Quantumfreakonomics
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Quantumfreakonomics
10mo ago
When, if ever, is it appropriate to provide an apologetic defense of Nazi Germany?
Darryl Cooper, host of the widely acclaimed Martyr Made podcast, recently did a 2+ hour interview with Tucker Carlson. Darryl Cooper is known for two things. One: being meticulously empathetic with regards to the plight of the disaffected groups that are the subject of his 30-hour long history podcasts, bringing out the vivid details that form the background milieu for poorly-understood events like Jonestown. And two: his unhinged Twitter takes.
As one can imagine, jimmies were rustled. The most common line of attack was “Tucker Carlson platforms Nazi apologetics.” In a literal sense this is true. Cooper gives the German perspective on Winston Churchill. One might make the obvious point that Germany started the war by invading Poland, but the Soviet Union also invaded Poland. Yet the Western allies did not declare war on Stalin. This AskHistorians thread (no haven for Nazi apologetics!) is enlightening. What masqueraded as a mutual defense treaty was actually an anti-German treaty. Britain really was out to get them.
Once we dig deep enough, the real reason World War II started was to preserve Anglo hegemony over Europe, the exact same reason that Britain joined World War I. Post-hoc rationalizations are just that, post-hoc. It certainly isn’t irrelevant when studying World War II that the holocaust happened, but that isn’t part of the causal chain of events the way many seem to believe.
I want to emphasize that I personally like Anglo-American hegemony. Churchill’s aggressive stance towards Germany is good for me and for the vast majority of the people reading this, but in order to understand history (or current events for that matter) one has to understand the people who do not like Anglo-American hegemony. I do not know where on the doll Anglo imperialism touched him, but I do not believe that Darryl Cooper says the things that he does out of hate for his fellow man.
Quantumfreakonomics
10mo ago
Grok will let you make anything right now.
Okay, not literally anything. Hardcore porn appears to be banned. Still, I am not sure society is ready for a mainstream image model that lets you make sexy pictures of female congresswomen showing their feet.
I am really curious how this shakes out over the next few days/weeks. I am sure that the New York Times and Washington Post hitpieces are being typed right now. Was this level of freedom intentional, or an oversight? Will Elon fold immediately? My guess: he shuts down the ability to generate identifiable people in lewd situations. That is the one thing Americans won't stand for for some reason.
Things have been quiet on the AI front lately, despite or perhaps because of the election. I suspect that the major labs are afraid to rock the boat and risk getting blamed if things go poorly.
Quantumfreakonomics
7mo ago
Donald Trump nominates RFK Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
I am not naturally sympathetic to criticizing policy or personnel decisions on the grounds that they "embolden" the wrong people, but I am going to make an exception here. The sheer magnitude of human suffering prevented by vaccines and antibiotics is hard to comprehend. Due to complex structural and psychological reasons, the developers of these treatments capture a miniscule fraction of the total utility surplus created.
Enter the pharma skeptics: I do not know what RFK Jr.'s specific stance on vaccines is, besides "more skeptical than the liberal establishment will accept", but I do know how Twitter works. Twitter is real. It affects real events in actual reality, up to and including the US presidential election. Trans issues are getting dumped from the mainstream Democratic Party agenda because of how much it gets dunked on on Twitter.
In this Twitter thread, the entire concept of rewarding companies for treating disease is getting dunked on like it's a Lia Thomas podium. This is of course not the only example I could have pulled, but it shocked me both because of it's location (Alex Tabarrok's feed), and because of the sheer intensity of what can only be described as concentrated stupid.
But perhaps the most alarming implications are for democracy itself. RFK's endorsement likely won Trump the election, not least because it paved the way for the Rogan endorsement. Republicans won by increasing their share of the stupid vote. Indeed, no party can win a national election without winning large swaths of the stupid vote. There simply aren't enough smart people to win. Perhaps this explains the modern political environment. The decision between Democrat or Republican boils down to a decision on which party's concession to the stupid vote will do the least amount of damage.
Quantumfreakonomics
10mo ago
What is going on in Springfield, Ohio? 20,000 Haitian arrivals into a town of 60,000 seems insane, but the New York Times seems to back it up. I definitely don’t trust the NYT to give an honest portrayal of what the situation is like on the ground, but I don’t really trust a lot of the rumors going around Twitter either. I am seeing reports of Haitians killing the ducks at the park and eating them. There are even secondhand reports of Haitians eating pet cats.
What I am not seeing however is geolocated footage or images. How hard can it be to send a guy to the park to see if there are any ducks left? I am legitimately confused. None of this seems to make sense.
Nothing Ever Happens
DOGE is as good as dead. They’ve hit the wall.
Federal judge pauses deadline for federal workers to accept Trump’s resignation offer.
DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts.
The one shining light of hope for true government reform was Elon Musk’s DOGE. They seemed to be making real progress. They may not have been loved, but they were feared, and Machiavelli said that’s enough.
Now they have lost the momentum. Stays and injunctions will start pouring in as district court judges stop fearing that their orders will be simply ignored.
If the deep state career civil service can draw blood with a trick as old as “drag-up old racist internet comments”, then DOGE really are toothless. No one will take them seriously anymore.
Maybe Congress can tap in…
Quantumfreakonomics
4mo ago
Trump just kicked Zelenskyy out of the White House after a public shouting match.
I've never seen anything like this. I sort of expected Trump to give him a hard time just for the cameras, but this seems to have legitimately hurt relations. Zelenskyy was in town to sign the much-anticipated minerals deal. From what I can hear the deal was not signed.
Ukraine needs the US much more than the US needs Ukraine. Could Zelenskyy not keep his pride contained for a few hours?
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
2014-Era Neckbeard Shaming is BACK
"These Guys are Just Weird" is the new ad from pro-Kamala super PAC Won't Pac Down. You really do have to watch it to viscerally understand the impact. I am not gifted enough with words to give it justice. It's not clear if this ad will ever air on tv (seems a bit racy for that), but the internet is where modern elections are won or lost.
As grossly offensive as I find the ad, I cannot deny being impressed. Just a few days ago I pointed out that Democrats need better messaging if they want to persuade voters. This kind of appeal to base instinct is exactly what wins elections. The ethos of "when they go low, we go high," sure sounds good at dinner parties, but it likely cost Dems the 2016 election. In some sense, I truly think they were afraid of the sheer effectiveness of Willie Horton. It took Trump to scare them enough to pull out the stops.
Quantumfreakonomics
7mo ago
At least hospital administrators pay attention to how much things cost.
In many cases, doctors literally do not know how much the treatments they provide cost. This means that they simply don’t do any cost-benefit analysis. They will prescribe an expensive brand-name drug instead of a generic drug that does basically the same thing for no reason other than because they heard about it more recently.
Quantumfreakonomics
5mo ago
The simplest explanation in my eyes is:
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Male feminists, being feminists, tend to hang around with female feminists.
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Female feminists are more likely to make sexual misconduct accusations at any given level of sexual pestiness than are non-feminist women.
It’s Simpson’s Paradox all the way down.
Quantumfreakonomics
10mo ago
Here is an interesting development: Kamala Harris is now demanding unmuted microphones for her debate with Donald Trump.
It's been memory holed, but I seem to remember the general opinion being that allowing Trump to interrupt his opponent during debates gave him an unfair advantage since he would interrupt more often. This appears to be a complete 180. It's tempting to model this as a reflexive reaction to Trump's dominance in the June debate with Biden (which muted the candidates' microphones when it wasn't their turn to speak), but I get the sense that there are deeper strategic considerations at play. A few possibilities:
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The Harris Campaign wants Trump to come off as unhinged by giving him the oppurtunity to make a complete ass of himself. This didn't work for Jeb, Rubio, Cruz, or Hillary, but maybe it will work for Harris? (I am pressing X to doubt)
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Kamala wants to unleash her inner prosecutor and roll around in the mud with Trump. This could work, but it strikes me as the kind of thing that sounds better in the shower than it does in real life.
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This is just mind games. The Harris Campaign is using meaningless nitpicks to bait Trump into doing something stupid. I think this is an underrated strategy in general. It would be very bullish for Harris if the people in charge are this smart.
Quantumfreakonomics
4mo ago
Why aren’t Democrats physically occupying government buildings?
I’ve been reading and watching a lot of left-wing content lately. A big topic of conversation is what exactly Democrats could do to slow down or stop Trump. The “mainstream” opinion is that Democrats can’t really do anything except sue, since they control zero branches of federal government. I disagree.
DC voted 90% for Kamala. Pretty much every federal employee is in danger of losing their job if Trump successfully consolidates power. They could collectively decide to simply not comply with Trump’s orders. He would have to blow all of his political capital on calling in the national guard while his allegedly illegal orders get litigated.
Look at this video from the other week purporting to show Congressional Democrats being “physically blocked” from entering the Department of Education. They aren’t even really trying to get inside. They could totally storm in if they wanted!
Has anyone chained themselves to their desk? Or better yet, to one of these mystical “servers” containing so much sensitive personal data? We saw more effective civil disobedience over Gaza than we are seeing over our own government.
I have two theories for this incompetence, but am eager to hear more:
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All of the organizations and groups that typically organize and support these types of protests blew their entire budget on the presidential campaign. Then, money dried up as rich donors feared getting on Trump’s bad side.
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After January 6, the Democrats focused their self-image around the idea of “procedure” and “doing things the right way”. This calcified to such an extent that anyone in a position of leadership is now incapable of forming and executing plans which do not conform with the collective PMC understanding of what is allowed or “proper”.
Quantumfreakonomics
7mo ago
Romanian Supreme Court Cancels Election, Overthrows Results of First Round
Recently, unknown dark horse anti-NATO candidate Călin Georgescu shocked the world by winning a plurality of the vote in the first round of Romania's presidential election. Key to his victory was an intense social media campaign, with a particular emphasis on Tik-Tok.
Romania's Supereme Court has today declared these results null and void. The full opinion setting out their reasoning has yet to be published, but this is almost certainly due to allegations of Russian interference. I have not seen any credible accusations that votes themselves were fraudulently cast, only that Georgescu's campaign recieved improper (illegal?) assistance from Russian media operations. This is IMO the most important outstanding question.
Quantumfreakonomics
7mo ago
The Harris Campaign Gives Their Side of the Story
Harris campaign staff joined establishment Democrat podcast Pod Save America for an election post-mortem.
What sticks out is how unsurprising everything is. These people are exactly the type of out-of-touch elite consultants that populists on both sides are always whining about. They come off as less woke than popularly imagined, but are every bit as uncreative, process oriented, and unaccountable as expected. Being on mobile due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m not in position to mine the transcript for key quotes, but clips from this podcast have been going viral on Twitter. A few highlights from memory:
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Campaign staff had no preparation for Biden dropping out of the race.
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They knew that the campaign message wasn’t getting through to young men. They still decided to prioritize on-the-ground campaigning in swing states over going on any of the bro podcasts. In their telling, Kamala was willing to go anywhere, but they simply ran out of time.
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They flat-out couldn’t figure out a response to the “Kamala is for they/them” ad. Nothing they tested seemed effective.
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They still think Liz Cheney is an avatar for moderate Republicans.
Quantumfreakonomics
10mo ago
Should the United States switch to an explicitly pay-to-play immigration model? The twin axioms of immigration seem to be:
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Elite human capital immigrants entering the country is good.
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Low human capital immigrants entering the country is bad.
Much ink has been spilled on attempts to determine which specific groups of immigrants are good or bad, but isn't the most elegant solution simply to charge money for the privilege of immigrating to the United States? People who have acheived success in their home countries are more likely to be high human capital, and needless to say the unwashed hordes would be kept out by sheer inability to pay.
Ideally this would be a complete replacement of the current immigration regime, not an augmentation. I cannot think of any nessesary exceptions off the top of my head. Anyone worth bringing into the country is worth paying for. Passport bros can still exploit economic inequality to snag a mail-order bride, but they will be the ones footing the bill.
I propose a flat rate of $100,000 per green card. Why wouldn't this work?
Quantumfreakonomics
2mo ago
The FBI this morning arrested a Wisconsin state judge on charges of concealing an illegal alien from arrest.
The initial criminal complaint is here. For those of you who prefer to watch TV instead of read, here is attorney general Pam Bondi giving the details on Fox News. The accusation is that upon seeing federal agents waiting outside her courtroom to serve an administrative warrent for the arrest of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz (who is an illegal alien currently being charged with battery), Judge Hannah Dugan escorted Flores-Ruiz out of the courtroom through the jury door so that he could evade arrest.
For all of the "Kash Patel Arrests Judge" headlines I saw this morning, this seems totally fine? It looks like an open and shut case if the facts alleged in the complaint are true. It sounds like there ought to be plenty of witnesses (it literally took place in a courthouse). State-law judges don't have jurisdiction over federal agents executing federal functions. An illegal alien in court for an unrelated violent crime is an incredibly unsympathetic defendant. All of the smarter left-leaning commentators I follow seem to be keeping quiet on this, which seems smart.
In recent years, it really did seem like the media put in the effort to not glorify mass shooters by plastering their image all over the place, fueling speculation as to their motives, and generally making them look cool. There are major shooting incidents to which I don't even remember the perpetrator's name. It finally sank in that this kind of attention was counterproductive.
Which is why I am fascinated by the Luigi Mangione story. He cracked the code. News outlets are showing his face 24-7. Everyone is talking about the issues that he wants us to be talking about. This guy is the most famous, most popular, and, if the ladies are to be believed, sexiest criminal of the 21st century. Why? Basic competence at not being immediately apprehended? Selecting an unpopular target? Being attractive? Not being unattractive?
The mood on social media feels like the end of Joker. Full mask-off glorification of murder, but it's gleeful -- giddy even. Part of the thrill of voting for Trump was the idea that the people, through sheer collective desire, could will one person out of prison, to look at someone prosecuted by the justice system and say, "no, we have his back". Can it be any surprise that the left wants in on this intoxicating elixir?
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
2mo ago
Assuming for a moment that the purpose of tariffs is to shift consumer spending away from foreign imports and towards domesticly manufactured products,
Shouldn't you want retailers to break-out the tariff cost into a seperate legible line item?
A story broke this morning that Amazon was going to start labeling products with the tariff charged on each item to make the price changes legible to the consumer. From the perspective of a protectionist economic policy, this is a good thing. It makes it unignorably clear which items are made in China and which items are made in America. It also shows the direct monetary incentive for you the consumer to but the Made in America item over the Made in China item.
From the perspective of whatever the hell the Trump administration is trying to do, this is a disaster. I understand that governments would prefer the populace not be particularly mindful of how much money they pay in taxes, but it is another thing alltogether to hear this articulated by the press secretary as something that they think makes the administration look good to the public. The official line from the MAGA infuencer types on Twitter is that retailers are doing this as a distraction from the fact that they sell cheap slop from Asian sweatshops, but this is actually highlighting the fact that they sell cheap slop from Asian sweatshops.
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these,
Quantumfreakonomics
8d ago
80+ dead and rising in Central Texas floods.
Kerr County is the Summer Camp capital of Texas. It's rugged hill country terrain and proximity to the Guadelupe River is perfect for exotic adventures outdoors, and it is close enough to major population centers to be convenient for parents to drop-off their children.
The downside is that low-lying cabins get completely wiped out in flood events. Camp Mystic for girls has double-digit casualties alone.
It is a common refrain to bemoan the fact that, "we don't let kids be kids anymore," and that may be true, but a big part of it is that we as a society simply don't consider the inherent risks acceptable anymore. I shudder to think about making 10-year-olds sit through a 30-minute site-specific emergency preparedness seminar, but that's where this is going, and given what's happened, I'm not entirely sure it would be a bad thing.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
Politics · Trending
#TamponTim
178K posts
God damn it.
I get what they're going for here. Trans is unpopular and weird. Tim Walz signed a law that all school bathrooms (including boy's rooms) have to have tampons available. Totally weird right?
The problem is that no one cares about girls using the boys room. People do care about boys using the girl's room, but that's not what is evoked by the imagery being used. This plays right into the narrative that Republicans are obsessed with controling the female reproductive system.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few days. The short answer is, no, Republicans are not shamelessly sexually humiliating their opponents enough to win the election. The long answer is, it’s not enough simply to sexually humiliate one’s opponents, one must imply that one’s opponents have something to gain from giving up or switching sides. The subtext of the “these guys are just weird” campaign is that if you young man simply stop trying to police women’s sexual behavior, you too can get laid. Consider the following:
This woman is a “gender and society” columnist at the Washington Post. The message is clear; submit to power [ours] and you will get pussy. What is the Republican message to young women? Become based or you will grow into a childless cat lady? That could work, but it is inherently a multi-step argument. Frankly, conservative media just isn’t good enough to get across a message that complex.
Quantumfreakonomics
4mo ago
And to think that this all happened because Scott platformed Mencius Moldbug back in 2013. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.
I wouldn’t really mind Elon becoming techno-monarch tbh, but I don’t trust Trump with absolute power.
I am legitimately worried that my girlfriend will break up with me if/when she finds out that I voted for Trump. She has always been an incredibly sweet and kind person, but her social media since the election has become unhinged. Like, some are more hateful than the worst comments I have seen on Reddit. We basically don't talk politics at all with each other, and I have no intention of changing that, but I am a bad liar with a terrible poker face, so if she becomes suspicious there’s not much I can do (I also have ethical qualms with lying, but these are essentially moot given the concerns above.)
EDIT: She found out. She was VERY upset. I'm like 75% sure its over.
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.
In preparation for the currently ongoing papal conclave, I decided to read the official rules currently in force, UNIVERSI DOMINICI GREGIS, issued by John Paul II in 1996. The document contains this provision (emphasis added):
Seems simple enough right?
Whoops.
Here I was, a schmuck, reading the canonically promulgated apostolic constitution as if it mattered, as if the supposed men of God involved in this 2000-year-old institution might care about established procedures.
Sure, Francis could have changed the rules, as many popes have done throughout the centuries, but he didn’t. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and neither did anyone else with influence within the Vatican either. How am I supposed to take this seriously if the cardinals and popes don’t even take it seriously?
I wish Christianity were true. I really do. It would certainly make my dating life easier. I’d have a sense of purpose in life, defined rules of virtue to follow, but it just doesn’t make any actual sense. The inconsistency I cited above is relatively minor, but it is illustrative of what one finds everywhere when one digs into the claims of Christianity and treats them with the truth-preserving tools of logic. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus and Vatican II, Matthew 24:34, these are fundamental truth claims that can’t be handwaved away like the finer points of ecclesiastical law.
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