RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
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User ID: 317
Some 10%ers will be doing supermarket work of course, they might be perfectly fine, honest and upright people. Others will abuse welfare or spend their entire lives heading in and out of prison.
But on a global level, we see whole countries of the bottom 10% where nothing works: the bureaucracy is a complete shambles and infrastructure is a mess. The characteristic of the bottom 10% as a group is that they erode civilization, they're not merely pawns that do menial tasks.
Scott Alexander memorably pointed out that they do not have alphabetical organization in Haiti - this rather impedes efficient administration. They still have not managed to repair the National Palace where the President lives since the earthquake in 2010.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_crisis_(2018%E2%80%93present)
Or from another angle, someone actually wrote this as a story and published it. A real adult thought other people would like to read this. It's pretty bad: https://www.webnovel.com/book/30212039405390805/81118027365538549
I believe that the difference between me and von Neumann is less than the gap between me and this guy. Not in our work capacity but in our general faculties and comprehension.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
I've said before that the 95th percentile human being has a lot more in common intellectually with a 10th percentile human being
Really? How many 10th percentile people do you meet?
The 10th percentile are the ones breaking into bald men's heads looking for gold or deflowering virgins to cure their AIDS. Or they star in the genre of youtube videos exposing how stupid and ignorant American university students are: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AkIUqH498PQ
The more cerebral of this cohort might subscribe to conspiracy theories about how the earth is flat, how everything is actually naval law and most countries are secretly enrolled as corporations in Delaware... They still cannot string a sentence together though, nor can they spell.
Sometimes societies just do crazy things. Consider foot-binding in China. Enormous amounts of pain and life-long infirmity inflicted on young girls for basically no reason other than it being high-status to have these small feet. The origin was in some dancer who the emperor praised, nobody is quite sure. It makes zero sense. The process is actually sickening to read about, wikipedia casually adds that the death rate from gangrene could be as high as 10%. There were full-scale wars less deadly than this 'cosmetic procedure'.
But it took on a life of its own. Foot-binding became a kind of resistance movement to the Qing dynasty (who tried to ban it several times but failed). We can only assume it was ferociously popular, a way of marrying up in society, conforming to norms. There must've been very deep and powerful emotions behind it, if it subverts a basic parental conception of 'not torturing your child'. But today it just sounds completely retarded to us and to everyone, especially the Chinese.
I agree it would be kind of hot to be a very attractive girl. But that's not something that's realistically possible. I have heard horror stories no less disturbing than foot-binding about those who try and fail. We should strive to think reasonably and logically before falling into either a collective or individual social phenomenon like this.
Various media outlets have been saying 'just one more year of Maximum Pressure and the hated Iranian Regime will finally collapse!' for at least 10 years now. So if we considered them believable and wanted Iran to collapse, then maybe it was a bad idea. Then again, according to them Iran has been 6 months away from nuclear arms for the last 20 years or so.
Trying to lower tension in the Middle East is a good move. Iran has oil they want to sell, the West (perhaps not America these days) has money and wants oil. There's no good reason why we can't have cordial commercial relationships with these countries (and crack down on Islamism at home). China manages it. Islamic countries line up to say 'we don't care about Uyghurs, cuius regio, eius religio' because the Chinese don't go around invading Islamic countries, they just trade and give the right noises on Israel. China's happy to trade with Israel too, it all works out nicely for them. That's the kind of relationship we should be aiming for.
In as far as the JCPOA was a way to withdraw militarily from the Middle East, it was a good move.
And what have we gotten after the JCPOA? We've gotten more war, more conflict and Iran moving closer to Russia and China. How is that a good outcome? Nobody can prove that it would've been better if the JCPOA remains but it's certainly not good that shortly after removing it, things get worse.
We need to appreciate that regions have their own natural equilibriums. We may not like those equilibriums but they exist nonetheless and often we don't have the power to change them. If we do have the power to change them, let's make sure it's worth the cost and risk.
The equilibrium for Afghanistan is an Islamist warlordist/theocratic state. We shouldered a great burden like Atlas (or the Soviet Union before us) but our preferred equilibrium 'ostensibly democratic corruption/pedophilia/drug haven' was massively unstable and relied on vast infusions of cash and competent Western soldiers. It was a bad idea to keep forcing this, we should've left much sooner.
Why are we trying to prop up a democratic Iraq? Why are we trying to pressure Syria into changing? We got masses of instability and ISIS out of both, yet we still haven't learnt our lesson. Why are we trying to pressure Iran, a turnkey nuclear power? Let's pack up and go home, leave some Ozymandias-style monument to regime-change to waste away in the desert. If Iran tries invading Kuwait, that's a clear problem, we should show up and secure our oil suppliers with a quick defensive war. Otherwise, let's leave it alone.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
What were their formal goals? What did Putin actually say at the start of the war?
Demilitarization, denazification and neutrality. He was saying this in early 2022, they constituted the original peace offer and he's still maintaining these demands today. These three were the primary goals of the war.
Demilitarization looks like it'll be reached at some point if only via attrition and Ukrainian military defeat. Denazification = installing some kind of more acceptable government - still up in the air. Neutrality, still up in the air.
Then there are various formally annexed provinces of Ukraine, some of which Russia has control of on the ground. These were added as goals with the constitutional changes in September 2022.
Russia has thus achieved partial success on 2 of 4 of their primary goals and seems to enjoy the upper hand on the battlefield. This we can observe since the original US-Ukrainian goal (pre-2014 borders for Ukraine) has been largely abandoned.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
But to demand political autonomy in the context of Gaza is where I get off the train. The force of political autonomy in Gaza is called Hamas. Their primary objective is to sabotage any peace process by murdering random residents of Israel. Asking for political autonomy for Gaza is like asking for political autonomy for Germany in 1946.
Did you know that this was basically part of Israeli strategy? Netanyahu approved dividing the Palestinians up between the feckless Palestinian Authority and Hamas. He said that supporting Hamas was a good idea precisely to prevent any single coherent movement for independence and a Palestinian state, at a Likud part conference in 2019. Presumably there's also a desire to play the Assad govt's favourite card: ' we're fighting terrorism!!!'.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
If they throw $800 billion or so around every year for decades and decades, they'll have all kinds of cool toys. Are they getting the right systems, are systems developed efficiently, are wars managed proficiently or planned out properly? Absolutely not. But if you're a big, rich incumbent, even regular blundering doesn't cause that much harm... until strong competitors emerge.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
Some of the things she did were just ridiculous:
In November 2013, Mayer instituted a performance review system based on a bell curve ranking of employees, suggesting that managers rank their employees on a bell curve, with those at the low end being fired.[59][60] Employees complained that some managers were viewing the process as mandatory.[60] In February 2016, a former Yahoo! employee filed a lawsuit against the company claiming that Yahoo's firing practices have violated both California and federal labor laws.[61]
It's not as though she made ambitious ploys that might've worked but failed due to bad luck, she had a scattergun approach of random nonsense. "We need to do something" -> "this is something" -> "therefore we must do this" x50. Mayer had a hard task but bungled massively.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
If the state lets fentanyl be sold in supermarkets, prices will fall and consumption will rise.
If the state shoots fentanyl dealers dead, prices will rise and consumption will fall.
If the state subsidizes corn production, HFCS will get added to more things and food will become more fattening...
Each individual choice swims in a sea of policy, that's why policy exists.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
OK, the US military is not well-endowed with the cerebral sort. Many abstract tasks like strategy or military-political coordination elude them. They have produced some real masterpieces of silliness in past years: https://x.com/DefenseCharts/status/1321799395571097601
But the US military do have powerful radars and cameras pointed at the skies. They have lots of space assets, they are very interested in space. There's no way of getting to the bottom of this without their resources.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
I saw a chart that showed the people with huge incomes had high (by first world country standards, so around 2.0 or 3.0) fertility, but they're quite rare. It was a U-curve chart, not a diagonal chart.
And it's certainly not commensurate with Niger's 6.4 TFR.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
And to the extent that this "conflict" does have a basis in reality and isn't purely virtual, it's largely a good thing anyway, as its primary effect is to prevent evolutionarily unfit individuals (largely male) from reproducing, while more fecund and vigorous strains are unharmed.
Max Anders the glasses-wearing nerd makes six-figures at his software infrastructure job keeping the city running. But because he has a nerdy and uncharismatic personality and poor facial structure he will never reproduce.
But Slaggern Thundercock has eight children with three different women because he has strong cheekbones and a violent alpha personality? Vigorous by the definition of the 10,000 BC tribal warrior is not really what we need.
Stacy Smartbook is clever and hardworking - she lives alone, her demanding job, lengthy education and high expectations for a partner leave little room or time for a partner or children.
Salmonella Sarvesian is stupid and abusive, raising her brood of children badly. Many will go on to be crooks. She's on welfare and doesn't care, or maybe she works a few hours at a low-income job.
On a global level this is exactly what's happening. The most talented and proficient are not reproducing. We have the statistics on fertility by region, by demographic, by city. We can read a chart. We can see what's happening in front of our eyes. This is a bad thing, at least for those of us who value a high-quality human civilization. In some places it's worse still, the Korean race will vanish from the South if it keeps on this path of TFR going straight down - no genocidal foe is needed.
It is perfectly natural for nations and civilizations to die out. It has happened many times in history. While natural, it is not very pleasant for those who live in a dying nation. We should take steps to avoid this. It is natural for cars driving towards a cliff to sail off, the driver should swerve rather than burn.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
Firefighters arriving after the fire starts is perfectly fine.
However, if the firefighters are wandering around with petrol and matches before the fire starts, then we have problems - especially when it comes to paying them a hefty bill for their services.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
Any attempt to do something about the kid before his crimes escalated to international aeroplane theft would have been based around a CPS investigation, because realistically there was nothing else the police could do about him.
The law is far too soft around young children who commit serious crimes. Deadly carjacking by under-age girls? Death penalty!
Not:
The 15-year old received the maximum sentence allowed by law and was remanded to the care of a youth agency until deemed rehabilitated or reaching the age of 21; the younger girl (age 14 at time of sentencing) received the same sentence on July 6, 2021.
If swift use of the death penalty returns, people will be amazed at how quickly the random stabbings of 3-year-old children ends, how these violent carjackings and armed burglaries get squelched. These 'mentally deranged' people rarely try stabbing attacks or pushing-onto-the-tracks against 190 cm bodybuilders or big, tough construction workers. They go for women and children or they bring weapons. They know what would happen, even within their esoteric, legally fortuitous 'unable to understand the consequences' mental state. They do understand consequences, we just don't inflict the necessary punishment.
If all else fails, the death penalty will cull the problem people out of the population.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
Do you know what happens when you go on /pol/ and make a sincere and relatively novel argument in favour of the Holocaust being real? (That it is absolutely not difficult for a Germany that killed 20 million armed Soviets and conquered Europe to wipe out a few million mostly unarmed Jews, that even poorly organized states like Pakistan or the Ottoman Empire can pull off genocide, plus Nazi Germany certainly had the motivation and will to do it). I can tell you.
People accuse you of being a bad-faith actor because everyone knows that /pol/ is a 'It didn't happen but it should've' board. Few are interested in debate. It's a partisan environment. And there are many paid employees pushing various angles. Bluesky is the same. Reddit is, for the most part, the same.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
If US big pharma is so great, why is US life-expectancy declining? Not just since the pandemic but even before then. Biotech and pharma shares were making huge gains in that period 2014-2019, yet life expectancy was stagnant at best. We can toss Tabarrok's thesis that pharma shares = life expectancy straight out the window. Consider US life expectancy compared to peers: https://x.com/The_OtherET/status/1857207679011180938
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/djuspr
https://www.investing.com/indices/nasdaq-biotechnology-components
Why are there umpteen billions going into a massively drawn-out and complicated drug research process that barely seems to produce many good new drugs - and pennies for anti-aging research?
Why was there a massive opiate crisis, founded in part due to dodgy advertisements and concealment of risks?
Why is such an enormous proportion of the US population on anti-depressants? Why are so many children on ADHD medications and adderall? Overmedicalization has been linked to all kinds of problems.
Capitalism is not an unalloyed good. I believe in the market system. I believe it's generally superior to central planning and state-directed approach. But there are roles for regulation or state enterprises. Of course regulation can also create perverse incentives which I suspect is a big contributor to the problem. But free market fundamentalists like Tabarrok are nearly as bad as banocrat regulatory fiends and communists.
The fentanyl dealer on the street is nearly universally considered a social malefactor, I doubt Tabarrok would defend this particular class of entrepeneur. What about the pharma exec who launders standard human behaviour (unsatisfaction with a boring life or children not sitting still in class) as a disease, intensively advertises a 'cure' which is only partially effective and causes all kinds of side-effects later down the track? Regulation is needed to confront both of them.
The whole US health system is a Gordion knot that needs to be decisively cut through by some Alexander.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
Enough money to make a good-sized newspaper headline, maybe a million dollars? That's not much for a billionaire.
We should try to cultivate a pro-social atmosphere where hospitality is rewarded, where people are generous and helpful to strangers.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
Prices are important in the weighing up of costs and benefits. When it comes to prostitution, I am sure that most women would sleep with a man for a high repayment in money or power. Would it be rational to turn down billions of dollars that she could use to vastly improve her life and her loved ones? Would it be rational to marry a charming and pleasant life-long loser who lives in his parent's basement, as compared to a somewhat more boring but well-off computer technician? If that's whorish behaviour then the standard is awfully high.
Marian Tompson wasn't saying she was opposed to male breastfeeding just because it is unnatural but also because it is a distraction from the core goals of the organization. She also says that there's no long-term research into its effects on the child, which is basically a steelman of unnatural.
Women are the ones best equipped for breastfeeding, it should belong to them. If there is a bucket of time and effort for breastfeeding work, women should get all of it since they're better at it. Raising children is complicated, it's not really understood and we have many more important areas to invest resources in than helping men breastfeed.
Likewise, men are best suited for war. Men are stronger and more martially inclined, war should be their prerogative. History has shown this, let's keep it that way.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
It's funny how fuckingfascists is clearly a sincere left-wing operation - not a hint of anime.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
I think putting 'mothers breastfeeding their children' in the same category as cholera, dysentery and smallpox is a bridge too far.
Technical interventions that remove lethal diseases aren't the same as qualitative shifts in the operation.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
The Chinese state comes off as super-sanctimonious, it's all 'you're racist oppressive imperialists obstructing our peaceful multilateral world order with your provocations and cold war mindset'. But internally you see a wide-ranging hatred of many foreign countries, especially Japan (not an unreasonable grudge, all things considered). They made some drunk captain a national hero when he rammed into a Japanese coast guard ship and caused a diplomatic incident. They constantly bitch about Japan releasing mildly irradiated water from Fukushima.
If they ever get the upper hand, I'm very glad to not be Japanese.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
I dunno about the monitor lizard but there sure does seem to be a lot of it: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/almost-5-lakh-animals-became-victims-of-crimes-in-last-10-years-in-india-report-1770190-2021-02-17
Pakistan certainly doesn't cover itself in glory either, on the rape front.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
- Sexual harassment. There are all these newspaper headlines coming out of India about animals being raped to death, women who go there instantly regretting their decision. Or on university campuses at home women complain. We are the ones who invented #metoo and expended great effort getting Afghan girls into university, this does not go down well at all.
- A certain attitude. The Chinese probably do much more scamming than India but they're stealing turbine information, IP, software, schematics. They don't tend to go after grandma's savings saying they're from Microsoft. China comes off as threatening (nearly every day we have war propaganda in TV and newspapers against China). India is not threatening at all. But there's a certain kind of boasting/hypernationalism that you can see sometimes online, a certain level of entitlement to other people's money. Kitboga has done immense damage to India's reputation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6m8Ln1yqeJE
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
From reading the wiki page, I'm having a hard time figuring out why anyone would mouth-froth over the idea of her having any position of power.
She says she was put under surveillance in the airport for some reason, agents follow her on planes:
https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-tsa-terrorist-watchlist-1985527
So there's clearly not much love lost between her and intelligence goons.
Why is the law so woke?
I have the displeasure of working with a legal textbook, it's full of stuff about destigmatizing prostitution and drugs, getting overincarcerated minorities out of prison, criticizing socially invented 'fear of crime', the neoliberal practice of fining people... This isn't a 'random academic writes law about the plight of refugees that nobody will ever read' (though there are plenty of those), it's a textbook that thousands of students are supposed to study. It's written by a bunch of established academics, it reflects a certain level of consensus that is filtering through to the next generation.
Why are Jaguar so woke? Jaguar is/was considered a heritage British brand for classy and wealthy drivers.
https://x.com/Jaguar/status/1858800846646948155
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1859813947396047075
There must've been a consensus decision that this was the way the brand was headed, that this was the fellow who should be in charge of marketing.
I think it's a mistake to say 'this is one local effect' when we see it in so many places. There is a broader systemic cause, people think that this is good and prestigious so they do it regardless of whether it makes sense in context. There might be many commissars in the Red Army but the root cause doesn't have to do with the Army being particularly attractive to Commissars, it's that the Red Army is part of the Soviet Union.
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