The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
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User ID: 174
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
Their drone warfare has the same limitations as other air warfare -- you can't make lasting gains with it. Their best use of that was to close Hormuz, and it wasn't sufficient (and does almost nothing to Israel). It will be even less useful in the future as the Gulf countries build more pipelines to avoid the bottleneck. If they want to achieve aggressive goals (e.g. destroying Israel), they need either a nuke or more than air power. They could take Iraq if the US looked the other way (one might argue they already have Iraq), but I don't see them getting sufficient force across Syria and/or Jordan.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
So the governments come up with weird dystopian schemes of censoring and tracking this stuff while other kinds of probably actually harmful stuff (neurotic and mentally ill women amplifying their neuroses about men and society, viz. the "Angry Young Woman", race-grievance amplification, various untrue "tax the rich stuff" verging into blood libel and calls for assassinations) is left untouched, amplified or even supported. Moral panics are nothing new I suppose.
One fairly-recent thing is how obviously fake a lot of this is. There are a ton of accounts on X which will make inflammatory comments on US culture war stuff or wanting to tax wealth, often implying a personal stake... and said accounts turn out to be located in South Asia or Africa. I presume this is paid shit-stirring. Probably the shit-stirrers will smarten up and use apparently-American accounts, but for now the fakery is on display.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
I expect there's an inexhaustable supply from Israel's perspective. Even if they killed every Shi'ite in Lebanon, Iran has plenty more fighters to send in.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
See Dean's comment. The unfreezing of funds is on the table (as is the downblending or other destruction of the uranium). But it doesn't happen as part of the M.O.U. If Iran and the US are negotiating in good faith we'd expect an agreement to conclude in which the funds were released as the uranium was.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
Yeah. First of all, Iran isn't going to stop supporting Hezbollah, Hezbollah isn't going to stop attacking Israel, and Israel isn't going to stop bombing Lebanon nor withdraw to pre-war borders. This probably won't stop negotiations though. Second, there's a good chance the IRGC refuses to stop shooting at ships in the Strait and the Persian Gulf. Third, even if they do, Iran, thinking they've won, is never going to agree to a plan of action that will actually mean they lose their nuclear material. If the IRGC doesn't spoil the deal early on, I expect negotiations will drag, get extended once or twice, and then a fully lame-duck Trump will have freedom of action. I don't know what he'll do though.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
State capacity. This is the sort of thing that used to be dealt with by vigilante action, or even by revolution. Neither is possible any more; the state is too good at self-preservation. So if the state wants Pakistani rape gangs to go unpunished, by and large they will... and any vigilantes will be vigorously prosecuted if not accidentally killed awaiting trial.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
The important thing for the US is the nuclear material. Terrorism in the middle east -- outside of shooting at ships in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf/Strait of Hormuz/Gulf of Oman -- honestly, isn't a huge US problem. It's more of a problem for Israel. I expect the final agreement will say that Iran won't support terrorist groups in Lebanon and Israel won't attack Lebanon, and that part of the agreement will last about 5 minutes before it is violated.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
So Iran gets $300B, no commitments to remove any mines before 30 days, and no commitments to allow toll-free passage after 60 days.
The deal expires in 60 days anyway, and proposes only a plan for $300B, not an actual $300B. You can tell there were real estate people involved in this deal. Maybe even timeshare salespeople.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
The deal is crafted so they actually don't get any of that until the final agreement; it is also crafted to appear as though they get that beforehand; #11 is particularly deceptive in this manner. What they get immediately is an end to the blockade and permission to sell oil during negotiations.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
I have no objection per se to Bernie and Warren having money; Bernie came by his fairly honestly, and the legitimacy of Warren's kinda depends on how skanky the legal consulting field is. My objection is first to their objectionable views (basically that they should take away other people's money because those other people have 'too much') and secondly to their utter hypocrisy (holding said views while having 'too much' according to their previous statements).
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
He's not exactly secretive about it; going to Yeshiva University (Sy Syms School of Business) is a pretty good hint.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
The party structure of the book was based off of actual Communist party structures, was it not? The woke may simply be getting it passed down from the original sources.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
That's kinda what I expect Jewish interest groups to do -- oppose people who are anti-Jewish.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
Women have more loans and higher balances even accounting for that.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
Tax-free consumption out of unrealised capital gains on primary residences is the same mischief as tax-free consumption out of unrealised capital gains on founders' stock, and causes the same social problems in a more distributed way.
I'm not sure how you distinguish a concentrated zero from a distributed one.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
By non-income class, both Bernie and Warren are senatorial class, which is pretty darned high.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
With that kind of money you can draw $400K a year indefinitely. If you can make that kind of money passively, you're outright rich.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
Average net worth is much less than $2M for any age. Median is even lower. Bernie is doing well, and Warren even better.
Bernie's money mostly comes not from his salary but from selling books to other commies. Warren's comes from book sales and also her and her husband's legal consulting fees.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
It didn't start breaking things. It doesn't even correlate.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
After one of the cofounders, Gabe Einhorn, posted Franco’s reply with his last name blocked out, Franco was quickly identified.
Yes, because Franco responded to the post on X.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
It isn't true. The most recent private secular accredited non-profit university is Minerva University, founded by the former CEO of Snapfish. There's also the University of Austin, co-founded by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, which is not accredited but is a candidate for accreditation; while the people who complain that billionaires don't found universities jeer at that one, jeering doesn't actually make it go away.
And of course there's a lot of schools, programs, buildings, etc at existing universities endowed by tech billionaires.
I suspect it's much more difficult, both because of regulation and because of market saturation, to found a worthwhile new university today than it was when Leland Stanford founded his.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
The ringleaders, though, are doing just fine -- Bernie has several houses and a net worth of about $3M, whereas Warren's net worth is estimated at $12M.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
Not now. But that's what your proposal is.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
Designing a working country is engineering, not philosophy.
No, this thread started by talking about how it was a 'great injustice' that a trillionaire existed. That's already out of the realm of engineering; you don't get to switch now and ignore 'philosophical' objections.
If a blue collar worker pays effective tax rate of x percent, then it is ok to make the upper echelons of society pay at least x.
This, too, is outside the realm of engineering. It might be "engineering" to determine what Musk's effective tax rate IS, but in practice it will be entirely dependent on assumptions made which are outside that realm.
Well, maybe we're destroying their nuclear material; depends on if a final agreement is reached and implemented, which I'd consider rather less likely than a coin flip. But they can rebuild centrifuges at any time. There's no way to permanently stop the Islamic Republic from getting nukes aside from permanently destroying the Islamic Republic. Diluting their nuclear material, destroying their centrifuges, and sending in pestiferous inspectors will delay them, but if they're dead-set on getting a nuke, more kinetic action will be required in the future to stop them.
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