity. I had not known Fuentes claimed to be religious. (As an aside, the interview did nothing to convince me that Fuentes holds any deep convictions, much less genuine Christian faith). (As another aside, it turns out I am more "extreme" in my religious views than Fuentes: conditioned on him being religious I would have expected him to be to my right [insert "that awkward moment" meme]). If Fuentes continues to treat Christianity as a key part of his identity, his followers will start showing interest in the Church.
I'm not the only one who has noticed. There are other (near-dissident) leaders in the evangelical world who are looking to engage with the wayward, but seeking, young right. The pastor Michael Clary has written several posts either arguing for reaching the right or directly appealing to the dissident right. While less than eloquent (and with some boomer-like mannerisms), Mark Marshall explicitly recommends engaging with Groypers. Even conservative stalwart Kevin DeYoung has started to use language that appeals to the dissident right without outright condemning it (though he has engaged with dissident right ideas in the past).
But, by and large, our churches have been conditioned to be "salt and light" to a left-leaning world. We know how to deal with a blue-haired lesbian. Even conservative/orthodox churches can show the love of Christ to the wayward left. Be winsome, win them for Christ, and let sanctification come later (if it happens at all!). But our churches are not at all prepared for a young, irreverent to cultural norms, Christian Nationalist man who is interested in tradition and yearning for something more meaningful than a Ted-talk and a rock-concert on a Sunday.
And come they will, especially if the church is little-o orthodox, especially if it is traditional, and especially if proscribes female leadership. We shall soon see how tolerant our churches actually are. We are told we must show love to the sinners to our left. Let us see whether we show the same love to sinners on our right.
PyotrVerkhovensky
4mo ago
I'll admit to reading and enjoying these chapters. I do think you (probably intentionally) oversimplify and the conclusions to each chapter feel like a post-hoc "just so" story.
But I'll take the bait and riff on your story a bit.
Imagine there is another island that was populated by a number of different ethnic groups. These groups came to the island over different periods of time, sailing from other islands to escape famine or enemy attack. By happenstance, these groups had obvious physiological differences. By a similar process that you describe, one of these groups had better time management, better long-term planning, and greater self-control. Let's call them "Nahribs". The other groups had varying degrees of "capability", but the Nahribs had an absolute advantage in "civilization-building" capabilities.
While a similar process as you describe caused a "downward flow" of this Nahribs elite, the fact that there were distinct physiological differences meant that members of one group couldn't "accidentally" breed with a member of another group. And for religious and cultural reasons, such intentional inter-breeding was considered anathema and very little of it occurred.
Surrounded by their inferiors, the Nahribs gained expertise in coordination, administration, and (unfortunately) status games. Coordination was needed to ensure that the inferiors were working productively. Innovation was not selected for, since there were so many inferior groups who could provide manual labor. Over time, the populations grew large and administration was needed to run everything smoothly. With so much manual work performed by the inferior groups, the superior group had leisure time which they spent inventing various ways to "one-up" each other. And so society continued in relative stasis, with all the intellectual capacity focused on organization, political machinations, and navigating complex social relationships.
At some point, the Hajnalis came across this island and with their superior inventiveness quickly subdued it. However, it didn't take long (at least, not long in the way History is measured) for the Hajnalis to realize that this island had vast pools of moderately competent labor. The Nahribs didn't know how to labor, but that was ok: the few groups directly under them were not as talented as the typical Hajnali but were a tenth of the cost, and could perform repetitive, rote, tasks. Soon these workers were producing the bulk of physical goods. Not long after, they were producing much of the world's "simple" intellectual work as well.
As technology improved island navigation, more and more Nahribs were able to travel abroad. They soon discovered that the Hajnalis were living in a paradise compared to their native island. The Nahribs saw an opportunity: the productive structures of the Hajnalis were familiarly hierarchical and, as technology progressed, increasingly dependent on administrative work. This is the type of culture that the Nahribs' were bred to excel in! They quickly climbed the various bureaucratic ladders. Within decades they were highly overrepresented in leadership roles. In the new "information age", "leadership" was about spouting the right words, coordinating capital and human resources, and knowing when and who to back-stab. While much of their corporate climb was "deserved", much of it was also greased by their compatriots. Nahribs, naturally, felt closest kinship with other Nahribs. Unlike Hajnalis, Nahribs felt no ethical qualms with nepotism.
The Hajnali had laid the seeds for their own demise. The new Hajnali economy, flooded in abundant goods created by other islands, disfavored the types of capabilities that had once made their island so powerful. There no longer was the same need for innovation, industry, and individualism. In short, they became an economy eerily similar to the Nahribs' original island, and the Nahribs had many millennia of "management experience" on the Hajnalis. Elite Hajnalis, by participating in a labor arbitrage that forced their economies into rewarding "administration", had set the stage for their own replacement.
PyotrVerkhovensky
6mo ago
When a statistic isn't just a statistic
Like many, I was saddened by the news of the Texas flooding and the girls who were in the path of the engorged river. Natural disasters happen, but they don't always victimize school aged girls at a summer retreat. Yet I mentally filed the disaster in the way I do most disasters: the optimal quantity of flooding deaths is not zero, the odds of something bad happening to somebody somewhere is quite high, children need to do things in the outdoors even if there is some risk. And this framing, while dispassionate, isn't incorrect.
Yesterday, one of the bodies was discovered and identified. She wasn't some no-name in a far-flung state. Her family lives three streets over from mine. Her brother and my oldest daughter were in the same class last year. These are neighbors, and in our close-knit community, something akin to extended family. Suddenly, this feels personal.
A number of years ago, I was teaching my oldest to ride a bike. She was a natural, balancing and peddling within minutes of first riding. Within an hour she was shifting gears, accelerating and decelerating, making turns with adroitness. After several hours of practice in a parking lot I decided she was ready for the hilly streets near our house. Unfortunately, there was one thing I had forgotten to teach her in the flat safety of the parking lot: how to brake. She went down the hill outside our house, increasing in speed and with no ability to stop herself. Finally, she hit the curb and somersaulted into the grass of a yard. Despite the relatively soft landing she was scraped and bleeding over most of her body.
So many things could have gone wrong. She could have hit a car. She could have landed in the street and been flayed by the asphalt.
Life is fragile and can be snuffed out at any moment. The day she crashed her bike I hugged her as tightly as her scrapes would allow. Not all parents are so lucky.
PyotrVerkhovensky
8mo ago
It's interesting that so many of the replies here seem to be "yes, but the other side is worse" or "yes, we need to take the bad with the good" or even "yes Chad".
I'm a Trump fan but I abhor corruption and wouldn't want to turn a blind eye to it. That said...only two of your examples (if true) would count as corruption?
- Melania doing a film. Actresses do typically get paid (directly!) for being in movies.
- Trump meme coin is cringe and low class but not corruption.
- I would need to look more into the Sun story as I hadn't heard of it. But it seems like there would be less obvious ways of paying off Trump than buying Trump coin? And why would Trump care about 40 million?
- The jumbo jet is a gift to the USA, not to Trump. It is a token of goodwill and a sign of respect. Trump is famously more open to deals after being shown respect, so it is possible that it helped grease the wheels but it is not corruption. It is interesting you cite Zvi. I read Zvi religiously, and he has been extremely critical of Trump's policies. Zvi was comparatively subdued in his criticism of the Middle Eastern AI deals, being merely skeptical. I updated in favor of the UAE/KSA/Qatar deal after reading his overview.
- Is Kushner even still in the inner circle? I thought he and Trump were on the outs. Regardless, if true, this would certainly be corruption and while Trump is not directly involved, he would have to know it was happening. That said, it does seem an odd grift for children of a billionaire to play.
- Previous presidents weren't billionaires; divestment wouldn't have had the same impact on their net worth. Retaining business holdings isn't inherently corruption, and could actually align incentives: if the American economy does well, so does Trump. Proof of Stake/Principal-Agent.
PyotrVerkhovensky
8mo ago
Bryan Caplan is a name I've heard off and on in rationalist adjacent spaces and with Scott's recent review of one of Caplan’s books, I decided to actually take a look at his blog.
I was very surprised to see that he is an anarcho-capitalist: something that is very much unexpected in an academic economist. He acknowledges this in his blog, where he bemoans the left-wing focus on market failures rather than on market achievement. I probably agree with him on 90-95% of his positions, though I would have a different relative rank in the importance of those positions.
Of course, this being the internet, I won't spend any time on our many agreements but will instead focus on what I perceive to be his biggest shortcoming. Despite his expertise in a social science, he seems to think of society in abstractions: certainly a requirement for good economic modeling, but one that should always be grounded in reality. While possibly tongue in cheek, his statement that "it is humanity, not my arguments, that is flawed" does seem to reflect his mentality.
Exhibit A: Immigration and UAE
Caplan extols the virtues of the UAE, calling their mass-immigration a model for Western nations. And indeed, millions of Indians and billions of oil dollars have created a gleaming technical paradise. But as Caplan notes, UAE "immigration" is not the same as Western immigration. Only native Arabs have citizenship and enjoy the (extensive) welfare that oil money can afford.
The UAE understands that you can have mass immigration or a welfare state, but you cannot have both. They also are not squeamish about transactional relationships with imported labor, which makes the UAE's approach a complete non-starter in the West. No Western nation could import hundreds of millions of (mostly brown) labor, pay them "market wages", and refuse to provide citizenship and a social safety net. Even hard-core anarcho-libertarians would find the parallels with slavery uncomfortable.
The irony is that while the UAE does not have the human capital in either its native or foreign population as most Western countries, the West wastes its superior human capital on regulations, bureaucracy, and virtue signaling while the UAE just builds. Perhaps it is not "humanity" that is flawed, but just Western elites.
Regardless, the UAE's path is not sustainable. The native elite live off natural resources and imported labor rather than their own ingenuity and effort. There is no improvement in human capital, only a descent (slowed perhaps by the prohibitions of Islam) into hedonism. Copying their approach will neuter the unique ambition of the American spirit and accelerate our destruction.
Exhibit B: Immigration and Culture
Caplan implicitly downplays the negative aspect of migration on culture and social cohesion. Most immigrants will look, smell, act, and often vote differently than the "native" population. At scale, assimilation simply won't happen. Even with current immigration in the US there are sufficient numbers of Indians and Chinese to create clannish sub-cultures within the US. Caplan clearly thinks that we can still retain (and even improve) our high standard of living despite mass immigration, but this begs the question why high living standards don't already exist in India or China. Is it lack of physical capital? Is it human capital? Or could it be culture? (Obviously, all three have some impact). Given that capital is attracted towards the highest returns, it seems likely that a lack of human capital or a culture not conducive towards economic flourishing has to be a major cause for the lower living standard. If this is the case, there would be a decrease in the quality of life for the typical resident if third-worlders are imported en-masse.
At one point Caplan hints that indeed that may be the case when he points out that the fictional dystopia of Blade Runner is actually an improvement on modern-day India. This may not be the rock-solid argument he thinks it is. I want my children to enjoy a better life than I have today, not a better life than what a typical Indian has today.
In a guest post (which does not imply Caplan's endorsement), the "worst" neighborhood in Japan is visited. It is still safe and relatively clean. The writer implies that the US can model urban policy off Japan’s success. But again, this ignores the cultural aspect. Japan has a culture of order and cleanliness (and xenophobia). If Japan imported even 5 million Brazilians the "worst" neighborhood in Japan would look quite different.
Again, Caplan misses the "human" aspect of economics.
Exhibit C: Trade Deficit and Geopolitics
Caplan is either ambivalent or in favor of a trade deficit. Caplan posits the idea that the trade deficit could be the result, not the cause, of financial inflows. Rather than a trade deficit resulting in foreign nations having excess dollars that they then spend on US investment, US securities are in such high demand that foreign nations raise the value of the dollar, causing foreign goods to be relatively cheap and leading to a trade deficit. If this argument is correct, then one would expect any economically vibrant and pro-growth country to have a trade deficit. The trade deficit indicates that the US economy and regulatory regime is more conducive to growth.
Yet much like with the UAE, Caplan doesn't seem to grasp the human side of this equation. He assumes economic output is "value free". A service-oriented economy begets a pampered paper-pusher bureaucracy, while the relocation of former blue-collar work to "higher-value" labor hasn't happened at scale. The service economy erodes the will and ability to actually build in the physical world, while the dearth of blue-collar work has led to zombie communities addicted to handouts and opiates. A country should choose to focus industrial policy on broad outcomes including domestic production. Any economy needs direction lest it degenerate. The invisible hand of the market finds local maxima, but it takes vision to push the hand towards a global maxima.
Since Caplan has a tendency to see everything through the lens of economics, he minimizes the geopolitical implications of US policy. We are in the middle of a great geopolitical reset in which protectionist policy plays a key part. The Trump administration has given up Europe as lost. The US is now competing for influence in areas where China has traditionally dominated (including the Arab states that Caplan extols). The remnants of the Bretton-woods post-war international order is being shattered. This is the main takeaway from tariff and trade policy, not the myopic economic impact.
A recommendation
Despite my criticisms, I'm glad that there is an anarcho-capitalist whose ideas have purchase in the rationalist community. A very positive change I've observed over the last decade is the steady increase in liberals acknowledging the benefit of the market and the harm of overregulation, and Caplan’s work has contributed to this change. I would like to see Caplan have even more impact.
Caplan correctly notes that the market forces good policy even where that policy has bad optics, while politicians pursue bad policy that has good optics. This provides a potential key to seeing his (good) economic ideas actually gain purchase: fight the battles that you can actually win. There is much political will to create energy abundance (natural gas and nuclear in particular) and to address NIMBYist red tape; once we are allowed to build, other "good" policies (such as mass labor importation) may become more politically viable. Indeed, even in the UAE plentiful energy preceded plentiful immigration.
PyotrVerkhovensky
9mo ago
Our Good Friday service is intentionally unsettling. More than most Protestant churches, we lean into iconography and ritual; and at no time more so than during Holy Week.
The service is conducted in darkness; no lights are on in the sanctuary. All crosses in the sanctuary are covered in a black veil. The priests and clergy wear only black.
The clergy process silently; holding aloft the Bible and a shrouded cross. The service begins with a reading from of the Passion from the Gospel of John. The congregation participates: we are the voice of the crowd shouting "crucify him!" and "we have no king but Caesar!".
There is a time of contemplation, where we meditate on the cross. We echo a frame that is more common during Christmas. "O come let us adore him". Yet now we aren't adoring God made flesh; but rather that flesh broken on an instrument of torture. Adore it. For that is what our sin has caused, and what we deserve for our sin.
The music team sings "Ye who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great, here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.". My nine year old quietly sobs beside me. There is no shame in doing so. In the our same row a seminary student with an intricate "Pro Rege" tattoo is weeping as well.
The music ends. A quiet Lords' Prayer is recited, then the clergy recess in silence and darkness. The service is ended. Now must we wait. Easter is coming, but a day of entombed darkness must be endured before the glorious resurrection.
PyotrVerkhovensky
9mo ago
My personal opinion is that markets are highly overvalued, and a correction needed to be made at some point. The rise of index funds, ironically, have made markets less efficient. But, that is, like, my opinion man.
Tariffs do have a secondary negative effect on financial markets. As I said in my original post, reducing the trade deficit will decrease the amount of US dollars "abroad", which will reduce foreign investment in the US. This is a bad thing if you are a retiree spending your accumulated savings; it is a good thing if you are young and looking to buy a house or invest in stocks (as these investments become cheaper).
PyotrVerkhovensky
9mo ago
That estimate shows zero understanding of economics. The actual tariff burden will be the deadweight loss caused by relative price changes as imported goods become more expensive. Relative price changes and imports becoming more expensive are driven by the elasticity of consumer demand for imports and the price pressure that US companies (such as Walmart) can put on their global suppliers, respectively.
The 600 billion is only tangentially related to the actual tariff burden, and, being government revenue, is actually a benefit to US households (the money can be returned to US households via tax breaks, spending, or debt servicing).
PyotrVerkhovensky
9mo ago
It's really unconvincing that all the arguments for tariffs I see are so contradictory. It's "Hey we can have our cake and eat it too!". You can't use them as a negotiation tool that gets lowered, a consistent tool to reduce imports and build up local supply chains, and a reliable means of taxation all at the same time.
Given I started with a list of dangers to tariffs I'm not sure why you think my post was an unmitigated endorsement for tariffs. I enumerated potential dangers and benefits. Not all outcomes can or will be realized. Tariffs "can" be used to raise revenue. Tariffs "can" be used for statecraft. It is unlikely that they can be used for both, especially long-term.
You have to be extremely dominant that international corporations will choose you exclusively over the rest of the world combined and you need some way to assure them that it won't be undone anytime soon.
The US is rather dominant. The world wants access to our markets.
Just imagine a world where all countries want everything done on their own land and they all enact high tariffs. We'll just have a less efficient system where everyone tries to achieve autarky and then we'll wait for another Adam Smith to come around and tell us all that this is stupid and we should just trade with each other.
And yet most countries already have protectionist policies. If we can use tariffs to push the rest of the world to a more efficient system (by forcing everyone else to give up their protectionist policies in exchange for us dropping tariffs), I'm assuming that would be a good thing in your eyes? (I'm not saying Trump will do this, but it is one way to use tariffs).
PyotrVerkhovensky
9mo ago
That's the first time I've been accused of being too neutral! Let me try to be less so: Income taxes are bad. We have had them for over a century. Tariffs are bad. We have not had them to this extent for nearly a century. Yet in a world in which Trump EO'd the income tax to zero rather than implementing tariffs there would be the same hand-wringing, from the same people, who are currently saying tariffs will destroy the economy. The hypocrisy irritates me.
PyotrVerkhovensky
9mo ago
Yes, subsidies can be more targeted. But they are also more prone to capture and create a culture of dependency. It is similar to a government deciding to cut taxes or increase spending: while in theory both result in more money to the populace, psychologically "keeping more of my well-earned money" is healthier than "I'm receiving more free handouts".
This will be a dry post: I'm laying out my thoughts over the tariff discussions of the last few days as succinctly as I can.
Dangers to tariffs:
- Tariffs that are higher than other countries can incentivize domestic companies to move abroad to gain access to cheaper inputs. It has similar negative incentives to a high corporate income tax (the latter of which was reduced in 45's term to be more in line with the rest of the world).
- Danger of a trade war loss. If you don't have market power (attractive consumer base or exports) then a trade war is likely to end in a loss. Costs will be passed to citizens. The US is rather unique in having outsized market power.
- Protectionism can lead to complacency in the citizenry. Lack of competition breeds inefficiency and lethargy. The workforce and economy needs to be sufficiently diverse to maintain competition.
- Less efficient global distribution of resources.
- Tariffs are distortionary in a way that (flat) income tax and universal sales tax are not.
- Less foreign investment (assuming trade deficit shrinks). A trade deficit means US dollars go abroad: those dollars have to come back somehow, usually in the form of investment. Losing this foreign injection of capital is a double edged sword: a benefit is that it will make investments cheaper for domestic savers (cheaper stocks, cheaper housing). This will benefit younger generations who are buying the cheaper stocks and housing at the expense of retirees.
Economic/Political Benefits to tariffs:
- If you are in a position of strength, it can distort the global economy in your favor. Companies may wish to domicile in your country (especially if you have low corporate income tax rates) in order to access your consumers and/or workforce.
- Supply chains will become more intra-national, improving national security.
- If you are in a position of strength, it is a useful foreign policy tool.
- If everyone else is doing tariffs except you, then the economy is already distorted; and implementing reciprocal tariffs may "un-distort" the global economy.
- If you want to raise revenue and you don't fear a trade war, tariffs may have less of an impact on GDP as other methods of taxation (eg, income tax).
Ideological benefits to tariffs:
- Less interconnected global economy leads to less systemic risk (anti-fragile). The revealed fragility of supply chains during Covid shocked me, and made me realize we have traded efficiency for instability. I wrestle with this on a more local level here: https://pyotrverkhovensky.substack.com/p/texas-roadhouse.
- Destruction of the Bretton-Woods post-war hegemony.
- Reciprocal tariffs punishes other nations for constantly hitting "defect" in an iterative "trade" game. It could force the world towards a better equilibrium.
- Tariffs are explicitly allowed in the Constitution, income tax had to have an amendment.
Other thoughts:
If you are going to do protectionism, tariffs are better than subsidies.
Tariffs will change the relative cost of goods, but being a tax they should be net deflationary rather than inflationary.
Sanctions are like extreme "reverse" tariffs; if Russia and Iran are any example energy-rich countries seem to weather sanctions well.
PyotrVerkhovensky
10mo ago
I wrote last week on Revenge of the Sith, and how it benefited from the ambiguity between the "good" side and the bad. As Padme said, "[what if] the Republic has become the very evil we have been fighting to destroy?" @SubstantialFrivolity responded that, despite its flaws, Revenge of the Sith was the best of the Star Wars movies due to this complexity, and mildly criticized the original Star Wars for being a derivative "hero's journey".
Since I first watched Star Wars at age 7 (just before the abominable Special Editions came out, in its unadulterated form) it has been my favorite movie.
It is not a derivative "hero's journey". It is a distilled "hero's journey". A restless youth is trapped in a backwater. One day he seizes the opportunity to do something greater, and is suddenly thrust into confrontations of galactic import. He rescues a literal princess, with the help of a ragtag band of comrades. And while he doesn't "get the girl", that is not actually a critical component of a hero's story: rather what distinguishes the Journey is the acceptance and subsequential overcoming of an offered challenge.
A key part of a hero's journey is that the morality of the conquest is never in doubt. In Star Wars, evil is evil and good is good. From the first moment of the movie, where a gigantic, sharp, wedge shaped ship fires on a smaller, fleeing vessel; to the black, masked villain stepping into the pristine white interior; to the almost flippant destruction of an entire planet, the Evil Empire is clearly evil. The princess is being held captive, and it is a moral imperative to rescue her. The Death Star is threatening to kill all the characters we have met throughout the movie, and it is obviously a moral good to destroy it.
It is a common modern trope for a Hero to self-doubt and self-incriminate following the successful completion of the quest. (We see this writ large in our society's embarrassment over "colonialization"; which, at the time, was a manifestation of an "ascendent" society). Yet Star Wars had such clear Heroes and Villains that it carried through three sequels unexamined. It wasn't until the second movie of the sequel Trilogy that this narrative began to be subverted (and explains the audience backlash against The Last Jedi).
In short, Star Wars is pure. It is purified in its distillation of the Hero's Journey. It is pure in its depiction of Good and Evil. It is pure in its innocence. From the humble beginnings on a desert planet to the triumphant return of the motif in the Throne Room, Star Wars perfectly embodies something elemental and essential, untainted by cynicism or doubt.
PyotrVerkhovensky
10mo ago
I think Lucas has great ideas: Star Wars and THX-1138 are both interesting concepts. I'm not sure how involved he was in the special effects for the Original Trilogy, but they were revolutionary for the time. I don't think he is a good screenwriter or director. The success of the first Star Wars (I refuse to call it "A New Hope" :)) can be attributed to a lot of luck (it originally wasn't going to even have a score) and creative tension and pushback from the actors and crew. Harrison Ford and Mark Hamil would change their lines or ad-lib; summarized pithily, famously, and probably mistakenly by Harrison Ford's "You can write this, but you can't say it". Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were not directed by Lucas. Empire Strikes Back in particular, widely considered the best of the Trilogy, had relatively little creative involvement by Lucas.
It has been 20 years since Revenge of the Sith came out. The entire Star Wars series was formational in my childhood and teenage years, and Revenge of the Sith was one of the few movies I saw in theaters as a teenager. When it was released, it was widely considered a step above the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. The story was darker and more mature; and Jar Jar was essentially non-existent.
I just rewatched it as a 35 year old. So how well has it held up over the last twenty years?
First, the good:
- On a technical level, while digital movie cameras were still in their relative infancy, it has a sharper and crisper look than Attack of the Clones. Attack of the Clones was the first major picture to be shot entirely digitally rather than with 35 or 70 mm film, and it shows. Many of the shots are soft and do not have the detail of film. The lack of "analog noise" and the ease of imposing digital effects were the only benefits in 2002; by 2005 the situation had improved considerably.
- Lightsabers show up vibrantly on early digital cameras. They seem to visually "pop" out of the screen.
- The sound design was widely considered a disappointment after the tour-de-force of the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. However, there are still some solid scenes. Anakin's lightsaber effect as he ignites it before killing the younglings has a deep and menacing bass note that can only truly can be appreciated on a high-end system. The heart-thump juxtaposition during the twin birth scene and the rise of Darth Vader is top-notch, and again can only be appreciated with a good sound system. Surround activity is mostly active and ships whiz seamlessly across the sound stage.
- John Williams has some of his best work. He weaves in the Imperial March throughout the final half of the movie, notably during Darth Vader's destruction of the separatists and more subtly during Padme's funeral and construction of the Death Star. The haunting twilight moment between Anakin and Padme as they gaze at each other across Coruscant is a perfect mixture of sound and cinematography. Indeed, that scene is the pivotal point where the movie starts taking itself seriously.
- Speaking of cinematography, there are some outstanding moments as well. While keeping the Star Wars feel, there are some genuinely powerful framing; including the aforementioned Coruscant scene, the "Order 66" scene, Padme's funeral (with the camera fading on Anakin's childhood gift to Padme), and Darth Vader being carried to the medical center during a thunderstorm.
- Padme is portrayed as a tough, no compromise idealist during the first two movies. Marriage and pregnancy seem to have softened her. Even at the end, when confronted with Anakin's "evil" she doesn't fully turn on him. If Anakin hadn't gone berserk when seeing Obi Wan, she may have been convinced to support him even as he took power in the Empire. As I grow older, I consider duty a high calling, and I believe she should have continued to support Anakin (until, that is, he tried to kill her) even as he ascended into Power. The fact that there was this ambiguity in a major blockbuster is pleasantly surprising, and stands in contrast to (say) Chani in the film adaptation of Dune. (As an aside...Dune is supposed to be "Star Wars for grown ups" yet the heroine acts more like a child than in Star Wars).
- There is some good--sometimes great--acting by Ewan McGregor. He was a standout among a cast that includes some excellent actors (including later Best Actress Natalie Portman). Ian McDiarmid also has one or two excellent scenes, in particular the conversation with Anakin at the opera.
- The story itself is not a "black and white" "good versus evil" story. The Jedi really are plotting to take control of the Senate. They truly are lost: they lack conviction in their own ideals. They play the politics like any other faction. If it wasn't for the (contrived? arbitrary?) distinction between the Jedi and the "Dark Side", it would have been difficult to say who was "in the right" (at least, until kids started getting slaughtered).
Now for the bad:
- The CGI. CGI will never stand up over time...and yet everything was CGI. Even the Clones were needlessly CGI. The actors spend the entire film against green screen. There were scenes that were obviously shot in a comfortable setting, but Lucas thought would look "cooler" in a more "action" shot, and so actors who are sitting on a green-screen couch are now suddenly supposed to be skimming a few miles in the air. Actors need some context to understand how to act, which is entirely lost if they are transported to a completely different setting post-production.
- The 2005 digital cameras were loud and most of the dialog was lip-synced after shooting. This doesn't help an actor "feel" the scene.
- While the actors certainly didn't get much help from the script or the technology, the acting still disappoints. Actors don't emote. They look like they are reading from a script. Ewan somehow managed to take a lousy script and no direction and still provide believable scenes, but no one else was up to the task.
- The dialog itself is well below average. The movie opening has Obi Wan and Anakin infiltrating an enemy ship. This is intended to be a "fun" part of the movie, and much of the action is enjoyable. However, they are given lines that are clearly intended to be "quippy" but simply fall flat. The "best" line is Anakin's "no loose-wire jokes" when Obi-Wan doubts R2's capabilities. There are dozens of lines that are even worse.
- This is a movie of two halves, and the first half is far worse than the second. The first half is a lighthearted and rather stupid romp. The other is a serious and dark drama. It is whiplash to go between the two.
- Anakin's fall to the dark side is too sudden to be believable. Is he after power? Is he distrustful of the Jedi? Does he just want to save Padme? Is he jealous of Padme and Obi-Wan? There can be multiple reasons to ultimately make a life-altering decision, but none of these are truly fleshed out in a way that makes me believe he would turn to the Dark Side. The way to seduce Anakin is through promises of power and through making him feel part of the "inner circle". Yet Palpatine transparently lies to Anakin throughout the movie: from hiding his identity as a Sith Lord to praising Anakin for bringing peace when by that point everyone knows Palpatine orchestrated the entire war.
- This movie also features some of John William's worst work. The most egregious is the copy/pasta of Duel of the Fates during Yoda and Palpatine's fight. The finale of the duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan feels like a music video more than a movie.
- Certain scenes have abysmal sound design. While overall the movie feels more "compressed" (less variation between quiet and loud sounds) than Episode I and II, the Jedi confrontation with Palpatine is especially bad. There is almost no dynamic range. Surrounds have little activity. It almost sounds like it was mixed for stereo. General Grievous's death similarly lacks bass where it is severely needed, making the entire battle feel fake and inconsequential.
- Now that I have three kids, Padme's death seems ludicrous. Once you have kids, they become your will to live, replacing pretty much everything else.
Other notes:
- Both sides try to paint the other as intolerant and unyielding. "Only the Sith deal in absolutes". "If one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the dogmatic, narrow view of the Jedi. If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must embrace a larger view of the Force." Much was made at the time that the "Only the Sith deal in absolutes" line was a dig at George Bush's "if you are not with us, you are against us". Now, it just feels like an anachronism from an era where the only "bad" thing was intolerance.
- The Star Wars movies do not explicitly say why the "Dark Side" is bad. They say hate and anger are key to the Dark Side, and the sinister aesthetics of the Emperor and Darth Vader certainly hint at evil. But when taking a step back, they seem like standard fare politicians, rather than something intrinsically "evil". And the "good" side, as mentioned before, has become just another political faction; also interested in power. Perhaps this is justification for Anakin's sudden turn: there isn't much outward difference between the "good" and "bad" side; so one may as well join the winning side.
The scripting flaws of Episode III reveal just how bad Episode I and II were. Episode I was almost entirely a waste: it introduces Padme and Anakin, and shows Palpatine gaining power. Nothing else in that movie was important for later films. Episode I should have started in Coruscant, where Anakin was in training to be a Jedi and Padme was a senator's assistant. This would have revealed the tension and interplay between the various factions and let their love grow in a far more believable setting. The Clone Wars would have started during Episode I, possibly with the destruction of a large portion of the Senate, which would have helped accelerate Anakin's and Padme's careers. Episode II would have been focused mainly on the Clone Wars, possibly showing how destructive it was even to the core of the Republic. It would also show the growing distrust between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and Anakin's budding desire for power. A risky move would have been to make Obi-Wan the twin's father, but it would have made the journey to the Dark Side far more believable. Episode III would then have been entirely about the Anakin's fall, and the destruction of the Jedi.
PyotrVerkhovensky
10mo ago
What drives Zelensky? While surely a mix of motives coalesces into his behavior and decisions, I posit the following are primary candidates:
- Beneficence of the Ukrainian people
- Will of the Ukrainian people
- Hatred of Russia
- Desire to retain power
The first motive simply states that Zelensky is operating to maximize his country's well-being. This often means making difficult choices, and ones that may appear detrimental in the short-run. I think Zelensky's brave choice to remain in Kiev in the opening weeks of the war was a demonstration of this: risking his own life to inspire and lead his armies as they fought the invading force. However, if he now is truly attempting to maximize his people's well-being, he should have signed the rare-earth agreement with the United States. His childish behavior (inappropriate attire, attempting to alter the deal in front of the press, insolence to a nation responsible for his nation still existing) put the deal at risk, and seems to indicate that his country’s well-being no longer holds paramount sway in Zelensky.
The second frames Zelensky as a conduit for his people's will. In this sense he serves as an ambassador petitioning support for his people and their cause. Again, I think in the early days this objective clearly was a major motivator. He was able to transmute sympathy into aid, keeping his nation afloat with economic and military materiel as patriotic fervor swelled his armies with volunteers. Yet now we are three years into the war, and conscription has replaced volunteerism. The average age of the fighting man is over 40. Zelensky has resisted calls for an election, which while he has the legal right to do still undermines any claim to be operating with the people's mandate.
The third motive has been in the background for the entire war. Yet now it may be moving to the forefront. In his interview with Lex Friedman, Zelensky dismissed any idea of negotiating with Putin. He refused to speak in Russian (despite it being a common language between Friedman and Zelensky) and went out of his way to say Putin would be "forced to pay" for the things he has done. This could certainly be grandstanding, but such a hatred would also explain his recent behavior in Washington. If driven primarily by hatred for Russia, he would risk sacrificing his own people to reduce the probability of a cease fire. In this case, he may well have gone to DC with no intention of signing the rare-earths deal, and intentionally blew it up (though doubtless he didn’t desire the dressing-down he received).
The desire to retain power, while clearly the most damning for Zelensky, also fits the recent facts. If there was a cease fire or a peace agreement, Zelensky would risk deposition. His stature in the world and his ability to remain in quasi-dictatorial power comes from the war. It is in his best interests to keep the war going at all expense.
Many commentators seem to assume Zelensky is operating primarily under one of the first two motivations. Certainly those with Ukrainian flags in their avatars conflate Zelensky with the Ukrainian people. Yet given recent circumstances I can no longer assume the interests of the Ukrainian people and Zelensky are aligned. And the rest of the West shouldn't either.
PyotrVerkhovensky
10mo ago
There are four categories of government spending:
- spending that hurts the US and the World (eg, funding LGBTQ+ agendas across the globe)
- spending that is ambivalent to the US but helps the World (eg, PEPFAR)
- spending that is good for the US, but may not be the best way to spend the dollar (eg, Science research/funding)
- spending that is unambiguously a good marginal return on investment (I can't think of an example)
The first category should be defunded. The second category should spawn a discussion on what the purpose of government is. Is it to maximize global utility? At what point should we tradeoff between a citizen's wellbeing and another nation's citizen's wellbeing. The third category should spawn a both a practical debate on the tradeoffs between various alternatives (including returning the money to the taxpayers). The fourth we should keep funding.
However, I'm currently in favor of fast, indiscriminate cuts. We are dealing with a quickly metastasizing cancer and we need aggressive chemotherapy to address it. Chemotherapy so aggressive that yes, hair will fall out and the body will feel deathly sick. Once the cancer is removed, we can again discuss the latter three categories dispassionately and objectively, and fund areas that meet the bar.
PyotrVerkhovensky
10mo ago
Per usual, I'm late to the action.
As I watched the exchange, it felt like I was witness to a public altercation between a spoiled, petulant teenager acting out and his harried parents trying to contain the situation. The criticism of clothing style, the "who put the roof over your head"-type comments, the "you should be grateful" all played into the trope.
And as usual for public scenes between parents and wayward teenagers, no one came out looking good. The parents become exasperated, the teenager sulks, the public may send sympathetic glances towards the parents but mostly just feel awkward.
More interesting is the reaction of the public. Of course in America one side had to be right, and one wrong; so reaction fell necessarily along partisan lines. Some from both sides hailed this as the end of the international order, with a differing perspective on the desirability of this outcome. But what personally irked me was the reaction of Western European leaders, predictable as it was. When a teenager is acting out in public, you should never defend the teenager. The teenager needs to mature and grow: that happens through both direct criticism and social disapproval (and possibly ostracism until they learn to behave). If anything, public support should got to the parents. Privately there can (and possibly should be) discussion with the parents on how to handle such situations in the future, but petulant anti-socialness should not be condoned: especially when that teenager is responsible for millions of lives.
This idea, if implemented, would effectively cut off unsecured credit for borrowers with low credit. I could see an argument where as a society we say we won't give individuals with 530 credit scores any more credit, but doing it via interest rate caps is a very blunt tool to achieve this outcome (and I doubt this is the outcome Trump intends).
But while I could see an argument for not giving people with low credit scores more credit, it is not an argument I would make. Building back from a low credit score is a torturous process, but it takes much longer if you don't have...credit. And people with bad credit scores are often in financial situations where they need liquidity. There are plenty of shady loan sharks and pawn shops willing to provide it; at much more usurious rates and with much more deleterious consequences for failing to pay.
This is a populist play pure and simple. It does not seem to have been well thought through and would not be wise policy to implement. I've defended Trump's economic agenda in the past and thought (and still think) tariffs are a useful policy tool, but this proposal is simply a knee-jerk reaction to the Democrat narrative around affordability. Hopefully it has as short a shelf-life as the proposal for a 50 year mortgage.
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