Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
8mo ago
Consider the possibility that a squirrel living indoors in close proximity to a raccoon would be more likely than wild squirrels to be infected.
Quantumfreakonomics
8mo ago
Suppose Alice is having a picnic at the pond with her parents. Her parents are clumsy eaters, and their plates and utensils get blown into the pond. A local cop sees the trash floating in the pond and asks Alice, “why did you dump your garbage in the pond?” Alice replies, “The only garbage I see floating out there is my parents’.” This is a completely normal way to use possessives in colloquial American English. It’s not the most likely interpretation of what Biden said, but it is a reasonable interpretation.
Quantumfreakonomics
10mo ago
Why don't we just give parents a direct financial claim on a portion of their children's income? Obviously there will be some details that need to be ironed out (maybe this portion goes to the state when one's parents die, to prevent perverse dynamics), but this seems straightforwardly incentive-aligned.
It seems almost too obvious. Do any countries anywhere do anything like this, surely this is a cultural custom somewhere?
Quantumfreakonomics
10mo ago
Unofficial Motte Strawpoll: Tattoos on women yes/no
Quantumfreakonomics
10mo ago
I think “DEI candidate” could have been an effective attack. Unfortunately Trump decided to go with “she’s not really black,” which sort of accepts the premise that being black is a notably positive attribute.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
What do you think is the base rate of dudes in Vance's demographic having ever fucked a couch? I suspect it is a lot higher than you would expect.
Quantumfreakonomics
2mo ago
It is socially acceptable to ask girls to dance at a school dance, but boys don’t want to dance. They want to fuck (or get married if you’re feeling charitable). The discourse is unproductive because they have abstracted away the thing that everyone knows young boys want.
Quantumfreakonomics
5mo ago
I'm thinking through ideas of what to do with this. No promises but there may be room for experimentation (this not how you hype crypto, but honesty matters to me).
My long-term interests are aligned with yours, Hanania Coin holders. We all rise or collapse together.
This is a public offering of unregistered securities. Hanania is in deep shit if this takes off and blows up.
Quantumfreakonomics
6mo ago
but I know the infection control nurse is the person who goes around cancelling all of our tests that will show that the patient got a hospital acquired infection" (through nobody's fault) because the government doesn't like when we have those.
First thought: How is this a thing?
Second thought: Oh yeah, economics. Of course this is a thing.
Third thought: Can we shoot these people instead?
Fourth thought: It totally was somebody’s fault. I realize that meticulous clinical hygiene is hard. People will still die if you screw it up.
Quantumfreakonomics
9mo ago
Disagree. Assuming there is a write-in or minor party option, “I am willing to vote but these guys all suck,” is a coalition that you would be defecting against by staying home. Simply showing up demonstrates latent potential.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
They're using the entire waterway as the stadium? Kinda hard to rehearse things like this.
France has always been gay and cringe. It was a good idea for them to lean into it.
Quantumfreakonomics
3mo ago
A perfectly fine symphony that will adorn the Hall-of-Very-Good for eternity to come.
Quantumfreakonomics
4mo ago
It seems like there’s a pattern in what forms of corruption are acceptable on the right -
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Diverting taxpayer money to family members or pet causes: Evil, ought to get you thrown out of a helicopter.
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Selling the performance of official acts to private interests for money or other services: No big deal. Everybody does it. Just an excuse to railroad somebody like they did to Trump.
Quantumfreakonomics
5mo ago
Disease eradication is good for everyone. It is bad for global health to have a giant reservoir of AIDS, Malaria, Ebola, and god knows what else just waiting to make the jump to the developed world.
Quantumfreakonomics
4mo ago
I feel like NATO expansion was a complete own-goal. What does the United States get out of any NATO member state that joined after 1990? Are we really expecting the Polish winged hussars to open a second front on the Mongolian Steppes in response to a Chinese attack on the US? These states are a massive liability for no discernible benefit. I would support kicking Eastern Europe out of NATO. If Western Europe doesn’t agree to that, then they can start their own alliance with blackjack and hookers.
Quantumfreakonomics
4mo ago
It's not that these kind of complaints are invalid, but they miss the true utility of liscensing regimes.
One might even say that this is yet another workaround that society has settled on for distinguishing the people who suck from the people who don't suck. The set of people with six-figures of capital to throw around is just better in almost every way from the set of people who don't have six-figures of capital to throw around.
Quantumfreakonomics
8mo ago
Catholic doctrine distinguishes between a sacrament which is illicit, and one which is invalid. An invalid sacrament is null and void, whereas one which is simply illicit is meerly wrong or sinful, while still retaining its essential function.
I wonder if a similar distinction is appropriate here. Its hard for me to see why votes cast in violation of minor provisions of state election code (such as early voting hours) should be voided. Voters can't be expected to understand the entireity of the state election code. A proper remedy would target the election officials responsible for the violation.
Of course, things like ballots cast by inelligible voters or in the name of others should be tossed out and rendered invalid.
Quantumfreakonomics
8mo ago
I think that’s what it ultimately boils down to. Trump started his campaign promising to deport illegals. Then there was the Muslim ban. Now Vance is saying that Haitians on Temporary Protected Status are basically illegal and should be deported. The next step is to look into canceling green cards. Then revoking naturalized citizenship. Couple that with relaxing civil-rights laws, and you see where this is going.
Whether or not Trump himself wants to do all these, a sizable chunk of the population does. That is the demographic that attends Trump rallies.
Quantumfreakonomics
8mo ago
Twitter has recently updated its monetization scheme. Here are some Tweets by mid-level accounts celebrating their pay raise: Tiffany Fong, Richard Hanania, Kyle Mann, Crémieux, i/o, Austen Allred
Notice anything? All of these accounts are followed by @elonmusk. I did some additional digging. This looks to be the official announcement.
Content quality, not ad impressions: Our algorithms evaluate viewer engagement by analyzing interactions such as replies, likes, bookmarks, and the time spent viewing your content. These factors directly contribute to your payout. Only genuine interactions from Premium users will be counted toward your earnings.
Higher signal engagements: Certain engagements are worth more than others. Engagements from users on higher premium tiers are also worth more.
Audience analysis: We also consider the characteristics of your audience, including who they follow and who follows them. This holistic approach can influence your monetization scores and payout weights.
It flew a bit under the radar at the time, but with checks going out today we have a much better idea of how the scheme works in practice. It sure looks to be a patronage system for tech-adjacent influencers and intellectuals crossed with a pyramid scheme.
Quantumfreakonomics
10mo ago
Fixing the budget is quite easy conceptually. Just cut Social Security. Old people have had their whole lives to get their affairs in order. The “fat” is the fact that we pay people simply for being alive once they reach a certain age. Maybe you need someone with basic math skills to structure the phase-out so that people who have already paid in don’t get completely screwed, but this is a fundamentally simple problem from an operations standpoint.
I would say to cut Medicare too, but I worry that many families would literally bankrupt themselves pouring money into the pit that is the US healthcare system in order to save granny. It is quite hard to evaluate costs and benefits in a dispassionately economic manner in these areas, which is probably why we’re in this mess.
Three adverse law-enforcement encounters over the course of one’s college career is not a particularly good record. I’m sure the decision was made that we have too many foreign students in the country (honestly a completely reasonable opinion if you’ve ever spent a significant amount of time on a major university campus), and they decided to revoke the visas of the xx% least law-abiding F1 holders.
Quantumfreakonomics
3mo ago
The court order is a red herring. Trump using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans is illegal because the predicate condition of the act, “whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government,” is not satisfied. Is the assertion that the Venezuelan government is behind the Aurora apartment takeovers?
Quantumfreakonomics
6mo ago
A big problem with medicine, along with other notoriously expensive professional services like law, is that knowing which specific actions to take is part of the service. One can't provide a remotely accurate quote without having already performed the services requested. A checkup for a 10-year-old boy with no medical conditions is a very different service from a checkup for a 58-year-old woman with twelve medications and diabetes.
If this hadn't happened, would FEMA have an extra $300 million to use on other things, or would they simply be appropriated $300 million less?
Same question for the illegal migrants program that everyone on Twitter seems to be talking about.
What was the "dem scheme to cheat"? Some clueless immigrant checking the wrong box?
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