Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
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User ID: 1226
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17hr ago
The US has a very peculiar arrangement where you don't buy healthcare. Your insurance provider buys healthcare on your behalf from healthcare providers, (except when they don't). But at least you buy health insurance, so if you get bad service from your insurance provider you can switch Your health insurance, in turn, is bought for you by your employer. Basically everyone in the system has terrible incentives.
- Healthcare providers are incentivized to overtreat because it mitigates risk (less likely to get sued for malpractice), allows them to charge more, and the patient (usually) isn't footing most of the bill, so they're often price insensitive. (Also, the patients are clueless so they have no real ability to argue with the doctors about treatment plans)
- Health Insurers are generally trying to sell the cheapest product possible to employers and pay out as little as possible to providers. They're not terribly worried about customer service quality beyond an absolute bare minimum, because their customers have limited ability to leave. So they stiff patients and deny coverage whenever they can get away with it.
- Employers are generally trying to conform to their legal obligations and need to retain employees as cheaply as possible. Fortunately for them, your employees aren't sick most of the time, so you can actually get away with buying them fairly low quality health insurance.
- The patient wants treatment, but lacks the information and expertise to make an informed decision. Almost as importantly, they want to avoid being left holding the bag. If the doctor recommends it and insurance approves it, they'll probably agree to it, because better safe than sorry. After all, it's (mostly) not their money (until it is).
The result is that the consumer (i.e. patient) is marooned in an incredibly capricious system which is only tenuously interested in his welfare and which may saddle him with a colossal bill as a result of processes completely opaque to him.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1d ago
private businesses tend to be focused on the long-term
Private businesses aren't focused on anything, since they don't have minds. The people who make decisions on their behalf are quite often focused on the short-term. As a chief executive, I may be able to sell shareholders on a long-term plan, but often as not they're looking for a good quarterly report and I'm looking to keep my job and score a bonus.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
2d ago
They're not - the sort of total, top-down mobilization of the economy that characterized the World Wars is fairly unusual. But leaving that aside, these economic arrangements were not intended to be welfare improving for the people living in them.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
2d ago
In fact thé worst gerrymanders in terms of the difference between popular vote percentages and congressional results are in Oregon and Illinois, a complication for the ‘evil republicans’ narrative.
That's not an especially good metric (though people understandably like to focus on it because it's legible); crucially, it is also not correct. MA, for example, saw Republicans get a little over a third of presidential votes* but precisely zero seats. In Iowa, Democrats got 43% of the presidential vote, but zero seats. Astute observers will note that neither of these states are actually gerrymandered, which perhaps illustrates why that metric is suboptimal.
The metric people who study gerrymandering have converged on for measuring partisan bias is performance relative to other maps that could have been drawn. In MA, for example, it would be very difficult to draw a map where the GOP got a third of the seats simply because of how Republican voters are distributed around the state. Iowa could potentially be better, but not by much.
By those standards, Texas is on-par to a little worse than Illinois.
And, of course, none of this addresses the elephant in the room, which is how the parties have, on the whole, tried to resolve the problem of gerrymandering. Democrats have repeatedly sought a nationwide solution, while Republicans have preferred a "gerrymandering for me but not for thee" approach.
*Using presidential votes as a proxy for general support is imperfect but better than statewide tally of legislative races because many House races are unopposed.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
2d ago
If the government is going to give out industrial subsidies, why not get something in return?
In the case of US Steel, the government didn't give out subsidies, it simply demanded a payoff for approving the deal.
More generally, it's not philosophically coherent. If the USG expected to get a stake in exchange for subsidies, the most of the South and Midwest would be government property. The general pattern the US has followed is that it may offer subsidies or very favorable lending terms (which amount to subsidies) for things the government wants to promote, but hasn't insisted on receiving partial ownership. Partly this because Americans (and especially Republicans) have traditionally been averse to state ownership, but also partly because subsidies are not generally conceived of as business investments but the state paying you to do something it wants. The CHIPS Act was not the USG dipping its toes in the market to make a little money, it was promoting the development of domestic chip production.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
3d ago
The US government is seeking stakes in Intel, TSMC, and Samsung, among other firms:
Expanding on a plan to receive an equity stake in Intel in exchange for cash grants, a White House official and a person familiar with the situation said Lutnick is exploring how the U.S. can receive equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funding for companies such as Micron, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Samsung. Much of the funding has not yet been dispersed.
Similarly, a few months ago, the Trump administration approved Nippon Steel's acquisition of US Steel contingent on the USG receiving a golden share that gives it considerable supervisory authority:
The golden share gives the US government veto authority over a raft of corporate decisions, from idling plants to cutting production capacity and moving jobs overseas, as previewed in a weekend social media post by the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick.
It's an interesting turn for the traditionally market-oriented, small government party to start making a play for the commanding heights of the economy. The Federal government has a long history of giving out subsidies as a matter of policy, but it generally hasn't tried to assert an actual stake in recipient businesses (it will sometimes assume control of failing institutions, but this is generally an emergency measure rather than a long term plan).
- Does this represent a leftist turn in the Republican Party's view on the state's role in the economy, leaning more towards a nationalist democratic socialism?
- Are there risks of corruption arising in the Trump administration related to government acquisition of major shares in large companies?
- Does this represent an expansion of executive authority? What do we expect USG to do with its stakes in these companies?
- Does this raise potential conflicts of interest, directly aligning the interests of the Federal government with large firms (rather than their merely influential status today)?
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
3d ago
I’ll be honest with you that most normies just don’t really care about politics and thus don’t really care if their votes actually count
I don't think this is right - people get extremely mad if they feel their vote is being taken away. What I think is true is that very few people have a sense for the details of politics. They want to show up once every 2-4 years and vote for someone they vibe with and otherwise not think too hard about the substance of policy.
Go to any school board or planning committee meeting — these are things that have a real and lasting impact on community life — and nobody shows up
In addition to the point I raised above, these meetings are often contrived to be difficult to attend and your individual participation is not particularly meaningful. Showing up as an organized group does have an impact (which is why these processes are often dominated by small groups of angry retirees), but that's contrary the central tenet of neogrillism, i.e. only absolutely minimum effort participation in the political process.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
3d ago
To be fair, there's not a correct answer to how districts should be drawn. One view is that districts should be competitive, as this encourages moderation and tends to be more proportional. Another is that districts should do their best to represent communities of interest, as that will make it more straightforward for elected officials to represent their constituents coherently. Yet another is simple compactness: districts should be as regular as possible.
There are arguments for and against all of them, but none of them is obviously right and not all are amenable to algorithmic solutions.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
4d ago
I don't know that you can separate them.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
4d ago
What part of "the most gerrymandered states in the union are all blue; there is no more gerrymandering blue can do here" don't you understand?
The part where it's not true. TX in particular is not gerrymander as aggressively as it could be (though it is still gerrymandered). The same is not true of, e.g., WI, NC, or OH.
Conversely, NY, CA, WA, etc... could be significantly more gerrymandered. The biggest limitation here is not "room" for gerrymandering, but legal constraints for doing so.
Texas being gerrymandered isn't exactly new. Trump et al. just want to make it more gerrymandered.
Prior to the mid 2000s there was gerrymandering in both Red and Blue states, but it was piecemeal and wasn't that impactful because it was largely aimed at protecting state-level incumbents (and, in the South, keeping the wrong people out of power), not generating national political advantage (also it was harder without computers). Still not great, but not a hugely pressing issue.
In the mid 2000s the GOP put together a national strategy for gerrymandering their way to success. They largely succeeded, which is also why they've repeatedly refused offers of mutual disarmament. (That and the tribal mindset of the many conservative struggles with the idea of independent redistricting - a process which isn't biased in their favor must necessarily be biased against them).
Two critical problems with gerrymandering reform: 1) virtually nobody prioritizes it highly enough to mobilize voters against it, and even if they did, gerrymandering makes it extraordinarily difficult for electoral reform to win 2) even when the electorate avails themselves of means to override state governments, it is not uncommon for the state government to simply ignore them.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
6d ago
Note also that Trump isn’t demanding a loyalty test. There is no requirement that universities be Trumpist
The Trump administration has explicitly been angling for commissars DEI for conservatives View Point Diversity Ensurers to supervise the ideological composition of faculty.
When I say "account for that in planning", I don't mean you adjust your forecasts downward X% from the report because they always overestimate by the same margin. Consistently high is not the same thing as 'always high' or 'consistently high by the same amount'. It just means that on average the estimator is greater than the true value (or, really, the quick estimate tends to be higher than the slow estimate).
If the estimator is wrong consistently but in a predictable way... they should be able to be wrong less often?
Not necessarily. Estimation is always dealing with real world constraints liked limited resources and time frame for gathering and analyzing data, sampling bias, unknown unknowns, etc...
I encourage you to read the Nate Silver article I linked. He talks about this significantly more articulately than I can.
This seems like focusing on the wrong part of the story.
So why are the initial numbers even reported if we know the algorithm they use will be wildly inaccurate?
Biased estimators can still be useful. If you know an estimator is consistently high, you can account for that in your planning. On the other hand, if political leadership is putting their thumb on the scale to make themselves look good (or salve dear leader's ego), trustworthiness goes out the window. It's one thing to be wrong occasionally, it's another to be bullshit.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
I'm not finding evidence of this, though obviously it's possible I'm missing something. States mandate that the Holocaust be included in the educational curriculum, among myriad other topics, but I'm not finding anything specifying mandatory classes focused specifically on the Holocaust.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
"In high school, you get 155 hours on Hitler, 3 minutes on Stalin, and nothing on Pol Pot. Nothing on Mao. Barely a mention of Fidel Castro."
Come on, man. Just give this claim a basic sanity check. An American high schooler will have an hour of history a day and about 180 school days per year. This claim would indicate they spend most of a school year's worth just on Hitler. This isn't happening. They're not spending that much time on WW2 as a whole, let alone just Hitler.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
The Outgroup, which must be booed at every opportunity.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
In my home area, Northern Virginia, all the jobs that teens used to do - fast food, lawnmowing, child care - are now done by adult Central American immigrants. It's been that way for thirty years or so!
?
I mean, yes, you will absolutely find immigrants doing this kind of work, but you will also find teenagers. I live in MD rather than VA now, but I go back and forth a lot. It varies from establishment to establishment, but it is extremely common to find teenagers working at short-order restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, etc...
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
As far as I can tell, TACO is somewhat responsible, but also, average US tariff rates are just over 50% on Chinese goods?
It seems fairly plausible that TACO/other delays in tariff implementation are substantially responsible. The "Liberation Day" tariffs weren't just a hike on (already high) tariffs on China - they were (supposed to be) a sweeping set of tariffs applying to basically everyone. China is a big trading partner, but it's still only ("only") a little over 10% of US imports. A moderate-to-high increase in the price of Chinese imports is not going to single-handed crash the US economy (especially since I expect re-exportation and other means of evasion to mitigate it to some degree), and given existing stocks and possible mitigation strategies, major impacts might be quite delayed.
On the other hand, if the April 2nd tariffs had gone into effect quickly, we'd likely be looking at a very different state of affairs.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
Losing a white collar professional job at the wrong time can make it very hard to get back your career back on track. Far less of an issue for doctors than most, but most white collar jobs don't have the same level of stability.
Regardless, my point was the opposite: that by and large economic precarity doesn't explain the growth of left-wing populism amongst college grads. In many respects it is a mirror of Trumpism, being driven largely by cultural grievances around the distribution of prestige and a general lack of faith in the political system (albeit without quite the same degree of authoritarian propensities).
Maybe this is one of those things I don’t get and won’t get, like why neurotic strivers think they’re better than me without having the pedigree to back it up
Neurotic strivers don't think about you at all.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
Ideological submission as the price of entry is pretty normal in world historical terms
This is a tremendously underwhelming endorsement. Being exploited by brutal overlords who demand sycophantic bootlicking is pretty normal in world historical terms. Being a subsistence farming peasant is pretty normal in world historical terms. Fifty percent child mortality is pretty normal in world historical terms. I have no idea why we would accept "normal in world historical terms" when we're presently doing far better and we know we can do better still.
American conservatism(like most imperial state ideologies) is a big tent that 95% of people can fit into comfortably
In the sense that you can always be a submissive peasant with no rights worth respecting. In the sense that it actually accommodates everyone, no.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
Does anyone have anything to say about the OBBB being passed
Nothing that wouldn't make me sound like a broken record: an unparalleled triumph of sycophancy, fiscal conservatism is a scam the barons use to con the peasants, dream of Argentinafication, etc...
I find it largely to defy discussion.
It definitely looks like trump is making a military force loyal to him personally because he doesn't trust the loyalty of the existing forces.
The Trump administration is run by people who are genuinely rabid xenophobes who view Hispanic day laborers as an existential threat, but I suspect this is in the back of their mind as well. Well, less of a military force per se and more of a political gendarmerie. You want someone you can count on to shoot protestors and whose fortune is tied to the regime.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
Yes and no. The GFC left a lot of college grads with a mountain of debt, short-circuited career prospects, and a sense that they'd been sold a bill of goods. But this sentiment is not limited to middle class dropouts. It is also widespread among the professionally successful. As has been noted, Mamdani did his best with upper middle class white people. These are not just career NGO types anxious to keep the taps open. They are lawyers, engineers, doctors, etc... They are the sorts of people you would expect to be most "pro-system", but they're not. They're increasingly skeptical of it.
Economic precarity is a factor - most are acutely aware of what falling off the white collar wagon would mean for their lifestyle - but the points of highest contention don't fit this pattern. Rather, you have a collapse of faith in the ability of US political systems to solve important problems in a just manner (if at all).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1mo ago
Maybe it's cruel, morally, but I fail to see the connection with patriotism at all.
To steal a turn of phrase from someone I spoke to several years ago who was probably quoting someone else without attribution, "the truest form of patriotism is a desire to see your countrymen prosper." A political program which constantly castigates your fellows as parasites, regards their welfare with indifference, incites hate against them, or treats them as means to an end is not, in this paradigm, at all patriotic.
As evidenced by the whole patriotism thing: a Republican is quite literally less likely to listen to you, because they will get the impression that you hate the country and hate their values.
I think this is backwards: American conservatives want to define patriotism as equivalent to conservativism. Patriots must be conservative; conservatives cannot be unpatriotic; liberals are unpatriotic by dint of their politics. This is fundamentally unworkable because it is a paradigm that demands ideological submission as price of entry.
"Look what you made me do" - man doing what he was going to do anyway. The thing about unprincipled people is that they think everyone else is just like them and that principles are for suckers. There are enough other unprincipled people that it's extremely easy to sustain this belief even in the face of clear evidence that you're well below average in terms of behavior simply by telling yourself others would do it if they could.
Political revenge narratives make more sense if you consider them as a gloss on crude dominance seeking. You can't just come out and say "I enjoy having power over my enemies" because you'll scare your less dominance-oriented political allies (who may start to wonder when the jackboot is coming down on their face). Framing it as revenge lets you justify it as a balancing of the scales - both punishment for misbehavior and a necessary reminder of why you shouldn't be fucked with. Actual misbehavior or unbalanced scales somewhere between optional and a negative.
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