Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
2hr ago
The whole point of voting for El Sayed in the primary was to have a candidate who doesn't condemn anti-Israel messaging on demand. That's what the base wants. One doesn't normally expect a four-term Democratic congresswoman to take her ball and go home.
"Haley Stevens will endorse Mike Rodgers if she doesn't get what she wants on Israel," would have been considered a vaguely antisemitic statement three months ago.
Quantumfreakonomics
7hr ago
Anything from, "it's bad to contribute to AI killing everybody," to, "it's bad to contribute money to the NGO blob," to, "it's bad to own galaxies."
Quantumfreakonomics
17hr ago
Listening to politics inside baseball podcasts, one quickly learns that email lists are the most valuable asset of a defunct campaign. One of the reasons the establishment hates Bernie is that he refused to hand over his email lists to the DNC.
Quantumfreakonomics
18hr ago
Anyone have thoughts on the ethics of buying the Anthropic IPO?
Quantumfreakonomics
1d ago
With three days until Election Day, is there still enough time for the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Michigan?
Cenk Uygur's Rebellion PAC dropped a controversial new ad supporting the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed featuring a grocery store conversation about Israel. Some are calling it the most antisemitic ad of all time:
"You're going to have to put those eggs back."
"They don't like eggs anymore?"
"No, they like eggs. But we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians."
"What? I mean, don't we give Israel $4 billion a year anyways?"
"Yeah. And now we're giving them another $26 billion. Do you know how much that is per American taxpayer? It's like $161 per person."
"Apparently, it's costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza. It's terrible."
Now, I don't think this is a very good ad. It's poorly acted and a bit too on-the-nose, but accusing the political opposition of wasting money on unpopular special interests while regular citizens deal with rising prices is probably the most common political maneuver in modern American politics. Apparently, this ad is at the center of a possible last-minute fracture of the Michigan Democratic coalition.
Haley Stevens, El Sayed's defeated challenger in the dem primary, released an incredibly passive aggressive statement preemptively thanking El Sayed for his "Expected Condemnation of Antisemitic Campaign Advertisement". Amusingly, long-time TYT host Ceng Uygur has been demoted to "Hasan Piker's Uncle". In case you didn't catch the subtext, this is a threat to pull her support (as explained by Haley Stevens's fiance on TMZ for some reason?). Abdul appears to have no intention of disavowing the ad.
This doesn't seem to have affected El Sayed's chances in the prediction markets. He is now up to an 80% chance to win, but I guess we'll see what happens at the black church on Sunday.
Quantumfreakonomics
1d ago
Dentists (and pharmacists) count as doctors. Piano teacher is a well-known housewife side gig. I haven't noticed the bank thing, but I don't go to banks often.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
So the reason I said that Yashar pretends not to be racist is that they do pretty much commit to treating all Israeli citizens the same. The catch is that Israeli citizenship law is itself quite racist, in the sense that there is an explicit ethnic preference for matrilineally descended ethnic Jews regardless of national origin.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
I did leave one option off. Number 5: Something something biotech.
I would probably do a double-take if I heard someone say, “you need to talk to our accounts payable specialist, Xiu Ying Wang,” whereas seeing a name like that on a lab report is completely unremarkable.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
I assume it's above """massage therapist""", but I admit I am unfamiliar with both types of establishments. I don't think I've ever been inside either one.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
Comprehensive list of socially-acceptable jobs for Asian-American women:
- Nail salon worker
- Hostess at an Asian restaurant
- Housewife
- Doctor
I'd go insane too tbh.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
Israel had its first general election since 2022 on Tuesday. Israel is an experiment in ethnonationalism, but it is also an experiment in proportional representation. Every conceivable minority group or special interest has their own political party. There is a party for Russian immigrants, a party for Ashkenazi Haredim, and a separate party for Mizrahi Haredim. Arabs of course vote for entirely separate parties from Jews (by custom, not law).
Israel is the most right-wing democracy in the world. In Israel, you can vote for the racist party (Likud), the extremely racist party (Religious Zionism), or the racism über alles party (Otzma Yehudit, literally "Jewish Power"). You can even vote for the pro-racism but anti-Netanyahu party (Together), or the pretending-not-to-be-racist party (Yashar). If you feel like sticking it to the man, there is at least one viable actually-not-racist party (The Democrats). Some would argue the Arab parties (Joint List and Ra'am) are non-racist, but others would say that they are just as racist but in the opposite direction.
The Knesset has 120 seats, so 61 seats are needed for a majority to form a government. Most of the results are in, and it's looking like deadlock.
Estimated seats by bloc
-
Netanyahu Bloc - 53
-
"Change" Bloc - 48
-
Arab Bloc - 19
In European legislatures, is is customary to have a cordon sanitaire against parties perceived as far-right. In Israel, there is a cordon sanitaire against the Arab parties. The Netanyahu bloc has lost its majority, but there is no clear opposition bloc large enough to form a government. Israeli Arab turnout was through the roof.* Bedouin nomads rode into town on camels to vote. The conventional wisdom seems to be that forming a coalition with any of the Arab parties post-October 7th is political suicide. If no one can form a majority, there could be another election as soon as next year.
*Netanyahu is accusing the Arabs of voter fraud. I have no idea if this means anything.
Quantumfreakonomics
4d ago
This potentially explains why whatever social infrastructure we built to prevent permanent culture war broke down in the last 20 years, but it doesn’t explain why burning those democratic commons was so profitable.
People clearly want culture war ragebait content. All Zuck did was give it to them.
Quantumfreakonomics
6d ago
Are we serious about gun control still?
No. When Democrats try to be competitive in battleground or light-red districts, gun control is the first issue thrown out the window. America being an antiracist cosmopolitan land of immigrants is far more important to the liberal conception of what our society should be than trying to stop a couple of schoolchildren from being gunned down every year.
Quantumfreakonomics
6d ago
A 25% decline is not unreal for a surprise election win by the socialist party in a third-world country. Currency devaluation, property expropriation, excessive taxation, and bans on foreign distributions are all realistic possibilities. The US equity market is not a good reference benchmark for equity markets in other countries.
Mossad, if you're listening, now would be a good time to activate sleeper agent Jasmine Crockett.
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