RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
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User ID: 317
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
All across economics there's way too much interest in the demand side, not nearly enough in supply-side economics.
In Australia, there's a proposal to put a price cap on domestically sold natural gas, which we are a major producer and exporter of. Because the Europeans don't want to buy Russian gas (and someone influential is blowing up pipelines in pursuit of this agenda), they've been sucking out the gas from the rest of the world. The Australian gas industry is unhappy with the pipe caps and threatens to withdraw investment. 'Greedy companies making super-profits' on one side and 'Soviet style planned economy, Venezuela' on the other.
But nobody, gas companies excepted, is thinking about how to produce more gas! No matter how we or anyone manipulates the prices or export control orders, we cannot legislate gas out of the ground. We should've been producing more gas from the get-go, approving projects for export and domestic consumption. That directly alleviates the core problem, which is a shortage of supply. We could have a simple, quick regulatory system for gas production. Instead we have a very slow, expensive system where various interest groups get to wage lawfare against development. And so we get less gas. House prices are similar, that's the NIMBY issue in a nutshell. Power prices are another issue, nobody wants to build any new coal plants due to climate targets and so the price of power rises continually. There are costs to producing gas, issues with basins getting contaminated and so on. But there are also costs to having a giant legal mess of regulation constraining development for 6 years on a single project. It doesn't take that long to drill gas wells. There's plenty of gas in the ground.
A good way to reduce inflation is to lower energy prices. Energy prices are included in just about everything else. Yet instead everyone is just focusing on reducing demand by raising mortgage repayments. It wasn't macro-economic reform that produced the industrial revolution, it wasn't central banks making steam engines and industry. It was actual technical development and the efficient allocation of capital that made people richer, something governments don't seem to appreciate. If they want to make the economy better, they need to do micro-economic reform to make it easier to generate wealth.
I think one cause of excessive amounts of capital rushing into financial schemes, apps and crypto is that the real world is chock full of regulations that make it too complicated to build anything. Want to build apartments, factories, railways, gas wells? You need permission, you need to consult stakeholders, you need to get environmental assessments, consult indigenous peoples, protect 'vulnerable' species, pass endless legal checks. If you want to make something in crypto, you can just get going, release your white paper, airdrop your tokens, get the software working. Now the cost of this is that there are a bunch of scams and shitcoins. But there is certainly no shortage of innovation, things happen quickly.
Near zero interest rates could have encouraged broad development across the whole of society. The US at least managed a fracking boom that is paying off nicely now. I think regulations channeled too much of this money into 'tech' and housing. Finance is a culture because much of industry has been crippled.
A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that season 1 was made by Nic Pizzolatto, season 4 was made by Issa López.
I think men and women think differently about stories, media and what matters in them. This is over populations of course, exceptions exist. There are male ways of telling a story - plot-focused, rational, consistent setting, character agency, combat, violence, progression and character advancement. Then there are female ways of telling a story - character-focused, plot doesn't necessarily make sense, emphasis on emotions and romance. Great writers can appeal to both but that's hard. You can tell I don't really understand or appreciate the female side of things.
I think this is most obvious with the weakest, most unrestrained authors. If you go on FFN or spacebattles or webnovel, you find stories about men advancing their position with hard work and clever tactics. They fight and overcome enemies and court women, sometimes getting a harem. In the case of Harry Potter stories, there's a trope of Harry Potter hitting the gym, using some rituals to get stronger, taking control of his money from Dumbledore and getting a harem of hot Slytherins. If you go through and search by likes, that's what you'll see.
Dodging Prison and Stealing Witches - Revenge is Best Served Raw
Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin
Meanwhile on female dominated places like AO3, you find endless romance and homosexuality. Putting the ocean of Harry/Draco to one side, there's a huge emphasis on shipping. Who do people end up with? Are there love triangles? Can there be more love triangles? Angst, rape, therapy? Plot is unimportant in and of itself, character relationships are exciting. There are even tagging features so you can search for exactly what ship you want. Often they take characters out of their world (not mechanically like an isekai) and reimagine them in a different setting - they could be at a normal high school together. Just to make sure there's no combat. Or they make up this 'soulmate' mechanic where people can write words on eachother's skin. It's a whole other world to male fiction.
Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love
you've got the antidote for me
Now if you're like me you might feel a little cringe at the male power fantasy stories. I imagine most here have more exacting standards of taste. But you'll feel revulsion at 370,000 words of:
'Harry Potter is dead. In the aftermath of the war, in order to strengthen the might of the magical world, Voldemort enacts a repopulation effort. Hermione Granger has an Order secret, lost but hidden in her mind, so she is sent as an enslaved surrogate to the High Reeve until her mind can be cracked.'
Or:
"Sirius is in boarding school, Remus is in hospital, and they don't know each other until Sirius texts the wrong number."
Who cares about this stuff? Well, apparently women like it. I blame the influence of women on Star Wars. George Lucas's Star Wars was telling a male story, Kathleen Kennedy was telling a female story (boy does AO3 love Rey/Kylo). It's less obvious at this higher level since it's not out in your face but it is still there. Likewise in True Detective, I imagine.
Why? Just to stick it to Trump?
They want to replace and degrade whites and white men in particular. There's an elite consensus that this is the way to go.
Economically - diversity quotas, govt contracts favouring non-white companies, hostile workplace environment lawsuits and affirmative action. We see various leaked information showing how white men were disfavoured in RAF hiring, how the USAF plans to make its staff more representative of America, how 20% of HR workers admit they've done it, IIRC.
Socially - see https://twitter.com/StupidWhiteAds for a huge list of examples in advertising. I can't think of any modern ads that sneer at blacks, with the exception of that Chinese ad where a young woman put her black suitor in the washing machine until he turned Chinese. There's also historical revision to prioritize the black-slavery/civil rights narrative in US history. I know enough about historiography to know that you can present and choose different facts to produce hugely different narratives, even before you start lying outright. There's also the whole concept of white privilege.
Physically - see mass immigration, both legal and illegal is the most obvious case. I suppose one could also argue that progressive taxation takes from whites and Asians, gives to blacks and browns, artificially lowering the fertility of productive groups and raising that of less productive groups.
Categorically - see the developing practice of capitalizing 'Black' and 'Brown' while decapitalizing 'white'. Delta Airlines sent a memo specifying this just the other day. The old rule was that ethnicities, regions and states like Caucasian, European or French were capitalized while colours weren't. The new rule clearly singles out whites as not being a real group with a shared identity. See also Ignatiev's theoretical work on undermining whiteness as an identity.
Alternately, observe how traditionally white countries like England are being recategorized as 'nations of immigrants', how the BBC works hard to find and fabricate diversity in history. A Doctor Who episode set in the Victorian era showed 1/3 of London being black/brown with the Doctor remarking that 'history was a whitewash'.
It's easily within the US's capabilities to prevent illegal immigration. This isn't the Russian or Chinese army on the other side of the world (which the US plans to defeat). It's unarmed, disorganized, poorly funded people right next to the US, in a hemisphere the US dominates, hoping to enter and work a job without being imprisoned or deported. Illegal immigration is a political choice for any rich, strong power.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1mo ago
why certain individuals/users seem to be so invested
Have you considered that people are just really unhappy that wealth and status are siphoned from productive, law-abiding people and given to non-productive and violent people? Consider the story of the dangerous teen who was going to die of a heart condition, got a transplant refused for being obviously low-value, got national press attention for being black, got the heart transplant and promptly got himself killed in a police chase a couple of years later?
Can't you conceive that people think it's unjust? There's not many spare hearts floating around, he was given a rare chance due to race (and naivete) and squandered it.
Or the Nightmare Vision Rosedale thread where this liberal sees a formerly white suburb being violently ethnically cleansed by blacks but he and the authority figures can only process it through the lens of 'damn, it'd be racial dynamite - we'd better cover it up so the Klan doesn't hear about this!' and 'well pretty soon the problem will be solved because there won't be any more elderly whites living here'.
https://twitter.com/GodCloseMyEyes/status/1414619671056297984
Or the Rotherham grooming scandal where vast-majority Pakistani Muslims were raping vast-majority white girls only for the police to cover it up lest they seem racist. That got swept under the rug, along with all kinds of cases where blacks murder whites - but there's always coverage on the latest updates for the Emmett Till case, or the ongoing worship of George Floyd as some kind of secular saint. The privileging of blacks over experienced air traffic controllers recently, or pervasive diversity quotas throughout the Anglosphere (the RAF for instance). University entrance quotas.
People think these things are unjust and they see HBD as a way to counter the root cause - the narrative of white racism causing innately equal groups to stratify. They see insult as well as injury when the media goes out of its way to present whites as incompetent, bad-tempered and criminal: https://twitter.com/stupidwhiteads
the actual benefit/utility to adopting "HBD Awareness" over some flavor of "colorblind meritocracy" will be less than zero
What happened to colour-blind meritocracy? It got eaten by DEI because blank-slatists conclude that different outcomes are caused by discrimination. Unless you have HBD, there's no chance of getting colour-blind meritocracy. The fallback narrative of 'oh, if we went out and told US blacks they were actually just stupid and violent, they'd have a massive violent tantrum' is silly. They already are massively violent and bitterly resentful of whites. Strengthening and heightening that attitude with anti-white media worsens the problem. What kind of social stability are you buying that's worth wrecked cities, obliterated communities, endless crime, occasional mass riots and (since in this context we're accepting HBD but being too cowardly to admit it) knowing that you'll be paying this price forever?
If we don't get rid of the racism narrative now, what's going to happen when hundreds of millions of 'climate refugees' show up from sub-Saharan Africa complaining that we oppressed them/droughted them and demand free things? Or when superintelligence gets made by the Google/Microsoft blob that pre-program in the racism narrative?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
On the subject of Musk, I reckon he reveals just how much management skills are ignored and denigrated in society. In about half the Musk conversations I've seen, people say 'oh it's his engineers who make the brilliant inventions, he just does media, finance, (did you hear about his father's SOUTH AFRICAN diamond mine?) cult of personality'
If the quality of engineers is all that matters, why don't we just sack all the engineers at NASA, who've done fuck all after the Space Shuttle, which was itself enormously cost-inefficient?
Hiring the right engineers, putting them in the right places and managing their projects in the right way is essential. Few know how to do this right. Bezos's rockets aren't successful - but he's rich enough to get good engineers. If he knew how to pick them and manage their work, it stands to reason that his rocket company (founded in 2000, launching only small rockets that don't even achieve orbit I believe) would be more high-profile. Perhaps there's a separate skill needed for running rockets than running Amazon or he didn't spend enough time on Blue Origin or whatever, I'm confident that Bezos has a similar capability.
Musk interviewed and decided upon the first thousand or so employees at SpaceX himself, he clearly did a pretty good job of it. I recall from the same book that he was poaching people off the F-35 program, people who were basically solely devoted to a single bolt on the fuselage or something of that nature. The established space launch companies were all stifling bureaucracies.
Similarly, Napoleon's soldiers did all the fighting but the general himself was indispensable. Napoleon picked out the Imperial Marshals, planned campaigns, often decided where battles would be fought and made the critical decisions in combat. That's the essence of military genius. Musk has business and project management genius, achieving impressive results fairly quickly. His wisdom and political skills are more dubious - Bezos might have the upper hand in that less obvious domain.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
Doesn't this just establish how Chaotic Evil the US is as a political entity?
George W. Bush (the hanging chad to Trump's virgin 'unlawful means') invaded Iraq with a lie, recklessly oversaw a pointless, insane war in Afghanistan. He has rivers of blood on his hands, a good chunk of it American. How many US soldiers have killed themselves from their pointless service in his pointless, retarded wars? But this is all Presidential and Acceptable so he gets off scot-free. The most anyone thinks of it is when he makes a Freudian slip in the standard anti-Putin diatribe and suffers a little embarrassment:
Instead, while criticising Russia’s political system, he said: “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.
“I mean, of Ukraine,” he said quickly.
He then said “Iraq too” to laughter from the crowd.
Is it a mask-off moment? Is there even a mask?
Trump... moved some documents about that he shouldn't have? Had his supporters come into the Capitol where they were shot at and then left peacefully once they turned on the announcement system telling them to leave? And this is the most awful and terrible thing to ever happen to US democracy? This is the man who needs to go to prison, out of all living US presidents?
What kind of insane world is this? Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize before he even did anything, back in 2009 'for fostering nuclear non-proliferation and reaching out to the Muslim World'. He then preceded to wreck Libya. He should've been getting Nobel Prizes for War or Destruction of Functioning Countries.
This reminds me of Nixon too. Nixon could bomb Laos into oblivion without any approval for war and that was totally fine, apparently. It happened before and after Nixon too, it's basically standard practice. Yet Nixon authorizes somebody to break into a journalist's apartment and that's just beyond the pale? It's a parody of justice, anarcho-tyranny on a grotesque scale.
It's not even Chaotic Evil where one is unabashed and upfront about doing whatever one pleases. It's Chaotic Evil dressed up as Lawful Good, how the US is some noble Paladin defending the Rules-Based International Order (though just what those Rules are is never made clear, for obvious reasons). 'Wink wink, nudge, nudge, the International Criminal Court is based in one of our vassal states and if that's not enough, we'll invade the Hague the moment a US service member is brought there.'
J. K. Rowling challenges new Scottish hate speech legislation, openly challenging them to arrest her for calling trans criminals men who pretend to be women:
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1774747068944265615
In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women's and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex.
#ArrestMe is, dare I say it, brave and powerful. At least she's putting skin in the game. It's also pretty well calculated in my opinion.
They can't really attack her for being a right wing extremist when her world famous books are a pretty clear allegory of Racism Bad. She even makes sure to target India Willoughby, who is apparently anti-black. Rowling has an enormous pot of money for expensive litigation and automatic worldwide attention on her. It's hard to righteously defend people such as
"Fragile flower Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", was rightly sent to a women's prison in Scotland after conviction. This ensured she was protected from violent, predatory men (unlike the 10-year-old girl Katie sexually assaulted in a women's public bathroom.)"
It's very practical politics to fish out the worst of the enemy milieu to preface one's normative statements. I think Rowling has a good shot at tactical victory - either the govt won't charge her or she'll win in court. On the other hand, only systemic change is going to change the progressive-leaning status quo. You need an Orban or some similar force to drag out the weed by the roots, rather than just pruning away when it grows particularly egregious. Rowling is no Orban, that's probably far too extreme for her.
The legislation is here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/contents
Crimes include 'stirring up hate' by 'behaving in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting' to select groups. Looks like it allows nigh-limitless opportunities for selective enforcement. And a huge drain on police resources, given they can't even investigate all crimes:
Just last month the national force said it was no longer able to investigate every "low level" crime, including some cases of theft and criminal damage.
It has, however, pledged to investigate every hate crime complaint it receives.
BBC News understands that these will be assessed by a "dedicated team" within Police Scotland including "a number of hate crime advisers" to assist officers in determining what, if any, action to take.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
Is there anything superfluous that could be left out?” “Everything—see above."
This is what real power looks like, when you're totally unaccountable and see no reason to justify your beliefs. 'It's current_year' is another example. Or 'We hold these truths to be self-evident'.
If you don't provide an explanation for why you believe something is true and just imply questioning you is unacceptable, then you don't have a leg to stand on in terms of logic and reason. Instead, it shows that your basis in ideological, social power is very strong.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Approximately none. Black on white violence isn't uncommon and doesn't generate much in the way of outrage at all.
The above is the complete reverse of the above, except the white kid is 12 here. Race is not mentioned at all, though it shows the picture of the perpetrator.
Or another more blatant case of racial hatred: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nbc-abc-cbs-and-cnn-show-zero-results-for-reports-on-the-5-year-old-white-child-allegedly-executed-by-black-25-year-old-neighbor
Snopes shot back, saying that nbc, CNN and ABC did write articles about the murder, albeit after the above article was written. Even so, note the headlines they give:
"A 25-year-old man has been charged in the shooting death of 5-year-old Cannon Hinnant" (CNN)
"5-year-old shot to death in North Carolina; suspect sought" (The Associated Press)
"Authorities capture suspect in 5-year-old's fatal shooting" (The Associated Press)
"Motive a Mystery in 5-Year-Old's Murder" (NBC New York and NBC Boston).
"Funeral planned for 5-year-old boy shot at point-blank range in N.C."(NBC12 in Richmond, Virginia).
"Wilson man wanted in fatal shooting of 5-year-old apprehended" (WRAL-TV, an NBC-affiliated station, in Raleigh).
"'He meant the world to me': Family, friends honor life of Cannon Hinnant, the 5-year-old boy shot and killed while riding bike in Wilson" (ABC11 in Raleigh).
"5-year-old shot and killed while outside on bike, 25-year-old charged with murder" (ABC7 in Los Angeles).
"Funeral, vigil scheduled for Cannon Hinnant, the 5-year-old boy killed in North Carolina" (ABC6 in Philadelphia).
"Boy, 5, 'shot dead by neighbour' as he played with sisters" (Yahoo! News)
I took a quick look through half the above articles, they do not mention race in the text though they might show images of the victim and the accused. Now compare to the headlines for this incident from OP's links:
CNN: "Accused shooter in Kansas City shooting of Black teen who went to the wrong house is White man in his 80s"
Kansas City Defender: “This Is A Hate Crime”: Kansas City Black Family Demanding Justice After A White Man Shoots Black Boy, Ralph Yarl, In The Head Twice For Ringing Doorbell Of The Wrong Home, White Man Released By Police Hours Later
(it's like one of those light novels that tells the whole story in the title!)
NBC: Lawyers for Black teenager shot after ringing wrong doorbell criticize release of man who opened fire
NYT: Family calls for charges in shooting of black teenager in Kansas City...
Kansas City Star: Ralph Yarl released from hospital and recovering at home in Kansas City, father says
This article doesn't mention race but links to a fair few from the same newspaper that do. Anyway, there's breathless coverage and racial spin for this white-kills-black story in the majority press (Washington Examiner and similar excepted) while the earlier black-kills-white story gets slow-walked and purged of any racial element. This is not what you'd expect from a country where a minority, blacks, kills proportionately vastly more of the majority, whites, than whites kill of blacks. Naively, people would assume that bigger trends get bigger coverage. This is clearly not the case.
Isn’t the fact that race doesn’t exist genetically enough to largely settle the debate regarding race and IQ?
Makes we want to scream. Of course it's genetic! Even if we had zero knowledge of genetics, even if we were in 1000 BC we understood that race was hereditarian, that if you had a big Gaul breed with a small Malayan you'd probably get an in-between sized, half-Gaul, half-Malayan with South-Asian and European facial features.
I was taught in university that of course race doesn't exist and in the next few sentences the teacher was talking about how some populations were more or less vulnerable to sickle-cell anemia or their bone marrow was different. Hmm... What does she think race means, what is the use of the word? Is it really impossible for them to see through these word games, or are they knowingly lying?
Saying that race isn't genetic today, when we can look at haplogroups... it's like denying the colour blue just because you can't justify the exact nanometer blue turns to green. Or we could look at breeds of dog with remarkably different sizes and behaviours, aligning with heredity (and thus genetics)!
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
9mo ago
3 - if a small error could lead to death - hire the most safety oriented, pedantic and boring people there are to design your product.
Really sounds like Oceantech is just a big grift. What if the 50-year-old white guy grimaced visibly upon seeing this death-trap and demanded all kinds of expensive tests and redesign work? 'Not inspiring' might well be code for 'knows what he's doing and wouldn't touch our work with a barge pole'.
Couldn't agree more about the unsuitability of 'move fast and break things' in areas with big downsides. Most software is non-critical, yet stuff like AI or bioweapons/gain-of-function should be treated with extreme care. But it's not just Silicon Valley that is to blame - random research groups like EcoHealth and so on messed up bigtime.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
the goods on supermarket shelves are conjured from thin air by extradimensional aliens for all he can tell.
At the risk of strawmanning or picking out particularly egregious commentators, there is a genuine lack of agricultural awareness. Recall the fellow who remarked on the pretty inexplicable patterns in the countryside from his aircraft: https://twitter.com/KyleKulinski/status/1190737140688326656
A more serious and tragic example is the Sri Lankan government banning fertilizer, leading to an economic disaster: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-decimates-sri-lankan-crops-government-popularity-ebbs-2022-03-03/
Perhaps instead of raising awareness of mental health or climate change, there should be awareness-raising of the importance of fertilizer in agriculture, of the need to produce nitrates and various pesticidal chemicals in factories, of the need for cheap energy supplies to sustain industrial civilization?
Take a look at rule 11 of the art subreddit:
No "AI" art, ever, and absolutely nothing "NFT", or anything similar.
Did we stutter?
No, seriously. Don't post it. Don't even even think about posting it.
AI = Permanent Ban. NFT = Permanent Ban.
Does anyone want a peanut?
Why NFTs are just /r/awfuleverything
Caveat: If you yourself wrote the AI, and you can prove it, contact us and we can discuss.
Note to artists: be prepared to refute accusations your art is AI-generated. Don't make a fuss, just link to indisputable proof. Also, have an established portfolio somewhere online so people are less likely to suspect your "amazing" art is an AI-generated one-off.
Did we stutter? Have a peanut? How much more obnoxious can you get?
In their search to find out, they then directly contradict themselves. 'Oh if you wrote the AI we can discuss it' when they said 'no AI art ever' just a few lines ago! And of course you simply have to provide indisputable proof that you're not guilty of producing AI art. I'm confident even Stalinist show trials didn't demand participants provide 'indisputable proof' that they hadn't betrayed the motherland. What are you supposed to do, film yourself sketching? What happens in 5 years when you can have AI produce a short video of you sketching?
Nayyib Bukele's war on crime: real or fake, good or bad?
Basically, they've arrested at least 60,000 who seem like criminals, without a warrant, and sent them to a newly created prison. There are now troops based in high-risk communities and a whole swathe of the constitution was suspended. Considering the videos, it's hard to see how people with such extensive tattoo-collections could be law-abiding - the usual suspects have been protesting about human rights and the need to see a lawyer.
Gangs in El Salvedor tended to be incredibly violent and powerful, there was a huge problem with them killing 76 people in 2 days back in March 2022, at which point the government declared a state of emergency. El Salvedor used to be the murder capital of the world, reporting an astonishing 103 homicides per 100K residents in 2015, which then fell steadily to about 18.1 in 2022 and further since. El Salvedor is now out of the top 20 most murderous countries. Bukele took office in 2019, so the decline isn't all under his watch. Obviously, homicide rates don't tell the whole story. They don't include the number of people who die in shootouts with police (120 gang members in 2022). Furthermore, they do not include 'disappearances' which is what the US state department says is replacing homicides in El Salvedoran statistics. Finally, homicides do not capture the level of conflict between gangs and govt - we can imagine a govt that arranges to give the gangs what they want in exchange for peace, a govt that lashes out and crushes them or tries to crush them (causing homicides to spike) or a govt that lets them run rampant (with consistently high homicides). The US alleges that Bukele's been making deals with the gangs, as have all the previous govts. They say Bukele's plans are indistinguishable from previous iron fist policing methods that didn't work either and that El Salvedor's being turned into a one-party state under a state of exception. They suggest instead that El Salvedor adopt 'comprehensive gang prevention, intervention and rehabilitation programs in marginalized communities'.
Bukele says that the US is smearing him because he takes a less-than-liberal approach to human rights for violent criminals. He's also been experimenting with introducing a non-USD basis for his currency in Bitcoin, something that would naturally anger Washington. There's definitely a level of conflict here, they've sanctioned some of Bukele's govt leaders.
I'm inclined to favor Bukele, on the basis that iron fist policing methods should work. I've espoused 'send the criminals to prison or shoot them' policies before. This is on the assumption that the definition of 'criminal' centers around violence, organized crime or serious drug trafficking. Copyright infringement should not be met with summary executions for example. (But if they were it would probably reduce copyright infringement more than 'rehabilitation programs in marginalized communities').
If there's enormous amounts of murder, it follows that there are too many dangerous criminals on the streets. Thus more intensive policing is needed. High levels of crime is extremely damaging, you end up with capital flight, limited investment, a frayed social fabric and so on. I think that a safe society is the foundation upon which legal niceties and so on can be built. You can't build a functional society in a country full of gangs. You can only get a kayfabe liberal democracy like Brazil (or more specifically the North East) which has all the appearances of rights and laws and judges but there's immense corruption and a permanently high rate of crime with gangs enjoying considerable freedom to bully everyone else. What are the rights and laws and judges for if not reducing crime and improving quality of life? In my view, they're not ends in and of themselves.
It's better to dictate terms with the gangs than let them run rampant. I believe Bukele was negotiating for that very reason, before the gangs performatively defected from the terms with the bloodbath in March. The harsher policies since then are better yet. Gangs should not be trying to use leverage on the government by saying 'we can raise the crime level at any time and lower your election prospects'. El Salvedor's gangs seem to be in the 'worst of the worst' category and most El Salvedorans seem to be satisfied with the crackdown.
But I can see there are arguments against the crackdown as well, that certainty relies upon statistics we can't know for certain. Thoughts? Applicable in what Trump would call 'shithole countries' but not in the West? Slippery slope to tyranny?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Indeed! In a culture where adherence to rigid time schedules, hard work, protecting property, self-reliance, objective rational linear thinking etc. are not only less valorized but held to be cringe and fascist, would whites have any advantage? I suspect that they'd still have some. But elevate a few equally important dimensions for which White culture couldn't even develop nuanced enough concepts – e.g. sassiness, swag, chutzpah, assabiyah, ghayrah, cha bu duo, jugaad, shikata ga nai, ponyatiya – and you'll see them first fall behind, then run away in shame to their ancestral homelands.
Whites have to make an explicit argument as to why rules prioritizing their culture are better for everyone.
I thought we sorted all this out back in the day. We let the Maxim gun do the talking, determined whose culture was best in a fair and objective fashion. Japan copied our notes and everyone else got wrecked.
At no point has anyone challenged our physical mastery of the environment, it's only these niggling mental/psychic attacks that are doing us in. It's unfair in a sense for the Mule to take over the First Foundation, he never contested them strength to strength. Of course, he got his way since mind control overmatches physical power. No argument is more important than success. But it's not that he had some greater organizational skill, some superior knowledge of technology, he had no powerful energy source... He was never operating on the same metrics of strength and success as they were.
Losing to China would be a noble defeat, in the sense that the PLA storming the last redoubts in Washington and London proves that we failed at our own standards of military efficiency and technical sophistication. But getting culture-broken by Katz and her kin is something else entirely. No argument is more important than success, yet some successes are better than others.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1mo ago
George W Bush was really bad. He invaded a country under false pretences, got the US into two inglorious, expensive, losing wars. He provided the example for the pre-emptive strike/who cares about international law doctrine that Russia is now implementing. Maybe Afghanistan was necessary but he managed it with the same contempt and neglect he showed in Iraq. There was no plan for running the occupied territory, no clear and sustainable objective, nothing! Bush also pointlessly threatened a bunch of countries with invasion - lo and behold Iran did its best to cause problems for America lest it be the next Iraq. After being put on the Axis of Evil North Korea decided to nuclearize.
On domestic policy he wasn't great either. No Child Left Behind was a huge waste of money. He started the unconstitutional mass surveillance program. What is there to like about Bush?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
"Ok, we've proven that these reckless virologists killed tens of millions by negligently releasing an extremely dangerous virus, causing a giant global crisis. Who cares?"
Imagine it was just discovered that burning coal caused millions of deaths via air pollution. This would and should be big news! We would be able to do something about it, stop future deaths by finding alternative energy sources. And if it was known that key 'coal science researchers' had hidden this information for the benefits of their prestige and funding, we could do something about them too.
Even that understates the issue because coal is really useful, it sustains technological civilization. GoF research provides at best modest gains to research. It would be like discovering that ultra-high altitude balloons killed millions of people. Obviously you just ban the balloons.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
6d ago
The US can make a 210 MW reactor, cram it in a submarine (with oodles of advanced stealth/sonar/missile technology) for about $2 billion. They can produce one such submarine every year. Or in the Nimitz class, they install two 550 MW reactors in a floating city/airbase/fortress for a grand total of $5 billion. The reactors surely can't be that much of the overall cost, 20% at most. The missiles and gadgetry are far more complicated, the guidance and computers are the expensive parts.
Small footprint nuclear reactors are proven technology, they've been made for decades. The US chooses not to administrate civilian nuclear energy competently, there's no technical problem. This is 1960s technology, at most. There's nothing all that sophisticated about nuclear energy, even breeder reactors.
Why are so many Americans committed to sneering at and impugning the traditions of their warrior class? We all know that the South provides a disproportionate number of soldiers. Washington DC has the lowest enlistment ratio proportionate to population (this reveals a lot about how the US works), South Carolinas has the highest. Furthermore whites take up a larger proportion of the combat arms, diversity is more prevalent in rear areas and admin. I conclude that Southern whites are integral to the US war machine.
Nearly all of the people here are white-collar, I assume. A few have military experience but not very many. It's not our place to belittle those who march off to fight and die at our direction, at the will of the white-collar class. We can give orders, we can enjoy a privileged position at the top of a hierarchy, we can enjoy the fruits of war without sharing in the costs (should there be any fruits) - the bare minimum we should do is give some respect to those who do the fighting.
In Australia we had this case where some of our special forces were a bit overenthusiastic, they shot a couple of prisoners because there was no room on the helicopter, according to legend they stole one guy's artificial leg for use as a drinking trophy. There was a huge media storm about it, a Royal Commission, a massive defamation trial trial that our special forces guy Roberts-Smith lost. He was uncouth, the whole thing was a bit of a shambles. You could tell that the legal class were disgusted and repulsed by this guy and he despised them back.
OK, so Australian special forces killed a few dozen people they shouldn't have. That's a drop in the ocean compared to the West extending the war 10 years past the point we'd clearly lost, allying with the child molesters and drug exporters against the Taliban. The vast majority of the moral harms were committed by careless policymakers and senior officers who committed troops to achieving the unachievable. A huge part of it must have been embarrassment over losing to a small band of semi-literate goatherders with no advanced weapons, foreign backers or money.
And yet nobody dragged Bush, Obama, Petraeus or Trump over the coals - no Royal Commissions (or whatever American equivalent) for them, not for disastrous wars at least. If our leaders get zero accountability for huge crimes, those who follow their commands and deal with the farcical conditions should enjoy immunity for small crimes, let alone not being sufficiently classy.
Who wants to join special forces, do intense training, go off to fight a meaningless, futile war and be hauled over the coals for any excesses?
Who wants to join the US army if the war memorials and bases for their subculture are going to be defaced and renamed, if they're going to be sneered at for being uncouth hill people? Perhaps this is why the US military is so understrength in a time of global crisis. You don't tend to get classy, sophisticated people joining as infantry (who are still vital) - we should appreciate this and not demand this from them.
Do you want to go and risk getting turned to meat paste by Chinese hypersonics? Do you want to risk getting your guts ripped out by HE, get burned to the point everyone is repulsed by the sight of you? No. I don't either. Those who take that risk are making a special social contract and deserve support from the top of the pyramid, not contempt.
Yeah there's a lot of 'voluntary code of conduct' government-control-laundering going on. They also proposed legislation for social media to come to a voluntary code of conduct on misinformation, without defining misinformation. The social media companies have to decide what to censor. Certain organizations can't be censored, like govt, licensed academic orgs... The whole thing seems like an excuse for govt to say 'oh its nothing to do with us, the companies are censoring' and the companies can say 'oh its the government's laws, out of our hands' and nobody can get to the bottom of the matter without losing 95% of their readers because it's too complicated and boring. I think I might've misremembered some of it already, perhaps some of the companies were already in a code of conduct and this wouldn't affect them. Anyway, a total vacuum of accountability, amongst other problems.
Frankly the notion of online sexual violence is pretty ridiculous. They really mean 'obscenity' but don't want to sound like a fuddy-duddy.
"There could be clearer communication around what happens when you report an unwanted contact or a questionable or threatening contact, and what the app does with that information," Professor Albury said.
"There could also be a clearer sense of how fast you can expect to get feedback or a very personal response from the app if you report an issue.
"One of the things that dating app users are concerned about is the sense that complaints go into the void, or there's a response that feels automated, or not personally responsive in a time when they're feeling quite unsafe or distressed."
But on the other hand, if they put a bunch of onerous penalties and regulations on dating apps, that's not all bad. Maybe it will undo some of the damage to society if it imposes costs on these apps? On the other hand, they might just move towards more aggressive subscriptions, advertising and general pay2win (pay2fuck?) mechanics...
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
The job this individual was assigned to do was oversee the management of spent nuclear energy fuel. I'm totally confident that even the biggest idiot couldn't make that much worse than it already is.
The US was supposed to develop a permanent waste storage site by the 1990s. Yucca mountain was investigated for a waste storage site in 1978. Work continued for decades, into the 2010s because of ridiculous requests that waste be safely stored for millions of years. Local politicians just didn't want it at all, no matter how safe it was. The project has basically been abandoned by now after billions of dollars worth of research and engineering. The US paid and is paying tens of billions more to nuclear power plants who have to store the waste onsite because the govt couldn't be bothered to fulfill its contract supplying a permanent waste dump.
Nuclear waste management is already very dysfunctional. The policy is effectively just to squander money achieving nothing. This is a great post to put mentally ill people. Insane people, insane policy - it works out very nicely.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
14d ago
US and Chinese national strategy
Here’s an article about DEI’s negative impact on the US CHIPS Act for reshoring semiconductors:
For instance, chipmakers have to make sure they hire plenty of female construction workers, even though less than 10 percent of U.S. construction workers are women. They also have to ensure childcare for the female construction workers and engineers who don’t exist yet.They have to remove degree requirements and set “diverse hiring slate policies,” which sounds like code for quotas. They must create plans to do all this with “close and ongoing coordination with on-the-ground stakeholders.”
I note that this is an opinion piece. There are many other issues with the CHIPS Act, this rather dry article lays the blame on aggressive industry lobbying eating the original ‘boost US production’ idea and wearing it like a skinsuit:
A late addition to the bill allowed the secretary of commerce to grant exemptions from the law’s prohibitions on recipient firms investing in manufacturing facilities in China. This may seem like a minor technical detail to those unfamiliar with multinational firms’ strategies to circumvent trade laws, but allowing the Department of Commerce to grant exemptions has become a common industry tactic to vitiate statutory restrictions
Recently the Centre for Strategic Translations recently put out their take on a Chinese book “General Laws of the Rise of Great Powers”, a work designed to communicate to Chinese officials what the grand plan is, what China’s national strategy shall be and why.
Essentially, the book argues that while population size, land, resources and such are important for national strength, the most important thing is technology. Population and land get you into the game, (Iceland will never be a world power) tech lets you win it. With technology you get the military and economic power needed to rule the world.
All facets of statecraft are considered through the lens of how they can develop technology. The chapter goes through how some countries did well and did poorly: the Soviet bloc pursued imbalanced industrialization favouring heavy over light industry. The Great Leap Forward inhibited Chinese industrial development, damaging the agricultural base. Diplomacy affects how you industrialize and develop: Argentina foolishly moved towards the UK rather than the US in 1944 (I’ve never heard anyone else say this before), while West Germany and Japan had good relations with America and were able to quickly reindustrialize with their market access.
The authors regret that just when Song China was at the peak of science and industry, the Mongols showed up and wrecked their chance at early industrialization and world hegemony. Clearly technology used to be less of a key factor back in the day. But China’s time is coming! They conclude that the New China has stable foundations and has made prudent long-term investments in infrastructure and institutions. Unlike the silly Indian democrats, China has no need to pursue popular but foolish policies. Shortly they’ll achieve comprehensive scientific superiority to the US, as the huge Chinese population becomes highly educated. Replace ‘demographic dividend’ with ‘talent dividend’. That’s the plan anyway.
In another poll (scroll down to the graphs), Americans were far and away proudest about their country’s freedom. Wealth, military power, political system… all far behind freedom. What were the Chinese most proud about? Science and technology followed by economic development, then power and so on... See also the stats saying Chinese kids want to be astronauts, Americans want to be youtubers.
You can see a clear national strategy coming from the top down and widely embraced by the population, China wants to lead in all facets of science and technology. They’ve had great success in dominating whole sectors like solar panels, electric cars, 5G and drones. More electric vehicles are made in China than Europe, Japan and America combined.
In addition to science, there’s also ‘national rejuvenation’ which means annexing Taiwan and presumably becoming the world’s strongest superpower. A Chinese acquaintance told me about how the media was going on about the race to acquire ‘Zeus-shield’ (AEGIS-tier) destroyers, it reminded me a little of pre-1914 Dreadnought discourse: We want eight and we won’t wait! Those who are insufficiently nationalistic on the Chinese internet sometimes get cancelled and dogpiled by extremely online, hysterical women. They’re called ‘little pink’ and heaven help you if you besmirch the reputation of the People's Liberation Army - the censors will be knocking on your door. There’s a certain level of nationalist-jingoism in stuff like Wolf Warrior 2 and The Battle at Lake Changjin (China’s two highest grossing films) that might shame even neocons, were such a thing physically possible. I conclude that national rejuvenation is fairly popular too.
The Chinese ending caption:
The great spirit of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid (North) Korea will eternally be renewed! Eternal glory to the great martyrs of the People's Volunteer Army!
I’m not saying that a focused national strategy is automatically great. The Soviets had a national strategy and failed because the strategy was based on wrong premises (that communism worked, for one). China’s system does encourage a certain amount of fraud, they accept that handing out billions to semiconductor development companies will produce a lot of waste and failures. That’s a price they pay for speed. However, it seems a much more effective national strategy than America’s.
If pressed, I’d define US national strategy as DEI, green economics and the Rules-Based International Order.
Firstly, the US’s national strategy is unpopular. A lot of people are unhappy about DEI conflicting with meritocracy, a race spoils programs has winners and losers within the country. Green economics are expensive and the rules-based order has many high-profile detractors – Trump for one. An unpopular strategy is harder to implement and it carries the risk of getting reversed. Strategic limbo is not a good place to be. What Americans actually want is freedom, yet US national strategy is going in the other direction.
Secondly, the US strategy seems much less workable. DEI saps efficiency but the rules-based order needs a powerful war machine to suppress two great powers. At the same time, green economics demands huge amounts of capital for investment. It has never been shown that a major economy can operate purely off renewable energy, green economics has a remarkable similarity to communism in its untested and transformative nature. While China invests heavily in renewables, they are also committed to coal power – China is building enormous amounts of power infrastructure generally as part of their commitment to industrialization and technology.
Charitably, there could be a synergy between DEI and the rules-based order in that privileging blacks will make them more likely to support the US in the global struggle. Even so, said synergy seems much weaker than the ‘technology -> economic/military power’ spiral that China’s committed to. African nations weren’t terribly powerful in the Cold War and they aren’t strong now. Wagner can casually coup three of them while mostly focused on Ukraine – Ukraine might be worth 50 or 100 Malis and Nigers.
Thirdly, the US strategy is unfocused and contradictory. There’s nobody at the top directing all the strands into a single, harmonious grand strategy. Thus the DEI strand can harm the Rules-Based Order and interfere with reshoring semiconductors. Greedy and unconstrained companies can consolidate or offshore their production in the first place, creating and maintaining these vulnerabilities. They can lobby so that the state won’t stop them doing share buybacks with their CHIPS funding. The American Affairs article suggests that recipient firms can even invest in Chinese manufacturing facilities under certain conditions, defeating the whole point of the operation! While the US might want to sabotage Chinese growth, they also want access to China’s huge solar industry.
There are also contradictions in China’s strategy – they admit the need to learn tech from overseas but national rejuvenation makes foreign countries anxious about China’s intentions. Nevertheless, the contradictions in US strategy seem greater to me. In the US you have many groups struggling for control, a multi-sided tug of war: hence the existence of this forum. China is not monolithic but the ruling faction enjoys incredible dominance over big tech, doves and liberals. After a significant state harassment campaign they shut down the Beijing LGBT centre.
Fourthly, US strategy seems more focused on wielding strength rather than accumulating it, spending rather than investing. Rhetorically, the strategy is justified with economic theory but those don’t seem to be the underlying reasons. For instance, globalization under the rules-based-order clearly hurt US power. American deindustrialization and offshoring of key industries was harmful and destabilizing. DEI cannot help but undermine meritocracy and efficiency. Recent research has undermined McKinsey studies on the [economic value of diversity](https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/03/new-study-shows-mckinseys-studies-promoting-dei-profitability-were-garbage/
- – these were always the kind of studies begun with a conclusion prepared mind.
In contrast, Chinese strategy revolves around cultivating strength. Technological power enables military strength, strength grants economic privileges. A victorious China could extract more resources from contested sea areas, Paperclip Taiwanese scientists, open up markets for their export industry.
Lest it seem that I’m slagging on the US excessively, my home country of Australia is just as bad, possibly worse. We dithered on procuring submarines for a decade, costing billions. Now we’re buying hypothetical Virginias that the US probably can’t even produce (the US submarine force is considered understrength already) after snubbing France and Japan. Our military is fundamentally unserious. Our national strategy is to prop up our economy selling iron and coal to China, even as we ally with America against China. Meanwhile we’re also playing the green/DEI game.
In my opinion, the US should follow a more defensive freedom-centric strategy. Dump DEI and green economics and reduce regulations to foster industry. Let people build things, fewer approvals and more construction. Less spying and less censorship. Lower taxes, lower spending. Defend allies without going off on overseas adventures. Instead of an expensive power-projection military, pivot towards a defensive military. More fortifications and missiles, fewer aircraft carriers. Instead of trying to penetrate defended airspace with stealth aircraft, try and defend airspace instead.
Now obviously this won’t happen. It takes a lot of luck, skill and organization to change course for a country like the US. Strategy isn’t coherently decided by a grand planner or a committee as in China, it’s a hodgepodge of vibes, class interests and traumas. Internal or external shocks are important – COVID prompted a global shift towards self-reliance.
Questions: Do you think national strategies are a good idea? Do you agree with my characterization of national strategy for either country?
I am skeptical of any claim that African-American (or female, or gay, or whatever) pilots are categorically different in skill. Especially in the modern day, the Damoreish arguments don't apply: no one falls into commercial aviation
Nobody falls into being a doctor either, yet you'd probably prefer to be treated in a majority-white hospital to a majority-black hospital.
https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-kdday1dec05-story.html
If the administration of airlines, air traffic control, pilot training and so on was ruthlessly meritocratic, then I'd agree with you that there'd be no difference in skill between black or female pilots and white male pilots, since they would all have passed the same tests and be above a certain benchmark. But this isn't so, not informally and now not even formally. If it were meritocratic, then we wouldn't see DEI rules and so on.
And the only reason we'd depart from formal meritocracy is because influential decisionmakers don't want meritocracy. Presumably they've already been informally advising on hiring decisions and making their expectations known. I have a friend who did anti-plagiarism work at a university. There are strict de jure rules against plagiarism, academic integrity is supposedly very important. De facto students=money and so they were told to slow down, don't be too efficient, make sure to let them appeal (and so be it if we can only do one or two such appeals per day, the other 90% of cases will be deferred into the never-never). Hence the anti-plagiarism unit has been churning through staff for some time, nobody seems to want to half-do their jobs.
The RAF and USAF seem eager to lower the number of white male pilots via an informal hiring freeze and 'aspirational' diversity goals, respectively. Informal methods already do a lot of work.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3mo ago
I don't think men really understand how women think, I certainly don't. I can create models to rationalize behaviours 'oh that handbag is a way of showing status and affirming one's position in the pecking order' but I don't weigh status so highly, so I can't appreciate why they'd spend so much money on them. Designer goods still don't make sense to me.
I suppose women wouldn't understand why I buy Steam games and then don't play them. Anyway, I think their mental state is hard to understand and we should be wary of trying to explain them, given fundamental differences. We're stuck with what they say (not usually too helpful, given incentives) and whatever models we make up. But our models may well be very wrong, since we don't understand their thought process and it's our thought processes that we try to insert on them, since we can't access theirs.
Consider the women on reddit who are like 'hey everyone here is really sex-positive and says it's no problem that I have an Onlyfans but when I bring it up on dates the men get the ick instantly, what's going on'. Their models of men are bad, why would they bring that up? Or the women who get that hideous plasticky Bogdanoff look, they're bad at modelling how men rate attractiveness. Or the highly accomplished 30/40-year old lawyer women who go 'I have this prestigious job and lots of money, why aren't equally prestigious men attracted to me'. Modelling the other sex is very difficult, people fail at it all the time and we should try to do it less.
Two days ago this preprint was posted: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.13.512134v1.full.pdf
They made a COVID variant that robustly escapes vaccine-induced immunity, is more infectious (if I'm reading this correctly) than Omicron and has a lethality of 80%. Now the lethality is only in humanized-lung mice not primates and the sample size for this particular part of the test was only 10, so 80% = 8/10. IMO this is a tiny silver lining in a Jovian-sized thundercloud.
Why are they doing this? Does the world really need the information that if you mess with parts of Omicron, COVID and the spike proteins, you get something that makes Ebola look benign? Do we really need super-COVID chimeras being fabricated by American scientists? If this work absolutely has to be done, could we not do it in Antarctica, behind a 6 month quarantine for anything or anyone that leaves? They actually did it in a BSL-3, not even a top level BSL-4 lab.
I think they shouldn't have done this work and certainly shouldn't have published it upon doing it and finding these results.
It really puts a dark spin on Boston's 'National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories' who helped with this operation. And of course, this got NAID funding too, so your American tax dollars are going towards this. There seems to be loop where bio-scientists decide to do really exciting, fulfilling work making chimeras, slicing up viruses and sticking them together, adding furin cleavage sites. Internally they wonder about the possibilities of human manipulation in the origins of COVID. But officially they stick to a party line that it's just a natural evolution. Otherwise all hell breaks lose, there's a massive blow to the credibility of their profession and an end to the gravy train of exciting, fun research and govt grants. And so because there's no official stance that the leak had anything to do with gain-of-function, of humanized cells in mice being used to test these horrors, then the fun continues!
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