TIRM
6hr ago
Clothes were way way more expensive
Indeed and clothes circa a hundred years ago were as expensive as cars today. Working professionals used to spend a significant portion of their yearly income on a meager set of clothing.
TIRM
7hr ago
In many places
In very few places in which a miniscule portion of the US population lives. I have the misfortune of being one of the rare unlucky few to live in such a place. And even then that's by cutting your $2 million starter home figure to a more realistic ~$1 million. Even in San José a starter home is much closer to 1 than to 2 million. Almost every American has much cheaper housing than in San José.
TIRM
7hr ago
I listened to the radio today and CBS military analyst Mike Lyons (former Army Major and Desert Storm combat vetran) had a point about how this war is harming Chinese energy security in a way that is very bad for hypothetical Chinese military incursions. China buys almost all of Iran's oil and needs it very much.
TIRM
8hr ago
The Chinese chose housing as the store of value. But then you end up with a different set of incentives resulting in people putting their savings into multiple housing units that won't necessarily be used for any actual housing. Which I'm not even going to criticize since that's not any more silly than storing value in pieces of shiny metal. If they came to the conclusion that an apartment is worth a certain value, I don't second guess that despite the lack of obvious housing utility.
TIRM
1d ago
Same thing Richard Spencer. These guys (to the degree they are a meaningful type) endorse Democrats.
somehow you have no money (or negative money!) when it's time to contribute to the public good.
But this isn't true. They pay taxes and in great quantities. You can look up what portion of the population pays most federal taxes. It is hyper-progressive.
Rhetoric about them not paying their fair share is common, but I think rather wrong.
I'm jealous of china
China is run by billionaires. The billionaires are directly in charge of their government as high ranking party members. Non-party-member billionaires get humbled sometimes, but keep in mind who is in charge.
TIRM
6d ago
I don't think they can. Pretty much all major tech companies have been cozy with Trump. Giving him millions of dollars, awards, eating dinner with him. Democrats can't go against all tech simultaneously. They can seek vengeance on Musk. But not also Google and Meta and Amazon, etc.
TIRM
7d ago
Is this the liberal commentariat or the federal courts promoting this understanding of the 14th Ammendment? To the degree you can this a particular view, it is the officially correct one as explained by the Supreme Court.
TIRM
7d ago
especially the anchor babies
Would take a Constitutional ammendment or the Supreme Court reversing it's 19th century decision that Wong Kim Ark is a US citizen since he was born in the US and his parents were certainly subject to the jurisdiction of the US government.
TIRM
9d ago
FBI directors are required to fly in a FBI jet and disallowed private air travel. Such was asserted by a radio news program recently.
Watts is terminally depressed or terminally misanthropic
I think so. I had the misfortune of reading the Rifters trilogy. Book one is great. Can't recommend it enough. Book two is a huge drop in quality, but not horrible. Book three has multiple lengthy portions focused on the sexual torture and mutilation of the only moral character in the series. Raped with jagged broken pieces of furniture; breasts cut off and seared with hot irons; hips dislocated for easier access. It was shocking reading the descent of this author from good writer to the lowest. I'm entirely soured on him at this point. He's capable of good writing. He chose this instead. The weirdest part is the rest of his writing doesn't have this. Just one horrible unforgivable book of sexual torture fetish. I tried googling what the hell happened and found his personal website in which he gets super salty with fans. He's a mean misanthrope who also can write well.
At the end of Blindsight it explains that the AI were in charge the whole time. The AI speaks through the vampire right at the end to explain this by burrowing electronics into his brain and using him as a puppet. Maybe mankind was doomed merely by making the AI. Adding in the vampires certainly didn't help.
TIRM
15d ago
Long ago I worked in a grocery store. People would steal alcohol. By which I mean they would simply walk out with a bottle without bothering to pretend to shop or go through checkout. We were told to ignore them.
Now in my local area most alcohol is locked up as is laundry detergent and some medicine.
TIRM
15d ago
Supposedly there's a federal program to convince Americans to eat more cheese in order to help the dairy industry and a different federal program to convince Americans to eat less cheese for health reasons.
TIRM
15d ago
maintained dual kitchen supply chains
Reminds me of observant Jews I know explaining their kitchen situation. Cookware that never has meat in it and cookware that never has dairy in it, etc. Complying with an extrapolation of practices forbidden repeatedly in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Funny a modern university would make the modern equivalent.
TIRM
15d ago
I can walk and chew bubble gum.
Or more plainly: this is not a situation with meaningful opportunity cost. I'm not a profligate wasting precious mental resources on noticing.
TIRM
18d ago
Correct that the team shrinking won't be voluntary, it will be forced from on high by corporate leadership. They can make up a percentage of people who must be let go for each department. And it is so.
TIRM
21d ago
https://www.waltbismarck.com/p/why-im-no-longer-a-white-nationalist
Under "Reason #3"
In 2018 I moved from a racially diverse swing state in the Sun Belt to a homogenous red state up in corn country. This decision was largely motivated by politics—I was looking to retreat to an imagined Hyperborea free of crime and degeneracy where my volk had political autonomy.
The next two years were the most miserable of my life. But they were also among the most instructive, and ultimately were what made me leave WN on an emotional level.
To put it bluntly, most of my white neighbors and coworkers basically resembled hobbits. They had no ambition to them, nor any aspirations of greatness. Nor did they think about the world in a dynamic way—the more educated among them certainly stayed informed about the wider world, but they largely took it for granted that their immediate universe was a static place where nothing would ever happen.
And the horrifying thing is that’s how they liked it.
Normal white Midwesterners don't get his will to power ideology.
Also their women do not like him and he doesn't seem to actually like white women. Really hampering his aspirations to make white children. So he pivots to rationalizing how having kids with Hispanics is okay.
TIRM
25d ago
Kam was born on 20 December 2004 in Yokota Air Base, Japan, to a Japanese mother, Mako, and an American father, Benjamin. She also has two older brothers, Zane and Kai. At the time of Kam's birth, her father had been stationed in Japan due to his work as an Air Force surgeon. Following his assignment's completion, the family moved to Alaska before eventually settling in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Sounds American to me. Born on a military base, grew up in the US, not counting early childhood.
There's an old joke about this. Something along the lines of two economists are talking. One mentions that a local wealthy man married his maid recently. The second laments how that will harm the GDP.
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