Quantumfreakonomics

Quantumfreakonomics 1hr ago

If Batman really cared about crime, he’d kill ~~Rick Scott~~ The Joker.

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Quantumfreakonomics 2hr ago

I guess if by “Jews” you mean Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Mark Zuckerberg then yes.

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Quantumfreakonomics 4hr ago

I don't see why allegations that districts were drawn for partisan advantage is nonjusticiable while other questions of district drawing (ex, racial discrimination) are.

Race is a real and justiciable subject matter for electoral law by constitutional fiat (specifically the 15th amendment).

And the constitution has nothing to say about this effective denial of the ability of a political community to have a representative represent them?

The constitution doesn’t give representation to “political communities”. The constitution gives representation to states and to the people. What if Nashville voted 85% Democrat? Maybe putting them all in one district is a partisan gerrymander? Is disproportionate representation okay because some areas happen to contain high-densities of single-party voters? There’s no way to get a satisfactory answer to these questions from a judicial process.

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Quantumfreakonomics 19hr ago

I’m not surprised by this. Polymarket already folded in principle weeks ago. There are legends in the community of internal prediction markets at intelligence agencies and corporations which got shut down not for being inaccurate, but for telling truths that were rather kept secret. Looking back, obviously no company with exposure to the US financial system (which includes all of our allies by the way) was going to sell a product that lets America’s enemies know whether we’re planning a sneak attack or not.

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Quantumfreakonomics 22hr ago

Philosophically, how could Rucho have come out the other way? There are no constitutional issues with partisan gerrymandering, not least because the two-party system is neither mentioned nor envisioned by the constitution. Any person in any 760,000-person congressional district has the same voting power as any other person in any other district.

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Quantumfreakonomics 1d ago

Prior to Rucho v Common Cause in 2019, this level of extreme Partisan gerrymandering would have been presumed illegal. It was only a matter of time before the requisite shameless met with opportunity.

Maybe we will finally get another constitutional amendment out of this.

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Quantumfreakonomics 1d ago

You don’t think they use the term “antisemitism” amongst themselves to describe (what they think is) a real concept?

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Quantumfreakonomics 1d ago

Then one must ask why is this anti Israel misinformation so much more potent now? It's not as if antisemitic propaganda is a new phenomenon, what has changed to make it more effective?

Another hypothesis I want to consider is the switch from text-based news and commentary to audiovisual news and commentary. It's easy enough to defend Israel over text. Jews needed a place to go after the holocaust. Mandatory Palestine had a thriving Jewish community thanks to the British and early Zionists. The PLO did a lot of extraterritorial terrorist attacks you can rattle off. They bombed a damn pizza place. It's not until you've seen the bombed-out remains of Gaza or Lebanon, talked to the guy in the West Bank who used to have an olive grove on the other side of that hill but can never get to it ever since the settlers moved in, and seen the literal walls that separate the Jewish part of Hebron from the Arab part of Hebron that you realize what a mess the whole thing turned into.

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Quantumfreakonomics 1d ago

I'll defend them on this one. Swift execution is the only way to prevent murderers from being released in the inevitable next hostage exchange.

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Quantumfreakonomics 2d ago

What is the Zionist model of antisemitism*?

Matt Yglesias posted what turned out to be a surprisingly hot take that the downturn in public opinion of Israel is a result of Israeli actions, and that the best way for Israel to fix its public relations problem is to change its actions vis-a-vis the Palestinian issue and foreign policy.

I was surprised at the pushback. This seems straightforwardly true. There was a great chart I saw a few days ago, which I am unfortunately unable to find, which showed that public opinion of Israel has been approximately this low before. It was in 1982 with the invasion of Lebanon and the notoriously brutal siege of Beirut.

Most of the alternative theories fell into two camps.

Antisemitism is a result of massive, society-wide misinformation perpetuated by the press, universities, and social media. This is the “wall of dead children” model. Israel’s actions don’t really matter because they will be twisted and misrepresented anyways. The solution is to exert more control over the information environment.
Antisemitism is an intrinsic force of nature. It doesn’t have a cause, or if it does, it has a cause which cannot be effectively operated upon. Asking what causes antisemitism is like asking what causes DeCarlos Brown to stab people on the subway. The way to deal with antisemitism is to kill, deport, or disenfranchise antisemites.

It’s hard to tell how religious the people in 2. are, but my general impression is, “quite a bit”. Many of them seem to speak of antisemitism as if it were a spiritual fault, another manifestation of the platonic ideal of pure evil. Seen as a spiritual problem, the correct response is to become even more aggressively Jewish. This has the rather large problem of being counterproductive when, e.g. smashing idols goes wrong.

*By “antisemitism” in this post I almost exclusively mean “antizionism”. I use the term to maintain consistency with the pro-Israel literature I am engaging with, not as an endorsement that antizionism = antisemitism.

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Quantumfreakonomics 4d ago

Both the IRGC and Hamas are militant Shiite extremists.

Hamas is Sunni

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Quantumfreakonomics 4d ago

I am most familiar with the ACX-comments-section arguments which inevitably go like this:

Gallant: "AI capabilities progress is incredibly dangerous. We should stop/pause/slow down."

Goofus: "But China is developing AI too. If we stop or slow down, then China will beat us and we'll die anyways, or worse, be conquered by the CCP. This is why all regulations are evil."

Gallant: "Well if you're concerned about China, then surely you support chip export restrictions. That's one regulation that isn't evil right?"

Goofus: "No, chip export restrictions are regulations and therefore evil."

Gallant: "It sounds like you don't actually care about the geopolitical implications of China having acess to advanced AI systems. I think you are arguing disingenuously because you want to make lots of money."

Goofus: "How dare you! You haven't even engaged with the many arguments in favor of selling chips to China."

The arguments in favor of selling chips to China are only ever aluded to, never stated or linked. Having now heard the arguments from Jensen Huang, I understand why they were never explicitly invoked. They presuppose that China having access to advanced AI systems is no big deal, which undermines the Xi-risk argument against X-risk mitigation.

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Quantumfreakonomics 4d ago

The blockade is the first good idea that Trump has had the entire war. It accomplishes the same strategic objective as capturing Kharg Island, can be maintained indefinitely, and is low-risk. Makes you wonder what the hell they were thinking for the first six weeks.

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

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Quantumfreakonomics 8d ago

There was a Manifold market: “Will Donald Trump tweet an image of himself as Jesus Christ?” Resolved yes

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Quantumfreakonomics 8d ago

I guess all those people handwringing about democratic backsliding were full of shit. Orban used to be popular, and now he's not. Simple as.

The real question is, what changed since 2022? The main things are the prolonged invasion of Ukraine and the return of Trump. Was this a foreign policy election?

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Quantumfreakonomics 10d ago

America destroyed 80-90% of Iran’s military in weeks

80-90% of what?

80-90% of missiles? No.

80-90% of drones? No.

80-90% of IRGC troops? No.

80-90% of fast attack craft? No.

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Quantumfreakonomics 13d ago

The only way I can make sense of this is that the ceasefire negotiations are going so badly that Trump told Melania to put more Epstein stories in the headlines to distract the public

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Quantumfreakonomics 13d ago

That’s the alien-entertainment variant of simulation theory

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Quantumfreakonomics 13d ago

The IRGC literally talks like Saturday Morning Cartoon Villains out of GI Joe.

I’m skeptical that anyone could beat the Trump and Netanyahu administrations at sounding like cartoon villains. The IDF named its last-minute bombing campaign in Beirut “Operation Eternal Darkness”. Feel free to drop some quotes to prove me wrong though.

A year ago 85% of Iranians did not support the IRGC and that was before the Basaji killed 45,000 protestors.

85% of Americans do not approve of congress. This in no way implies that Americans would rather be ruled by an executive council appointed by Xi Jinping.

If the poll was before the regime killed thousands of protesters, it was also before the IRGC successfully repelled a US/Israeli military operation aimed at subjugating the country. A big mistake the US made in Vietnam was assuming that people joined the Vietcong because they were communists. In reality people joined the Vietcong because they were fighting for Vietnamese independence.

Mahdism requires that they destroy the US and Israel to bring about the return of Mahdi.

This is a fringe view. The majority position is that Imam Mahdi will reappear first, and then he will lead the forces of Islam to liberate Palestine and defeat the West.

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Quantumfreakonomics 13d ago

This is incredibly based. A USG-sanctioned breakaway hierarchy might be our only shot at getting real Catholicism back. Once we've conceded that "Eternal Rome" means something different from, "the guy currently running The Vatican," then there is absolutely no reason that "Eternal Rome" can't be located in Dillwyn Virginia.

In historical reality, the threat of government-backed antipopes was the last line of defense against Rome's temporal power. The Avignon Papacy was a direct reaction to the papal bull Unam Sanctam, which is still on the books, and which declares the papacy as strictly superior to temporal rulers. Technically, the pope could order JD Vance to end the war, under penalty of excommunication and eternal damnation.

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Quantumfreakonomics 14d ago

This, but unironically.

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Quantumfreakonomics 14d ago

It might actually be worse than this. Trump is getting mad at people for posting Iran’s claimed terms, but he insists that the actual terms are secret. It almost looks like a unilateral withdrawal from the conflict dressed up to look like a negotiated ceasefire (which would explain why Iran decided to immediately claim maximalist terms).

Tankers are still being turned back.

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Quantumfreakonomics 14d ago

I'm not sure Trump has the political capital to restart the war before the midterms unless Iran does something insane. Probably we get another flare-up in 2027 or 2028.

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Quantumfreakonomics 14d ago

The Supreme National Security Council and state media are announcing complete victory. They seem even more excited that the war is ending than the FM.

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